MOHAN AGASHEActor, 23 July, 1947A doctor by profession and an actor by choice. That’ s Mohan Agashe. In both fields, he has defied norms. As an actor, he has constantly explored uncharted territory. And as a medic, he chose to be a psychiatrist in a government hospital in Pune rather than go in for a lucrative private practice. For the actor, who headed the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) through a tumultuous period (1997-2002), life has been eventful. “It’s all about surprises—that’s what I believe and have thus managed to adapt,’’ he says. Contrary to popular perception, Agashe actually did a film before he became a doctor. “It was a children’s film made by Sai Paranjpye in 1961—Nirupama ani Pari Rani,” he reminisces. Technology was rudimentary back then. India did not manufacture film equipment—it still doesn’t. “Our software is good but for hardware we still depend on outside sources,” states Agashe. Thirteen years later, after he had acquired his medical degree, he returned to cinema with Nishant—this time, to stay. “Till the late 90s, having worked with Ray, Benegal and Nihalani, I was on the fringe of Bollywood. And then Yash Chopra’s Mashaal and Subhash Ghai’s Trimurti happened,” says Agashe. “This was also when television changed things forever. Films were purely a medium of entertainment until then. If you wanted to be educated, you watched newsreels or read newspapers. TV brought about a paradigm shift—it became a medium of communication. Then came computers and digital technology. Today all three—audio, visual and print—have merged into one—the computer,” he adds. So how difficult was it to cope with the changes? “We are the sandwiched generation—born with a set of values and ending with a totally different one. I’m not sure I’ve accepted that yet, personally or professionally,” says Agashe. — Sunanda Mehta RAKHEE GULZARActress, 15 August, 1947Veteran actress Rakhee doesn’t think much of the fact that she shares her birthday with independent India. “I wish it wasn’t a national holiday. The day loses its importance when people treat it like just another day to relax or have a good time.” People would once be glued to the radio to listen to the Prime Minister’s I-day speech, she points out, but today “the PM speaks from a glass bunker and there’s hardly anybody there.” “As a child, I used to attend the flag-hoisting ceremony in my school in Ranaghat without realising its importance. I guess that went for most kids my age till at least 1961,” she says. Her parents were victims of Partition. “Being refugees, they had to relocate frequently. They had neither the time nor the emotion to celebrate I-day,” she recalls. “I took up acting (in 1965) because I had to survive.” The versatile actress, last seen in a Bengali film, Shubho Muharat (2003), is a recluse by choice.Kundan Shah made Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron in 1983. That “experiment”, crafted with the help of several fellow FTII-ians on a shoestring budget, was a critical and commercial success. It captured the nation’s collective disillusionment with a corrupt political establishment. But the film did not change the face of Hindi cinema. So Shah is gearing up tfor another shot at political satire in independent India’s 60th year. The commerce grad from Mumbai’s Sydenham College has made seven more ‘commercial’films since Jaane Bhi. He says, “You have to do what the system permits you to do.” He reveals that Raj Kapoor didn’t like the downbeat ending of his first feature. “That’s because he came from an era where people had faith in their dreams. By the time I became a filmmaker, things had changed.” He thunders, “There has been progress in the last 60 years, but everything has changed drastically post-economic liberalisation. Who are the real beneficiaries? Has independence really helped to the degree it was expected to?”“We frame policies after policies. But with these policies achieving precious little, despondency sets in. What choice does the common man have? The choice in every sphere today is not between good and evil, but between evil and a lesser evil.” Shah asserts that the builder-politician nexus that Jaane Bhi. alluded to is still a reality. He says, “Land prices in Mumbai are irrational even now, but why isn’t the government interfering to stabilise the rates?” Though Shah’s re-entry into the satire genre is funded by a corporate entity, he rues that corporatisation has turned films into products. “Today films are called software and are treated as products. Unlike the NFDC-sponsored films of the 1970s-80s, corporate funding isn’t born of a social commitment. That’s why we don’t see any outstanding cinema coming from Bollywood,” he says.