Brew december

Dec 2014 SPECIAL EDITION

ENTERTAINMENT

. w e r B f o t s e b e h t t e e M

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ToniandGuyIndia

ToniandGuyIndia

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Sameer

Bharat Ram

Editor’s Note Hello guys, I would like to convey that Brew Entertainment will be revamped in its entirety from the forthcoming issues so in this issue you get to meet the best of Brew. Four years and counting, we at Brew thought this would be the perfect time to revisit all our stories that stood out. It was a difficult task to pick just a few since we had quite a lot of good ones.

However, we somehow managed to do so. Flip through to read through them.

Like almost everything, the past four years have been a good learning experience and I would like to thank all my friends, my team and all our readers for all your support and love. I hope you continue to shower us with same in the future too.

I’m sure all of you are curious about what the new Brew will feature, worry not, change is always for the better and I can guarantee you that Brew will continue to appeal to its readers with fine taste. But I’m afraid that you might have to wait for just another month to arrive at that news!

Until then, Sameer Bharat Ram EDITOR

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ENTERTAINMEN T

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Publisher & CEO Sameer Bharat Ram Sub Editor 1. Vilani Senthamil Designers 2. Mihir Rangnathan 3. Vijay Singh Nathawat Circulation 4. Seeman Elumaali

COVER CREDITS Photography G Venket Ram, Rahul Dev, Sudarshan & Arul Raj Edited and published by Sameer Bharat Ram and owned by S M Brandmuni Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

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Call : +91 9840939339 E- mail : info@thebrewmagazine.com

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CONTRIBUTORS AND ADVISORY BOARD

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Sethumadhavan . N Sethumadhavan.N holds an MBA from XLRIJamshedpur and has a background in the FMCG & Retail sectors.It was while leading the editorial team at PassionForCinema. com ( a popular movie portal that’s now defunct ) that Sethu realized that his true passion was Cinema and everything connected to it, including the business side of it.Currently based in Mumbai,Sethu works in the education sector and also runs www.madaboutmoviez.com, a portal dedicated to Indie/Small films,Regional Cinema and World Cinema. Sethu has also been associated with filmmaking workshops and film festivals.

Venket Ram Venket Ram is a leading Indian celebrity & fashion photographer, who has shot principal photography stills for several notable films as well as portfolios. He quit his engineering studies to work with cinematographers for a while, then joined a course in Visual Communication at Loyola College. After that, he worked with photographer Sharad Haksar and in 1993, started his own studio. He recently released the first two editions of his annual calendars in 2011 and 2012 with an overwhelming response.

Kavita Baliga The young American Soprano, Kavita Baliga has sung in concerts around the U.S., Switzerland, Italy and India with repertoire ranging from Opera and Oratorio, Musical Theatre to Indian film. In 2008, Ms. Baliga joined A.R Rahman’s KM Music Conservatory as a faculty member and founded the KMMC Chamber Choir. She is presently developing performance programmes in India.

Mallika Sarabhai Educated as an economist and a business manager, Mallika Sarabhai is one of India’s best known Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancers. She has taken her work and her company Darpana to not only over 90 countries around the world, but also to the farthest parts of India.

Ashok Verghese Is one of the youngest education entrepreneurs who is making a great difference in this field in the country. He is the Director of the Hindustan group of Institutions, again one of the pioneering educational groups in the country. He supports the cause of promoting young talent in art and music.

Neeru Nanda A graduate from Delhi University.

Passionate about writing, she freelanced as a feature writer for ten years before switching to publishing. Author of a collection of short stories titled “IF” (Rupa & Co), Neeru is now working on two novels and a series of books for children.

Veejay Sai An award-winning writer, editor and a culture critic. He has written and published extensively on Indian classical music, fashion, theatre, food and art, and loves traveling, researching literary and cultural history. He is an editorial consultant with over 40 brands and designers in and outside India and is on the jury for several prestigious awards in the arts across the country.

Dr. M. Lalitha and M. Nandini Internationally acclaimed, award winning Violin Maestros Dr. M. Lalitha and M. Nandini have been widely applauded as the ‘Queens Of Violin’ and have enthralled audiences across the globe. They have been selected as Cultural Ambassadors and dignitaries to the US and UK respectively.

They have published books and written numerous articles relating to Music and religion..

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COntent

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THE FLASHBACK EDITION

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Rajat Kapoor

13

Ilayaraaja

Mallika Sarabhai 16

21

Siddharth

Balachander 27

24

G Venket Ram

Heath Ledger

29

30 Mathangi Srinivasamurthy Anurag Kashyap

35

39 Karthik Subbaraj

27

Aruna Sairam 41 44 Varun Manian

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" g n i m a e r d p o t s r e " Nev

INTERVIEW

quoted Rajat Kapoor in an interview with Brew. Let’s turn back and see what the brilliant actor had to share with us.

You have taken time off from your very busy schedule to help a bunch of young film makers to put up something together which seemed impossible, is it because you love promoting such Cinema?

Yes, I don’t think I would like to say that I have come here to help anybody, I don’t think that’s how things work, I am here to be a part of a film. Its called ‘X’- The Film. A friend of mine is producing the film. And another interesting idea about it, is that 10 directors are coming together to make a film, which is very exciting. And you know I align myself to certain kind of cinema. I believe in certain kind of cinema and I don’t act very often. Because mostly, things that I get offered don’t turn on me. So its only once in a while and I don’t act for money. If the idea is good and exciting, and the people who are making it are exciting, then I jump in. I also look into decent clothing and something exciting where I can sink my teeth into. So this is one such opportunity for me, so, I don’t like the word that one is doing anything to others. And who am I to help anybody anyway.

