Imtiaz Ali on what love means to him, says Amar Singh Chamkila might start his 2.0 phase: ‘I’m different from my previous films’

It is a life cut short, Imtiaz Ali explains as he settles down to chat about the film, but it is also a life worth documenting and celebrating. And that is being done looking at Chamkila as a love story between him and music– both forte of Imtiaz Ali.

In this interview, Imtiaz Ali talks about the origins of Chamkila, why he feels he is a different filmmaker today, his reliance on music and his complicated relationship with something all his films talk about–love.

Edited excerpt:

Can you describe me how are you on a film set?

Sometimes I lose the sense of how it is or who am I and who are the other people and what’s going on. I just magnetically start zoning into the scene and the characters. And in that chaos that you see from outside, there is great calm. Especially that moment of not being aware of yourself, but just thinking about the story is what I really love about a film set.

How is Imtiaz Ali when he’s not filming?

I’m more comfortable on a film set for sure! It’s I guess, high pressure and it looks very chaotic. But there is an order in it and I feel that it’s a very relieving space for me. It gives me a lot of comfort and I’m maybe lucky because of that. When I’m not shooting, then sometimes I just get this feeling that something is amiss. But luckily, I’m also a writer, so I can create that ease and chaos both inside my own mind at any point of time.

You had once very famously said that when you had joined the industry, you were bluffing your way through on a film set. When you look back, how does the journey feel like?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been directing. Also, given the years that I used to direct on stage in theatre. I still have a feeling that I’ve just begun, honestly. I still have a feeling that I’m just learning and coming to a point where I’d be able to do my job. When I started out, I used to feel that I don’t know anything about direction, and I have to quickly learn to be able to direct. And decades later, I still feel the same. The only thing is that at that point of time, what was insecurity, I believed that this insecurity is going to be cured with time. That one day I’ll not be insecure. But today I have learned to live with the fact that I will not know everything about direction.

Why is music such an integral part of your films? You have done a film on music, Rockstar, and now there is Chamkila. What really draws you to music in your narratives?

I really enjoy shooting music. The experience of having music and shooting together is the final bliss for me. I also feel that music takes you to a third level of existence. A lot of things that cannot be expressed in commonplace dialogue and scenes, emerge in a movie through music and songs. I feel that I’m very lucky that I’m an Indian film director, who can also have songs. Because in songs is poetry and poetry expresses feelings in a more interesting, dramatic and artistic manner than dialogue can. Because if I say poetic things to you in a dialogue, it looks very silly and artificial.  But if it comes in a song, then, you know, we accept it.

What was your entry point into Chamkila?

I feel that this film or Chamkila’s life in a way is a love story between Chamkila and music. Here is a man who was so scared at some point of time about the warnings that he got, that he actually broke down and cried and he was scared that he would be killed. From that point, a few years later, knowing fully well that if he continues to sing in live performances, he might be gunned down, he still chose to sing.

I feel that for a creative person, for an artist like Chamkila, the only thing that he ever wanted to do was to play music live to an audience. He felt that he kind of went into a pigeonhole, that whole feeling of thinking that I’m not going to leave this. This is the one thing I want to do and I’m not going to leave this. Not out of bravery, but out of greed for it. That really connected me with Chamkila. That this guy was not being brave, but he was actually being an escapist by saying that I want to do this, I will do this, I don’t see anything. I don’t see any threat. I’m just going to be on stage and I’m going to sing. And that’s what took his life.

How long was this story brewing in your head?

Actually, we’ve been working on Chamkila for around five years. Five years back, Harpreet came up with the rights of Chamkila and offered me to make it. So, I wasn’t sure, in fact I wasn’t thinking of making it. But then I visited Punjab and then I visited Punjab again and gradually got more and more into Chamkila. Then years later I found myself meeting and talking to the people in Chamkila’s life and getting more of a view or a vision about Chamkila.

There are some unique things about Chamkila that started emerging in my mind which are in the film. Which are, as I said, what I would like to say in my movies, in Chamkhila’s life. I saw that. This attachment to what you do and the journey of an artist, the journey of a singer, the journey of a young man. He died at the age of 27. The exuberance and the tragedy that for me is Punjab.

For me, Punjab is unique because almost all the love stories of India are love stories of Punjab. So many spiritual masters have walked this land. There is so much fervor, so many musicians get churned out of Punjab daily. With so much exuberance, with so much prosperity, there is always also tragedy in Punjab. It gets renewed time after time. And it is not even recent, it’s been happening ever since Alexander decided to come down this way.

So the presence of these, this mixture of things, this bundle of contradictions that Punjab is, makes it extremely dramatic. Chamkila became the case in point for that. It’s through Chamkila that one could kind of understand or showcase even or exemplify the dramatic quality of this land where you’re sitting and I’m sitting and talking.

So you were flirting with the idea of Chamkila between Jab Harry Met Sejal and Love Aaj Kal 2? And what was the writing process like?

I think it was after Harry and before the release of Love Aaj Kal 2, I was thinking about Chamkila. The first screenplay of Chamkila was written by my brother Sajid and then I took it up and started doing my own research. So, this was a very different film for me. It’s a biopic and I had decided to be authentic in it and not lie at all, as much as I could rely on the authentic information. Even if I had to construct this Sherlock Holmes like narrative of ‘this is what would have happened, all the evidence points to this scene so write that scene.’ So, for me, it was different from just like imagining something and writing it for dramatic effect. If there have been iterations or changes in the script, it’s because I’ve met new people and new things have come to light. So for me, this process has been very, very different.
Otherwise, the process is extremely organic and just in the mind and just based out of the experiences that I have had or am having in my personal life.

People feel Chamkila is going to be Imtiaz 2.0. Is that, is that something that you’ve been hearing?

I am not hearing that, but I feel that it might be the case because it’s been a while since I directed my last film. Because of COVID and everything else, it’s been a while and now I find myself a little different from the way I was in my previous films. And I’m really enjoying this process.

Different in what sense?

I can’t put it so simply, but I think I’m enjoying more. I think it’s more organic and interesting and exciting for me. Although I’m making something which is authentic, but I tend to go more with the flow of how things are happening and more personal, I feel.

What does love mean to you and how has it really changed over the years?

It’s a very like… I don’t know what this word means, honestly. And in all my work, I have never used this word because it means different to different people and even to the same person it means different things at different times. And being a director, I can never instruct an actor that, ‘You love her,’ because it manifests in nothing. I can say that, ‘You want to be with her’ and as an actor that guy will understand. ‘Oh, I want to be with her.’ He can act that. Or that ‘You miss her or him or it.’ But I’d never use the term love at all.

If we can map Imtiaz’s love over the years, do you still fear that word?

I don’t fear it. I’m just like… I avoid it!