Black In Colour

The DVD of the 72-min long film was released in the Capital yesterday at Teen Murti Bhawan,and it will be screened in Pune on August 30 at the National Film Archive of India.

Recalling the meeting when the idea was conceived,Palekar says,“Once,tai was chatting with me after a concert and the topic of documentaries on different maestros came up. I asked her why there wasn’t even one on her and she said,‘You are the kind of person who should make it.’ I was taken aback by her response but did not say anything then.”

That was in January 2010. Palekar and Gokhale took more than six weeks to respond, which upset Amonkar. But they had used period for homework,looking at more than 40 films and documentaries on various legends from art and culture. “This gave us an idea as to what we shouldn’t be doing,” says Gokhale.

Another reason was a conceptual problem. Gokhale says,“When you make a documentary,it’s never objective. Though it is meant for documentation,there’s an element of subjectivity and it can be unfair to the person who is featured. So we were puzzled.” Yet,one thing they were sure of was that they were not interested in gossip or anything that would belittle the greatness of the classical singer. They didn’t want to portray how and where Amonkar lives,how she cooks or which car she drives. They also wanted to take away the struggles she faced in life. They wanted to only focus on her art,her contribution to music,her thought process and why she was known as a rebel.

“We were not sure whether tai would agree to this. However,when we met her,she gave us complete freedom of interpretation. “That was a great relief for us considering that in the past,many people including Vijaya Mehta and Nana Patekar have approached her for making a documentary,but it didn’t work out,” elaborates Palekar.

Amonkar is known for being temperamental,but Palekar and Gokhale say that she wasn’t difficult to work with during the one-year shoot. In fact,once Amonkar had mentioned to one of the reporters that though she was their mother’s age,Amol and Sandhya were like her parents.

Interestingly,Gokhale convinced Amonkar to wear saris in colours other than black which is the only colour the singer wears for all her concerts. The only complaint that Palekar and Gokhale had from tai was that she did not provide them with any material for the documentary. Bhinna Shadja was shot in Goa,Mumbai and Pune. The film features music stalwarts such as Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia,Pandit Shivkumar Sharma and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan.

And Amonkar’s reaction after watching the film? “She had tears in her eyes; she just came and hugged us,” smiles Gokhale.