You always wanted to be an actor, but somewhere down the line, you started off writing and directing as well?

I started film direction at FTII, 1985-1988 batch. I had done 3 years of apprenticeship and after that I started making films. I made a short film called ‘Taraana’ and then my feature film in 1995 called ‘Private Detective’ which wasn’t released. So nobody got an opportunity to see it. I wrote other scripts and so on. Somehow in the period 1998 - 99, my acting career took off. Somebody called me for an advertisement, then I got ‘Dil Chata Hai’, and then ‘Monsoon Wedding’. I am very happy that I did and I am very grateful that it took care of my money problems. But my real passion is still directing films. That is where my interest lies and I enjoy it. Acting is a very easy job, it gives you money and a lot of attention and who doesn’t like it? Lets say, out of 12 months, I think, 11 months I spend writing, directing, editing and the remaining one month I spend in acting. So that’s the kind of ratio I follow.

Crowd funding is the new buzz word in Cinema but you did it 10 years ago with Raghu Romeo.

It was out of desperation. I had written Raghu Romeo and Mithya, so I was trying to raise money for both of them and I could not. Like I said, at that time, my acting work had started and I could manage to save 15 lakhs. But 15 lakhs was not enough for making the film and I had to manage on my own. NFDC said that they will give me

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50% on what I raise. I then wrote to my friends and sent them e-mails and that e-mail reached people around the world and I actually managed to raise 25 lakhs, out of which 5 lakhs was given to me by Naseer. I promised everyone that if I lose the money, I will return it back to them. It was my personal guarantee. If the film makes profit, then you would have partner influence so it was actually a no-loss decision for them. And of course the film lost a lot of money and I spent the next 5 years paying it back to them. But I don’t regret that because that was kind of a kick start for my career. I actually became a film maker because of that. I think you have to take initiatives at some point, you can’t be scared. I think we have to follow our dreams no matter however hard they are. There are two things. Firstly, we have to dream, which a lot of us don’t. We end up giving up. We think its not possible so we stop dreaming.

I think that’s a huge mistake. You have to dream of what you would like to become. What kind of wings you would like to sprout. And once you have the ability to dream, then you have to go out and make those dreams come true. You have to follow your passion till the end. You can’t stop halfway and I think people in any field, any kind of success such as money or business should follow this as well.

How far do you think you have achieved your dreams?

I am living a fantasy life, it was quite resigned to the fact that I will make 3 to 4 films in my entire life, because I thought who would want to watch my films? I thought I will barely make films and never make any money and I was even okay with that. As long as I could continue theater, make one film in 10 years, I was okay with it.

And then suddenly things changed, the environment changed, multiplexes came in, new kind of audience came in, which made films like ours possible and also made a few film makers like me. Vinay and I had done a play together “Nothing like Lear”and we were traveling all over the world and once when we were in Israel last year,we were walking inside a theater saying “Damn! This is fantasy”, that we are traveling with a play and people are loving it and they will come and watch it all over the world and it’s a dream come true and that’s what has happened.

You have been collaborating a lot with Vinay and Ranveer. Is there any

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particular reason?

Actually not so much. I have done 3 films with Ranveer in main role. With Vinay and its more about others who have made us work together. ‘Bheja Fry’ was not my film. Even ‘Das Vidariya’ was not my film. And the impression that we spend a lot of time together is probably because ‘Bheja fry’ became a hit so people wanted to bring us together, but yes, Vinay is a good friend of mine and I have spent a lot of time in theater and travelling to different places with him. I think its great to spend time with friends and travel together. It’s a great experience.

Are you looking at doing more films, especially now in the age of digital cinema?

I am not interested in digital cinema.

It doesn’t excite me. I am very much a film person. I have 6 films till now and that are on 35 mm. I don’t like digital, that’s just my personal stand. I have just finished a film called ‘Ankhon Dhekhi’. We just finished mixing it. The print should be out in probably, 10 -15 days and then we will release it by January. Now I am going to go back and start my new film. Start writing my new script. I have a few ideas for which I have to sit for at least 3 months doing nothing but writing. So, hopefully once they are ready, I would know when I want to shoot them, look for sources of money and all of that.

These days a lot of Indian actors are being featured in Hollywood films. Are you getting any such opportunities?

My first film was ‘Monsoon Wedding’, it was a Hollywood film and then I did ‘Midnight’s children’. I actually said no to a very big film last year. The ‘Zero Dark 30’. I was offered a role in that film, but I was shooting my film at the time. They really tried to work on my dates but it was my loss not to be a part of that film. I couldn’t finish my own film. But it will happen when it happens. I believe in that.

If there is an interesting script, which is in Tamil, would you do it?

Why not? I would love to do one. I would love to do something which is not usually filmy. I have done a few Tamil advertisements, but nobody has offered me a role in Tamil films as yet.

INTERVIEW

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" d e t c e p x e n u s i e f i l t u o b a g n i h t y r e v E " said Ilayaraja, as he regaled us with his views on life, work and philosophy. The man was completely down to earth so read on to find out why the interview turned out to be an eye opener for us.