— Piyush Roy DASARI NARAYAN RAOFilm Stalwart, 4 May, 1947He had always spurned the relative safety of mainstream filmmaking, responding to its lures with such convention-breakers as Ashwathamavu and Purushartham. But KR Mohanan, who now chairs the Kerala Chalachitra Academy, has no solutions for the crises looming over Malayalam moviedom. He asks, “Entertainment is one thing, but should movies be made only for entertainment?’’ Mohanan reels out names to assert that Kerala still has filmmakers capable of crafting remarkable cinema within the commercial framework. But most now beg for audiences, distributors look away, and many don’t even get theatres to screen. An alumnus of Pune’s FTII, Mohanan had been watching things change over four decades. “A couple of days ago, I was watching Navalokam, a 1950s Malayalam film, in our archives. It was amazing, the film actually debated women’s liberation—it even had the lead character throwing away her wedding chain.” The 1960s, recalls Mohanan, was when Kerala began getting familiar with world cinema. Malayalam films began connecting to the best of literature. Then, by the 1970s, the New Cinema arrived with its many nuances and abstractions, producing a slew of great films. “But it didn’t last long. The pace was too slow, the themes were often incomprehensible and the audience melted away .” He was born into a lower middle class family in Chavakkad, Thrissur district, central Kerala. His father was a village schoolteacher. Says Mohanan: “Looking back, I find it significant that the son of a poor school teacher was able to afford a professional course in a leading national institute. But that was how things were then, the fees and costs were not structured to become barriers, and accessing such opportunities didn’t have much to do with affordability.” — Rajeev PI NIRAD MOHAPATRAFilmmaker,12 November, 1947He was born in a small town in Orissa on the first Diwali after Independence. “As a boy, I thought I had an affair with cinema. But on hindsight I feel it was plain infatuation with commercial films,’’ says Nirad Mohapatra, a respected figure in the world of film studies and documentary making. In 1967 he opted out of his post-graduation in political science and enrolled himself in the Direction course at FTII Pune. That decision changed his life. “There I was, a small-town boy looking in awe at the classics of world cinema. It took me a while to come to terms with it, but I owe almost everything to my exposure at the institute,” he says. He felt inspired enough to want to contribute his mite as a filmmaker. But back in Orissa, opportunities were limited. “I felt frustrated. After a year of gloom, a call came from my alma-mater. I joined the faculty of Direction in 1972. Those two years were extremely rewarding. Some of the students of the time have been in the forefront of the New Cinema movement,’’ says Mohapatra, who taught the likes of Girish Kasaravalli, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Jahnu Barua. He returned to Orissa in 1974 but his first feature eluded him. Undeterred, he made a few documentaries. In 1981, backed by the Film Development Corporation of Orissa and financed by NFDC, he made his debut film, Maya Miriga. The film won rave reviews. “It took me places and gave me an identity. But soon a dispute with NFDC that dragged in for years threw me completely off balance,’’ admits Mohapatra, who hasn’t made a feature film again. — Sunanda Mehta GIRISH JOGAssistant Producer, TV Wing, FTII, 17 December, 1947Girish Jog, assistant producer in FTII’s television wing, lives life on a 75mm screen, 365 days a year. “Cinema is my passion. I can’t sleep without watching at least one film every night,” he says. Jog was an assistant during the making of Satyadev Dubey’s critically acclaimed Shantata! Court Chalu Ahe. But he wanted to become an actor—something he has no qualms in accepting. “Haan main hero hi banna chahta tha,” he says. He was signed on for a Marathi film only to be replaced by another actor. “My frail physique did not fit the persona of a hero,” he confesses. For almost a decade, life was a bitter struggle. “From 1965 to 1974, I worked without any remuneration. Can anybody devote one’s life to the medium to such an extent?’’ he asks with pride. That is why after completing his graduation diploma in television training from FTII, Jog never thought of going back to Mumbai, his home town. “This institution has given me all I have,” he says. Jog has found his moments of joy and sorrow in the institute. “It gave me the money that I needed to take care of my ailing mother,” he says. His passion for acting was subjugated to family responsibilities. “I compromised a lot on my desires,” he adds. It’s clear however that Jog did get snatches of happiness in the environs of the institute that offered him small opportunities to act and also to meet big people. “I have always taken part in plays staged in the Institute. Though I could not become a big actor, it was equally satisfying to enact small roles,” he says.— Shveta Vashist Gaur
