Filmmaker R Balki on breaking stereotypes in his latest film Ki & Ka, how Amitabh Bachchan is not his muse and why he wears only black. (Source: Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty)
I’m in the business of thinking up new ideas, so the mind is trained to sift out stuff that has been seen before. Filmmaking is labourious, and to me, the only motivation is a fresh thought. I should be able to spend two years on it.
But the germ of a thought is always a matter of luck and accident. I am not a filmmaker who wants to make a film on a real-life incident. I feel people have already lived it and the audience has already read about it. The idea has to be mine. With Shamitabh, it was Mr Bachchan’s voice that stood out. What do you do with the voice if you take a blank spot for his face? You put it on someone else’s face.
Is Mr Bachchan your muse?
He has been everyone’s muse in Hindi cinema. If you speak any dialogue, you first say it out loud in his voice. But no, he isn’t my muse.
How did you react when he agreed to do Cheeni Kum (2007), your first film?
I had written Cheeni Kum with him in mind. I told him I would write the script only if he likes it — and he did. When I narrated it, he responded to it without any expression. I realised I was speaking all his dialogues in his voice to him. It was most embarrassing, so I shut up. He is the master of understatement and expresses great emotions with just an ‘okay’. In many ways, I am also like that — socially uncomfortable and don’t like to speak much. So my perception of him matched how he really is.
But he can also be over-the-top. He was criticised for it in Shamitabh.
That was the character. He was a loud, dramatic man — a pompous ass. In Shamitabh, the key character was his voice. He needed to have drama for Dhanush to be subtle.
Why did you cast Dhanush?
Initially, the role was to be played by Shah Rukh Khan, but it didn’t work out. I had always liked Dhanush, but he was a revelation. He is the last face to have that voice. What he did with the role amazed me. To speak with Mr Bachchan’s voice without copying his expressions or body language is phenomenal. He managed it.
Were you disappointed with the reviews and box-office performance?
I am disappointed with every film of mine, so I don’t bother very much about it. But the most cherished reaction came from an usher at a cinema hall. He said that people enjoyed the first half of the film, but after watching the last 20 minutes, they came out of the theatre, expressionless, because they were robbed of a vocabulary to describe it.
Shamitabh isn’t a comedy, drama or tragedy. It’s not boring or intense, neither is it a tearjerker. It’s a hopeless cause — two people die for nothing. The feedback made me realise that people need to have the vocabulary to slot a film. If they don’t, they will automatically say the film is not nice. My takeaway from Shamitabh is that no one will die in my film ever again. I’ve told Mr Bachchan, my next film with him will be happy and light.
Your casting always grabs eyeballs — be it in Cheeni Kum or English Vinglish (2012), a film you produced for your wife Gauri Shinde. Do you aim to surprise the audience?
I like to see people who have not been paired before, or in a role they haven’t done earlier. But the story dictates the cast.
For Ki & Ka, the idea was to steer away from what’s expected of characters where the roles have been reversed. Most love stories end in a marriage, we thought let’s explore what comes after. Then I thought, if a man does things we generally associate with women, society would call him half a woman. And if a woman is the sole breadwinner, she will be called half a man. So, I wanted to cast actors who would, by no stretch of imagination, be called half a man or woman. Arjun (Kapoor) is masculine, and when he is gentle, it is beautiful. If Kareena (Kapoor) is aggressive, that makes her no less feminine.
The beauty of switching roles isn’t about losing your gender and being a “full male” but neither does it stop you from doing things associated with being a woman.
After the release of the trailer, there’s been criticism that the film seems to reinforce stereotypes.
That’s silly. People haven’t seen the film. And only after establishing a stereotype can one break it. The premise of the film is that most men want to be like their fathers. What if one wants to be like his mother, especially if the mother was happy being a homemaker? The key point is that she deserves as much respect as the breadwinner.
In the fight to break stereotypes, we often forget that people should be allowed to choose what they want to do. A few years ago, I was at a fairness cream debate and saw the women on the panel going in and out as we waited to shoot. I realised they were all touching up their make-up. Look at the hypocrisy of it — they want to look good on camera but also want to take away other women’s right to look the way they want to. Freedom isn’t just evolved peoples’ right but everyone’s right. The film is about the choices these two characters make. I am not here to sort out society’s problems with this film.
So what does filmmaking mean to you?
It’s the joy of telling a story, a hope. I believe a film should not be about how life is but how I want it to be — work it within the zone of reality. ‘I wish we had fun like this, I wish we could love like this, or I wish we would cry like this’. My ad filmmaking is the same. I’ve never made a film for the customer. I don’t believe in research at all. Even after all these years, I don’t understand my wife or parents, how will I understand an unknown customer? I presume that most people are normal like me, so at least 80 per cent will get what I make.
How do you juggle your time between feature films and ads?
I don’t, much, anymore. I used to be hands-on with my day job until a couple of years ago but now I have the perfect team. At my workplace, currently, I am the dispensible one.
Do you intend to give it up then?
I’m not sure I’ll be allowed to, but I’d love to. I like to do things that I want to, and give my 100 per cent to them, which I am not able to. This isn’t to be a full-time feature filmmaker. I’ve been disciplined for too long and the rebellious streak in me wants to be indisciplined inside my head.
Is that what has made you go for an all-black wardrobe in a fashion-obsessed industry?
Black just makes me look thinner. I have 25 black shirts. Sometimes, I’ll tell Gauri I’m going to change. And she retorts: “Yeah? What colour?”
Gauri and you make films based on a simple emotion even if the premise is complex. Is that a language developed over time?
Simplicity is key to me. I don’t want to show off to the world how I can also make a film like Gladiator if I am given that kind of money, and how equal we are to the Western world. I have no interest in that.
So you would never write a dark film?
Shamitabh is the darkest I have got. I am not good with this dark business, I don’t have it in me. I had a normal childhood, I went to the best schools, I was well-fed. I’ve never suffered, so where will I imagine the darkness from?A lot of people do it to show off in the name of new-age filmmaking. They will edit in a certain way, like some European cinema. The fact is, I do that all the time in ads to save time. My craft as a director is subservient to the story I tell.
Then, what’s success to you?
I flip a channel when I spot my work, be it an ad film or feature. I will start cursing my film the third day after its release, regardless of critical and commercial success. But it’s important for me that the first two days after the release, I shouldn’t be spitting on my own film.