“Everything truly began for me when I decided to move to Chennai. My mom questioned me asking “What will you do in Chennai? You don’t know anyone there” when I would give her a simple reply, “Why do you worry, if nothing happens, I’ll play the instrument sitting on the pavements and make my living.” Shocked on hearing me talk like that, she did not allow me to leave at first. But, my mom always believed in me. She even sold an old radio for 400 upees and gave me that money for my expenses.

Imagine, a mom sacrificing so much and not saving even 50 rupees for household purposes.

My mom saw me off and I started off thenblind yet brave.

I began my journey to Chennai in 1968 with Bhaskar, leaving my elder brother behind.

With only 400 rupees in our pocket, we decided to take a detour to Madurai before going to Chennai. We thought we should make some money in Madurai via music and then set our course to Chennai. We knew a very close friend of my elder brother, in Madurai. My brother bought him gifts, every time he visited Madurai. We went in search of him so we could find a place to stay- he had an empty room above his house but he refused to rent that to us. He wasn’t very happy with the fact that I left my elder brother behind- that broke my heart.

But, I realized this world is not an easy place to live, one needs to slog it out and I did.

L. Vaidyanathan, L. Subramaniam and I started off as assistants to G. K. Venkatesh. The recordings would start at 7 in the morning and prolong to 11 in the night. I wrote and worked on my music overnight. I had only 2 hours of sleep every night. This became a habit. I went ahead and persuaded Venkatesh sir’s session musicians to play excerpts from my scores. I worked with Viswanathan sir on the movie, Salangai Oli- he had the best musician group.

His music recording would be scheduled for 7 in the morning but it would start by 8:30 only, he wouldn’t dictate them. When I worked with

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the same set of 75 top musicians, I had one strict rule “You need to be punctual, you cannot be late!” which made a lasting impression C.R. Subburaman is my all time favourite music director. he died at a very young age of 32. No one can replace his songs. he is the best music composer I have ever known.

My other favourites are Naushad, Madan Mohan, M.S. Viswanathan, S.D. Burman, Roshan, G.K. Venkatesh, etc. You just feel so satisfied after listening to their music.

I am very attached to my Harmonium. The Harmonium is not a normal thing- it is not just a wooden box. It’s life, and it’s an art.

Once, I lost my harmonium in a train journey.

A foreigner getting down at Kodaikanal, took my Harmonium box by mistake. I realized it only after reaching my station.

Shocked at that moment, I didn’t know what to do. I had a program in the evening.

I was also scared wondering how my elder brother would react to it. I was forced to find one harmonium instrument locally. Sadly the instrument was not comfortable like my old one. It was very difficult. But, I somehow managed. I later found the Harmonium box at Madurai.

I started my signing career in ‘16 Vayathinile’- when I had no intentions of becoming a singer. I wasn’t trained eitherit took me almost twenty seven years to learn the right symphony system, though I could play it on my instrument after hearing it just twice. Learning the system was very difficult. When I write lyrics for a song, it is almost impossible to change it!

Everything about life is unexpected and different- what my father taught me from his experiences did not happen to me.

That’s simply why I have never told my son how he should live his life, I let him find his own path.”

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e m s e t i c x e e f i L

INTERVIEW

beamed Mallika Sarabhai - one of India’s leading choreographers and dancers, in constant demand as a soloist and with her own dance company, Darpana, creating and performing both classical and contemporary works. She has a PhD in organisational behaviour and has been the co-director of the prestigious arts institution, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts for nearly 30 years. Mallika first made a name for herself in India as a film actress but soon was recognised as an exceptional young dancer in the classical forms of Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi. At 18, she won the first of many awards. She first came to international notice when she played the role of Draupadi in Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata for 5 years, first in French and then English, performing in France, North America, Australia, Japan and Scotland Always an activist for societal education and women’s empowerment, Mallika began using her work for change. In 1989 she created the first of her hard-hitting solo theatrical works, Shakti: The Power of Women. Since then Mallika has created numerous stage productions which have raised awareness, highlighted crucial issues and advocated change, several of which productions have toured internationally as well as throughout India. In the mid 90s Mallika began to develop her own contemporary dance vocabulary and went on to create short and fulllength works which have been presented in North America, Scotland, Singapore, China and Australia, as well as in India. Let’s get some insight into the mind of this incredible woman.

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On hearing the name ‘Mallika Sarabhai’ many things come to one’s mind — the dancer, artiste, performer, choreographer, activist, writer, speaker and many more.

Can you describe Mallika Sarabhai in your words?

I have never felt the need nor had the time to describe myself. If you push me I would say I am a communicator, I use everything I do to communicate ideas which I have, and they’re mostly ideas on trying to make a better world, trying to do it ourselves, trying to bring in a more just and humane society, trying to empower people, and celebrate life.

Being the daughter of the legendary Vikram Sarabhai and the great danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai, there must have been great expectations from you as well as comparisons. How did this affect you?

Differently at different times. First of all I have to say there was no pressure from my parents, at all, ever. Both of us, my brother and I when we were growing up, were made to feel that we came first in our parent’s lives, it doesn’t matter what other accomplishemnts they had, these accomplishments were so they could come back and say ‘see I’ve got this because I love you’. And no matter how busy they were, every moment spent with us was like a celebration. So one realized very early in life that it was never quantity that mattered, quantity didn’t matter because you missed people, but that it was the quality. And never once did I doubt that I came first – that my parents would drop anything if I needed.

