Jaideep Sahni studied engineering in Bidar, Karnataka, and took up a job in an IT company. Many follow that path, but the Delhi-born Sahni had other ideas. He chucked the “highly-paying” career and became a script writer-lyricist in the big, bad world of Bollywood.
Sahni always wanted to tell stories – stories that rake up important issues even as they entertain people. So, even as he writes scripts like that for Madhuri Dixit’s comeback vehicle Aaja Nachle that has all the looks of a commercial potboiler, he has also come up with one Khosla Ka Ghosla here, and a Chak De! India there, with a Bunty Aur Babli thrown in between. Sahni shared his sensitivities with Deccan Herald’s Utpal Borpujari.
Hindi cinema is becoming more and more multiplex oriented. Do you feel that it is forgetting the viewers in the hinterland?
It bothers me a lot. Multiplexes are helping you to better track your revenues. But the contribution from places where multiplexes are not there is becoming lesser and lesser. It is the same thing that is happening with the economy too. The economic boom is here.
The best products and the best governance is here. But its fruits are not reaching many parts of the country. Bunty aur Babli was our effort to bridge the gap between Mumbai’s upscale Cuffe Parade and Kanpur, because director Shaad Ali and I, in a sense, belong to the same segment of the society.
The small town youth see the same cable channels. The same things go into their heads. So their dreams are going to be the same as their city counterparts. But when they step out of their houses, it is a pile of shit they step on. There was an India which was shining, when we were planning Bunty Aur Babli, and there was an India which was watching it happen on TV and waiting for its turn to shine.
We felt that there was a need for a dialogue between the two. As it turned out, the small town youth did not require that dialogue as they have come out and practically taken over all the industries in big towns.
What was the idea behind Chak De! India?
The world of non-cricket sport to a large extent is the world of the less-privileged sections, whether geographically or religion wise or economically. These are the people who represent us abroad. They are not doing as badly as we are made to believe, because the news never comes to the front page. They are doing very well in some of the sports. It pinches you when nobody knows about it.
A bomb goes of in Mumbai and suddenly a Muslim man, somewhere in India, finds a question in the eyes of his neighbour. It’s not fair. This is not what is written in the Preamble of our Constitution, which is supposed to be our religion.
All these things keep bothering you. But then you are living your own life. Sometimes out of laziness, sometimes out of selfishness, and sometimes being practical you don’t do anything about it. Fortunately, as a storytellers, we get a chance to bring in things, which bother us and have our little bit of say about these things.
So, was Kabir Khan the symbol of your anger at all these things?
Yes, my anger about the unfairness to all minorities. A religious minority is a minority. But a woman walking back from office at night is also a minority. What happens to her on that lonely street is what happens to any minority.
Our system is not able to get a farmer credit at lower rates, so he is a minority in shining India. An Indian in New York is a minority. So, it’s not just about minority appeasement, it is not even a thing about defining minority, narrowly by either religion or economic status. A minority is a person who is made to feel different — whether it is religion, colour, caste, creed, looks, gender, or being handicapped sometimes.
When we started researching the world of sports, we found out that all minorities have the biggest representation there. I am not an activist, I don’t have the activist’s ability to raise a stink about and effect policy planning. I don’t have a politician’s ability to rally thousands of people behind me and bring everything to a stop to show that things are not running as I wanted them to be. I just know to tell stories and write songs.
Do you think the middle class audience are able to connect to the issues you seek to raise through such films?
I don’t have delusions of grandeur. I don’t think we will suddenly be in a new country. But what happens is the cumulative effect of films like Rang de Basanti, the Munnabhai series, Khosla Ka Ghosla, Chak De. Not to do anything is a non-option. Fifty per cent of our population is women, and if you think you are going to become a world power while 50 per cent of our population does not have any means to achieve their potential, it is not practical thinking.
