With back-to-back interviews lined up, it has been a hectic day for Meghna Gulzar. She doesn’t mind it. “It’s good. No time to get nervous about the prospects of the film,” quips the director, who has returned with one more real life story on celluloid this week. Set in 1971, the true story of a Kashmiri girl who spies for her country after getting married to a Pakistani major, Raazi, like Talvar , Meghna’s last film, is raising a lot of questions. This time, about our perception of Kashmiris, nationalism and our tumultuous relationship with our neighbour. But right now, Meghna doesn’t want to be drawn into the layers of the film which is based on Harinder Sikka’s novel Calling Sehmat. “I think the story, in itself, is very powerful. Anybody who is creatively driven would like to tell this story. The book came out ten years back but it came to me in 2016. And the catalyst was that it came to me twice, from two different producers. It got me thinking that I am somehow connected to this story so I may as well submit to it.” Interestingly, at one point of time, the film was offered to her father Gulzar as well but he was done making films by then, informs Meghna.
She didn’t see it as a subject led by a female Muslim protagonist, a rarity in Hindi cinema. “For me, it was like I wanted to make my next film and this seemed to me a very powerful story. All other considerations were secondary.” As the promos suggest, at one level, it portrays a Muslim girl who puts nation before family and at another it opens up the world of counter-intelligence, that has hardly been explored in our films, in a domestic space. As the film is set in 1971, Meghna says, she doesn’t know what people are thinking that the film is communicating that it looks relevant even today. “To me, it is unfortunate that some of the things that were sidelined after 1971 war are still relevant in 2018. Is there a way to end this cycle?” Meghna conveys her concerns.
It is this cycle which makes some believe that there is a layer of implausibility to the story, which is kind of sad and says something about the times we live in. “My point is don’t take it at face value of India-Pakistan story. There is lot more,” asserts Meghna. As for the plausibility of events, Meghna says, it also gives a kind of perspective on our history . “You should realise that what has happened because of which it is hard to believe that the historical trajectory is correct. You ask have those things happened correctly? Because if it was true back then, it should remain true today as well. But a string of events have happened which makes it difficult to believe them. One needs to introspect on those string of events. Don’t introspect on whether it is believable today or not; ask yourself, why it is not believable today. Fix the perspective!” she appeals.
Indian Bollywood film director Meghna Gulzar takes part in a promotional event for her forthcoming Hindi film 'Raazi' in Mumbai on April 18, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / Sujit Jaiswal
Possible takeaways
On the possible takeaways, Meghna says, “We tell stories that we think will resonate with the audience. What they take from it, is upto them. I can’t control my audience mind and I don’t want to. I give them far more respect than that. I am hoping they accept this. I have told the story to the best of my craft. I have not done it to impress the audience or convince them. I don’t believe in manipulating the audience. Otherwise, Talvar would not have been the kind of film it is.”
On giving true events a cinematic form, Meghna says, “Well, you have to dramatise everything because it is about a time when we were not there, but the core story is true. The girl was married off in a Pakistani family and she was working for India. Where you need to land your imagination is how she was trained and what was her modus operandi. This I had to ascertain by speaking to people who are involved in counter-intelligence. But they don’t talk and don’t reveal how they work. They would tell a bit and expect me to figure out the rest. Like I asked whether Morse code was used as a means of communication. They answered in affirmative. Now how they did it, how they made the antenna, was not revealed. They can’t share because it is a security breach for the country, and I respect that. So whatever casual conversations I had with them, I picked important points from them and have tried to put them together logically, keeping in mind what all was available in 1971.”
As for research on characters, Meghna was clear that the anonymity of the central character was very important. “Whatever information I needed, I took it from the book or relied on the conversation with the author. Beyond that there was no need to meet the family because the information that I needed to tell the story was pretty complete.”
Alia Bhatt, says Meghna, was her only choice for Sehmat. It is not just about her expressive eyes, Meghna observes, “It is about her ability as a performer. Also, it is about a 20-year-old girl. There is a certain vulnerability and fragility to her. And Alia met the physicality that was required for the character.”
If Sehmat is central to the story, her husband Iqbal, the Pakistani major, is also crucial for the narrative. “Like Sehmat doesn’t need to be in spandex, leather and black boots to be a spy – she is in salwar kameez with long flowy hair – similarly for Iqbal, just because he is a man from Pakistani army, doesn’t automatically make him a brute. People from Pakistan don’t have extra eyes or ears. They are like us. It is very important to look at them from that point of view.”
This is her second film which deals with a complex real life events. “The responsibility of telling a true life story is very big and because that responsibility is so big, it makes me work harder.” So much so that at the time of Talvar , a section of media held her responsible for influencing the judiciary! “I don’t think my film was there in theatres when the judiciary was deciding the case. There was no hearing happening. It also means that you are not giving the judiciary its due that it can be objective. That a film can swing their point of view,” she contests.
Talvar , Meghna admits, was an emotionally draining experience. “In the process of making the film, I didn’t think of it as a true story. I blocked that off after my research. But after the release, as the mind processed that it was a true story where people lost their lives and there were two sets of theories, two different kinds of suspects and two different kinds of weapons, it became difficult. It took me three-four months to take the film out of my system.” Raazi , she says, is easier because it is further away in time. “ Talvar was far more contemporary. The difficulty here, was logistics. We shot in outdoor locations in Punjab and Kashmir and did a lot of archival research to understand how Rawalpindi looked like in 1970s,” sums up Meghna.