And that was a very comforting.Secondly, both of them wanted us to blossom as we wanted to blossom. Their only dictum was “don’t stop the process of education.

It doesn’t matter what field you want to take but do something that will give you the option if at a later date you want to do something else”. So at the age of fifteen, for instance- when I got my first film offer, their only thing was “don’t stop going to college”.

And I said, you know I have no intention to stop going to college. Both Kartikeya and I had a great interest in higher education, so that was never an issue. And never once did Amma say to me “become a dancer” never once did Pappa say to me “become a scientist”. Yes occasionally when Pappa would see me in a talent evening dancing he would say, “If you have to be a dancer

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you’d have to be a marvelous dancer” or when I would get a first in science he would say, “Oh what fun, do science and then we can do things together” – but it was a sorf of – it was like a fun thing, and I think it was the cleverest thing that either of them could have done because if you look at both my brother’s and my careers just now, in many ways, through very circuitous routes, we are doing what both Pappa and Amma did, which is we are using various languages to talk of development issues and trying to improve society. Pappa was a scientist not because science per se was his interest, but he felt that science had to come to the beneift of humanity and of bringing Indians up to the twenty first century and so on.

Amma through her dancing and through her writing has done very much the same, and I think Kartikeya and his environmental work and I in my various fields have done very much the same. Yes, when I first started dancing and first started making a name for myself, people started saying “Oh, Mrinalini must have pulled strings” or if I got a gold medal in science “Oh, Vikram Sarabhai must have pulled strings”. And it used to upset me and irritate me. Also when I went on my first tour, professionally, as a soloist in 1977, I danced in many of the same theatres where my mother had danced, and many of the same reviewers came to see me. and that was daunting, not daunting because they would find me missing, or not good enough, but that I would give Amma a bad name. And one of my favorite reviews, actually, comes out of that tour. It was in Rome at the Teatro Olimpico, and a reviewer who had seen Amma about 10 years earlier wrote in his review that ‘when you see Mrinalini, you think of the god Shiva – austere, aescetic, very inward looking. And when you see Mallika dance, you think of Krishna – playful, bubbly, very communicative’ – and to this day I think that is one of the best analyses of both our styles of dancing and our personalities. But once having proved myself, that I could stand on my own, that I had my own personality, then it was okay.

You got into films at a very young age. And got out of it too, very early. What were the reasons for you opting out of the industry?

‘I got into films, into new age films, before the time of new age. So my first three films got me critics awards and national awards but none of them got released. And they

were very much subjects that I still hold dear. The first one was about a sixteen year old girl having a relationship with her older brother, and being raped by her older brother. The second film I did was about a child growing up in a middle class family seeing her lawyer father screwing every woman around, and this child keeps saying, ‘why do you not leave my father?’, and the mother says, ‘because of the children, because of all of you.’ And this girl grows up saying ‘what I want is a child, not a marriage’ and she has a child out of wedlock – you can imagine, I’m talking about the mid-seventies – and grows up to see her son do exactly what her father did.

But it takes me from the age of 14 to about the age of 55. The third film I did was about a young girl whose father loses her job and lives in the slums in Bombay and realizes the only way she can make her family subsist is by becoming a prostitute. But the day her father gets back her job she says ‘I no longer want to live with this body, it has done what it has’ and she commits suicide under a train – and there were all sorts of very avant garde subjects. But none of these got released, and I was hugely frustrated – after all film is not a medium in which you do without an audience. So I was about to quit and say ‘to hell with this’ when a then very dear friend of mine who was a writer and deeply involved in films said “Mallika you can’t quit without trying at least one commercial film”. So I did a commercial film with then a very much older but very well respected actor called Sunil Datt – and I hated it. It was like being in a cesspool: the conversation, the behaviour, the way women were treated, the way jokes were cracked, just made me feel I was in a dirty toilet. And I decided I didn’t want any more of it, so I quit. Five years later the Gujarati film industry was just beginning to blossom again, and offered me the role of a woman mythological folk character that I had adored since I was a child, and I did that film called ‘Mena Gujari’ – loved it, loved the way the Gujarati film industry worked: the stakes weren’t as high, and it was much nicer- that film, till today, remains the highest grosser in Gujarati. And then I went on for four years to do a lot of Gujarati films. And then the Gujarati films started going the same way. So that’s when I quit.

I would still love to do films, if somebody offered me decent films – films have come such a different way today; there are lovely films being made, there are

independant films being made, I am no longer the only educated person who would be around. It’s a sort of complete change, and I would love to do films now.

Which film of yours is your favourite?

Yeah, you know, I always find questions about which is your favourite very difficult.

Because, I basically live in today, and today I might have one flavor that appeals to me and tomorrow I might have a different one – that doesn’t mean that I’m flimsy or whimsical – but its just that why should I have one favorite? If I am in a particular mood, there is one particular book or film that will appeal to me that day in that mood. And the next day it might be something diametrically opposite. So I pass any questions in this interview which have favorites.

Working on productions like ‘Shakti’ and ‘Sita’s daughters’ and the issues you have taken up, there is a strong perception that you are a feminist. Your views on it?

Of course I am a feminist! I am 100% feminist, I am proud of it. I am also 100% humanist, and I think if you’re a humanist you have to be a feminist. Feminism has absolutely nothing to do about the male sex.

People think that feminism is about stepping on men. We couldn’t care less about men.

Feminism is about letting the female spirit free. To let women be empowered enough to feel boundless. To not see their gender as a limitation. And to see that all people – men, women, transexuals, bisexuals – have an equal opportunity for self-fulfilment.

That’s why I am a feminist and a humanist, and I wear both these tags very proudly.

There was worldwide recognition for your role as Draupadi in Peter Brook’s Mahabharata. And you played the role for five years. How was the experience?

It was, for me, the most life-changing experience. Not necessarily being with Peter, but being by myself for five years and living in Draupadi’s skin, seeing what I as a performer could do to audiences.

When I went in to the Mahabharata, I was a performer, not a creator. I was someone who always thought “I am not creative. I am the perfect model for other creators – I can produce anything that they wish as a dancer, as an actress”. Through those five years working with Peter was like having the skins of an onion peeled away until you find the, what we call the shunya, the vaccum, that is the self. And I came out saying that – one, I don’t need to be an activist and a performer – performance is the most strong language for activism

that I can use. And two, knowing that what I wanted to say was not what anybody else could create or write. That I would have to force myself to become a creator if I wanted to do what I wanted to do. So it made me in to a creator. And I haven’t looked back in that sense. And to me, that is the greatest significance of those five years.

Sometimes when people speak about your performances, especially in a city like Chennai where i come from, they say that your works are very ‘Elitist’. Which contradicts your concept of using art as a tool for change?

First of all – we use the world ‘elitist’ as though it’s a dirty world. ‘Elitist’ only means something that appeals to a smaller audience. Not everything is created for the hoi poloi nor should it be. Otherwise the Vedas, the Upanishads, Shakespeare, everything should be thrown away. Because none of it was meant for the hoi poloi. So my answer to you is: There are things that are elitist, and there are things that are made for a larger mass and I create both.

Bharatanatyam, per se, is an elitist style. It is only meant for people who have a basic understanding of the philosophies that rule Hinduism. It is an eclectic language, it was never meant for the hoi poloi. Kuchipudi on the other hand was created to take the essence of Bharata Natyam for a larger audience. And it is created and packaged for a larger audience. So I do both. That’s one.

The second is that, you know, if people say it is elitist, you must go and ask the people.

Because I can’t answer for what people say.

I do what I have to do. If there is an audience, fine, if there is not an audience, also fine.

Luckily in all these years of performances I have found audiences for every kind of work that I do. For the very eclcectic, for the very slapstick, for the very adrenaline pushing, for the very classical, for the very feminist, for the very cutting edge – there is an audience.

Talking about using art as a powerful tool for change, it was an inspiring speech that you gave at the TED conference and this was your topic. For the benefit of people who haven’t heard the speech, can you explain what it meant please?

As I was saying, it was because of seeing the way that audiences across the world reacted to Draupadi that I realized, partially, that I could use the performances and the languages of the arts for change. I have seen my mother do it. When I was a very young girl, she created the first piece using Bharatanatyam, which normally talks of love and spritiuality, to talk about hatred and the killing of daughter-in-

laws for dowry. So it was a very powerful piece, a piece that I performed and still continue to perform, and still makes my blood curdle. But I saw the power of the art. But I always thought that she could do it and I could interpret it. But it was after Draupadi that I realized that I could in fact do the same. Over the last – in fact, since 1990 – one of the most exciting things that we have been doing at Darpana is that we have made ourselves a laboratory of trying constantly to research into innovative uses of either the arts that exist or arts that we combine, the combination of which doesn’t exist, or to try new forms that don’t exist at all. And, this is really what I see as my own significant work to the history of Indian art or to the history of humanity, or whatever you want to call it not that I am a dancer, but that I have pushed this direction.

What were the reactions to your speech?

Oh, typical! All through the speech, I was talking about using the arts for health education, for talking of violence against women, and I started off by a story adapted from a classical story from the Mahabharata, of a rishi and his wife and the god Indra, re-told by an amazing feminist, lesbian, brahmin – a writer called Sumiti Nam Joshi – where she uses the story to show how ridiculous the partiarchal view of justice is. This was one and a half minutes of an eighteen minute speech. But in true form of right-wing- male India, I had a hundred or more responses saying “how dare Mallika insult us Brahmins!” or “how dare Mallika talk about the Vedas in such a light way!” You know we take ourselves so seriously, we’re just such stuffy people who have no sense of humor, and who are so insecure about our heritage that we take the most absurd things and make them into these big things. This is what the politicians do. They don’t want to talk of brass-tack issues like poverty, so they are talking now – I’ll give you an example. In the Supreme Court, there was a ruling that couples living together should be treated like the same way that married coulpes are, because after all, couples living together are also committed to each other and the judge said ‘After all, Radha and Krishna also lived together’. So what is the discussion today?

Not on the fact that the Supreme Court has taken a very good decision, but “How dare this judge use Radha and Krishna to talk about live-in relationships!” This is exactly the kind of ‘red herring’ reactions that I had for my talk. But luckily there are people across the world who understood it and tried to put it in context. But I’m glad these people are at least looking at the talk even if they think “whoa whoa how dare she?” in their minds.

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Has this philosophy of yours demonstrated tangible results anywhere? And where do you think should be the most important change in our country?

It needs to be part of the planning process, it needs to be part of the key implementation of our many development and poverty alleviation and educational methods. I started this work thirty years ago. The very fact that today I am more in demand, with more diverse audiences, I’m being asked to speak at the most diverse kind of fora – that you are interviewing me just now is proof of the pudding. That what I’m doing is working. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be so much in demand. So what can I say? Practically every study that we do, every project that we do has a separate agency measuring change. And we have plenty of these. Plenty, from 1994 onwards.

We have worked in villages, numering today probably close to a million people. And there are changes that you see today even ten years after a project is finished or fifteen years after a project is finished. And yes there are lots of measureable changes. I think that one of the great tragedies of India today is that it has the arts as a tradition for change. Our folk theatre across the country was a folk theatre that brought attention to what was wrong in society and trying to bring better governance within societies. And yet we don’t see what is under our own nose. So we will only follow what the West has rejected, as our means of communicating with our audiences, when we have this golden goose sitting in front of us, and here I am, like an idiot, waving this flag saying “Hello, somebody please take notice you know we’ve got statistical evidence saying this works”, but we are so short-sighted, our policy makers. We believe that the way Darpana is run is very different from other similar organisations and is very forward looking and structured.

Did your days at IIM A come of use here? How was the transformation process?

I think my growing up, looking at the way Pappa managed things was crucial. Pappa believed in horizontal organizations, not vertical ones. And he believed that once an institution was set up, if it was like the IIM, then the director needed to leave so that the place became something that people occupied, not like a cult place.

That’s not quite as easy in an arts organization. I think people have to be empowered to be responsible. I like colleagues, I don’t like followers. In 1999, when Darpana celebrated its 50th anniversary, we did a major think tank management of change kind of thing, we called in people from the IIM to interview everybody in the whole staff, from the gardener up, to say what are your dreams today, what are your expectations – and I set up a separate think tank – and these are all very ‘IIM’ techniques, so, yes, IIM did help – to describe what was it that I wanted; what were my personal goals, what were my institutional goals? And we found that most things that Amma had dreamt for had been fulfilledthat I wasn’t particularly interested in teaching little girls, who would then not dance, how to dance. So we had a major structural change. And rather than make it like an educational institution which was divided up by faculties – so there used to be music, dance, drama, and puppetry - we changed into departments depending on their interaction with the public. The conservatory, for instance, is the teaching wing and deals with students. Darpana Performing Group is at the center, and deals with audiences of all types. Darpana for Development is a development agency and deals primarily with target audiences that it needs to change, and with people who want that change

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– government departmenst, NGOs , funding bodies, and so on.

Darpana Communications only dealt with audiences second-hand through television or film. Then we had Janavak which is our folk and tribal research wing and teaching wing. We had Natarani which is the ampitheatre, plus the café, the bookshop, and so on. But it was divided up that way departmentally and each department was a virtual profit centre. When I say virtual profit centre we are not for profit. But it meant that each department head was responsible for seeing that each department broke even, that each department generated enough money for what it needed and for what it had to give pro-rata for the running of what we call central services which is administration, accounts, the buildings, maintenance of the buildings, insurance and so on. I think this whole model is very much driven by my work at IIM. Also the funny thing is when I was in the IIM I used to hate doing finance and the one thing I don’t want to do is finance when I get out. Try running an NGO without having to deal with finance! I seem to deal with finance all the time, more than anything else. And as an NGO and an arts institution that does not believe in being at the beck and call of either the governments’ whimsies or the corporate world’s, it means a lot of work and innovative thinking on how to generate money. It’s great fun but sometimes it can be exhausting.

Future plans for Darpana?

I think that Darpana needs to be put, urgently, on a financial even keel. We are trying to raise a corpus of 6 crores. All my attempts in the past have not been sufficiently focused or sufficeintly aggressive. I think I have put myself at task of, over the next two years, of finding that money so that Darpana is on an even keel and is not dependent on my dancing and what I earn as a dancer.

And now I want Darpana to attract more and more people who feel the excitement that I feel in the possibilities of what we are doing. And I think we are beginning to do that. I don’t want people joining Darpana because it’s a job. I want people who have the same passion, whose eyes light up the way mine do, whose hearts race at the possiblity of what we can do. And that’s what I really want Darpana to be.

Where do you find the energy and time to pursue so many things at the same time? Where do you see yourself five years from now?

Life excites me. The possibilities of life excite me. People excite me. The possibility of doing something for people excites me. I love life and I think that’s where my energy comes from. I don’t have the time to see Mallika Sarabhai five years from now! I barely have the time to think about next week, and the month after, and I have no idea. You know the most important things in my life have invariably happened without any notion that they were going to happen. The day before Peter Brook came to me, I had no idea that I would spend five of my most life changing years with him. Or, the day before the election decision was taken, I had no idea that I would participate in the election. And this has happened time and time again. I am a great believer, on the one hand, in destiny, but on the other hand, of being prepared and ready for whatever comes on and whatever life has to offer. There’s a very beautiful and very apt saying in Gujarati that ‘whenever the goddess Lakshmi comes to bless you by putting a red mark on your forehead. Don’t, at that stage say ‘please wait, I need to wash my face’. So keep your face washed, and see who comes!

INTERVIEW

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e d a m I s e k a t s i m e m a s e h t e " I still mak " k c a b s r a e fifteen y said Siddharth who certainly has more to him that meets the eye in an interactive with us. He talked about his idealistic approach to filmmaking, his buds in the industry who take the same stand and more. Let’s see what he had to say.

You’ve been quoted saying “Movie-making is my ultimate goal”. Can we expect you to churn in movies that are commercial, or ones that are contemporary? You seem to have natural flair for the latter, of late.

I would most definitely my company to make films that are special to me, and that have a certain meaning tied to it. They don’t have to necessarily be commercially viable, as I don’t intend to really break the bank with every movie that I produce. That being said, I think I have through my years in the industry learnt that any story can make profits or at least breakeven if it has been shot with the right approach and released at the right time. One other thing is that in the process of filmmaking, we tend to become ‘safer’ by adding a little comedy or a little action, thus deviating from the original storyline. I am going to however, focus on sticking to the original throughout hence keeping a horror movie completely a horror or a thriller movie, a thriller. I am trying to make sure we do what we pick up, and do it well. My first production was Kadhalil Sodhapuvadhu Epadi that made a lot of money post-release.

Though it seemed to be a commercial film, it is essentially a new age film having a certain niche to it- with the whole actual narration to the audience throughout the film. It was my first film and it was an interesting experience where I sort of learnt the ropes.

Three films are in development right now,

all of which are slightly experimental. I’ll be announcing the first one in January.

You have studied in Chennai and also in Delhi. Has this cross-cultural exposure brought that maturity we see in you- both on and off- screen?

The cultural exposure has helped me to a certain extent- linguistically more so in fact, because I have done a few Hindi films, lots of Telugu films and a good number of Tamil films. I personally feel that cultural exposure is not extremely crucial, especially for someone like me who wants to concentrate on regional cinema. I am concentrating more on development of regional cinema than on the national front, because I don’t necessarily believe that it is a step up the ladder. Particularly in the future, I want to be a consistent part of the Tamil Industry. Leaving that aside, it is a major positive for me for having a profound academic background, because meeting a lot of people has helped me as an actor and as a producer, my education has helped me understand the business angle of cinema in a slightly more technical level.

You won the CNBC manager of the year award in 1999, and the best actor award in the film fare awards of 2005. How has the transition been?

I got the best manager award mainly because of my ability to speak on the spot and my personality as such. The best actor award doesn’t really make much sense to me, though I wont deny it felt nice bagging it. I would call myself a decent actor, not a great one for I definitely have a lot of scope for improving my performances. I personally feel that Indian Cinema has so many films across the board, each being brilliant in its own way and each actor doing a fabulous job. Also, my transition has been only in my profession I feel and not in my character as such. I am still the same idealistic and excessively verbose person that I was back then, and still make the same mistakes I made back then. I came across this quote “Cinema doesn’t really change you, it simply accentuates who you are”- it’s the exact truth!

You assisted Mani Ratnam in direction in Kannathil Muthamittal, and then became an actor. Why the change of tracks?

Initially all I wanted to do was write and direct films, and I set out working with Mani Ratnam as an Assistant Director. It was at the same time that Director Shankar was looking to cast someone as a male lead for Boys. When he met me, I guess he saw what he liked and cast me for the role.

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Though I had staged plays before, that was the first time I got to act onscreen. I have been lucky as an actor in spite of the fact that acting wasn’t a conscious choice for me. I reckon that if I hadn’t found success as an actor at any point I would’ve quit acting and gone back to my original focus of becoming a filmmaker.

You have worked with big names like Aamir Khan and Vishal Bhardwaj. What was the experience like?

I have met many different people and have been extremely fortunate to learn from them these past twelve years. I wouldn’t generally categorize them on the basis of them being big names or newcomers because I have learnt an equal lot from both sides. In fact, I have worked with almost 16 first time directors, and that is a pretty huge number! It’s always nice to look back and think that that I have managed to work with prodigies like Vishal Bhardwaj, Aamir khan, and the late Nageshwara Rao Sir. I did take a lot home from these people, but like I said, I also learnt from newcomers whose names might not be as impressive. Karthik subbaraj and Varun Manian are some names that immediately run through my head, they are prodigies too. That’s the good thing about cinema, you know, there is so much that is intangible and you never know. I am very forthcoming, or greedy you could call it, in terms of learning from new people!

You generally turn down remakes. What made you sign up for the remake of Lucia?

I’ve always personally felt that remakes lose that original essence of the story, and the whole idea’s never really worked for me. But, Lucia is an exception where the story is sure to create magic every time it’s remade, and only once in a while does such a unique film come across. I couldn’t be casted in the original because it was a very small budget film. When I saw the crowd-funded film, I immediately tried to buy its rights. But it was already sold to C V Kumar. So I just called him up and told him I would love to act in it, and he too, was open to the idea. We are not competing with the original Lucia, because there is just no messing with a film

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of such high calibre. C V and I have given a slightly different touch to it, though.

Can you tell us more about your experience working with newcomers like Varun Manian and Karthik Subbaraj?

Both of them are more like friends of mine rather than film collaborators. These are the kind of people that I will not only want to do movies with, but also will want them to be a part of my daily life! I’m really glad that Varun Manian came into cinema, and I am positive he is going to make lots of films in the future. He is a very good friend, and I really hope that he has a long and successful stint in the industry. Being really educated as well as grounded, Varun has a lot to offer. He is a very idealistic person when it comes to the creative field, and we have a quite a lot of things in common. Karthik Subbaraj is one more friend of mine that I am extremely fond of. A fledgling legend, he has a cult following because of his fresh approach in filmmaking, and twenty years down the lane, he is sure to be one of the most revered filmmakers of all times.

I will most definitely be very proud to have been a part of his first few films. Meeting such people are some of the best things that this industry has to offer.

" t s r i f e b s y a w l a d l "I shou

INTERVIEW

was what the pioneer in the world of Indian Cinema, the film maker known for his unique story telling techniques and his penchant for perfection uttered. K Balachander has made close to 100 films of which many have become landmarks in Cinema.

He launched many talents including Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth. He has won innumerable awards for his achievements including the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award. His contribution to Cinema is endless and Brew is honored to have featured the legend K Balachander. Read on as he traces his journey from childhood.

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“My inspiration and my childhood - I got inspired reading autobiographies of a lot of people, that’s where the fascination for cinema and theatre began. I started off by writing little skits with friends in my village to be performed on our ‘thinnai’s. Simple, short, you can imagine what a 10 year old would write. We didn’t have TV back then, so growing up in a village our closest theater was 5 km away and our parents wouldn’t allow us to go that far by bus and come back late, the amount of money my family had didn’t allow for it as well. I would watch, if I’m lucky, one movie every 6 months either by taking a bus to Thiruvarur or Mayavaram. Cinema was quite an excitement for us. We’d be talking about it for months together in school; reciting dialogues and imitating actors. We would speak of the movies as if they were our own. We used to have fancy dress competitions in school, during our annual days. I had given deep thought on my costume; there was a photograph I came across of a ‘hunchback of notre dame’ and I decided I wanted to be a ‘hunchback’ character, to stand out from the usual costumes worn at such competitions. My decision to be different was enjoyed by most people around me.

My father was extremely strict, he frowned upon drama and cinema, the only art form he enjoyed was carnatic music; he would drag me away from shows if I ever went to watch them. During Shivaratri we were supposed to stay awake all night, while trying to figure out how to keep ourselves up we decided we would put up skits at a friend’s house. We didn’t have electricity back then in our village, so we used to use the petromax light, which was itself a luxury back then. Someone saw me and complained to my father for doing ‘koothu’ which is what theatre or drama was called as and I got into a lot of trouble that night. I used to love playing badminton, but to leave my house I’d have to walk past my father.

To make sure I don’t get caught by him I would throw the badminton racket out of the window, walk across him, then go around,take the racket and play. My father always wished that I should study and get a good job, a good name. Back then nobody had thoughts of being an entrepreneur; it was all about studying well and getting a government job with a good pension. To fulfill my father’s wishes I studied well through school, when it came down to college, though, I chose to study at the Annamalai University and I had to stay at the hostel which cost six rupees a month!My father was the village administrative officer and he earned a monthly salary of eighteen rupees and with that he had to raise six children ( I have four sisters and a brother), so I realised that and acted according to that. In college, we would have hostel day, convocation day and founders day; all three of which we would celebrate in style, which I used as an opportunity to write skits and plays- most of which was inspired by cinema. Those four years of college life was a great revelation forme; I learnt the world and politics during my college time. In my university they used to have meetings where leaders would speak which we would go watch and listen to, I’ve listened to a lot of amazing men, and leaders speak during my college days. We used to have mock parliaments in college, which I would always attend. College was my springboard for writing. We had a farewell day and a question we were asked was what we wanted to be in life and when it was my turn to answer I said I wanted to be a director, everybody laughed at me, I nearly cried then. It was purely god’s grace that I made it.

Madras! After I passed out of college I was looking through newspapers to find a job. My dad then found me a job in a district

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school, I was 18 and I blindly agreed. I went and stood in front of the headmaster, he was amused, he told me my credentials were good but that I would have students who were older than me, I got worried. I taught 4th, 5th and 6th grade science. I was worried that the kids might make a fool of me. When I began taking class, the headmaster stood in one corner and watched me and told me that I was very good. I still hadn’t lost interest in theater, so for the school day I asked the headmaster if I could do a play with the students; he gladly agreed. He watched it, it was a first for him and everybody there appreciated it greatly. I used to participate in mock parliaments every time I got the chance. I then made an effort to do a mock parliament for the students in the school, which the headmaster loved. At the end of that year, I got a government job with the Accountant General’s office and had to leave; the headmaster sat me down that day and told me it was an amazing opportunity for me but that the school would miss me greatly. The students, they were so dear to me, they gave me a great send off, a farewell, just for me and wished me all the luck in my life. It was an amazing experience to find that many children, all so dear to me and fond of me.

I wrote all my plays in Tamil with Major Chandrakanth being an exception, I wrote that one in English because it was for a special event where a Bengali teacher had just joined us and for the welcoming event, I had to do that in English. I played the Major’s role in it also which later Major Sundarrajan took on. When we staged the play, it actually gained me a lot of recognition and people actually liked my way of telling things. So I was thinking about making that a full length drama also, like for one hour thirty minutes. I extended it and made a 2 hour drama. I had decided then that if I had to be a director then I should stop acting. Doing stage plays itself meant directing, actually. From there itself you learn everything, it’s almost the same. And also when the question of doing a cinema came, then it was obvious that I had to take up direction. And for ‘NeerKumizhi’, the producer told me that he has seen my plays and he really liked them and that he wants me to direct the movie. I rejected initially and told him I didn’t want to direct movies and that I was into a different medium. The people around me that time insisted me to take up the offer and not reject such a wonderful opportunity. So after two days or so, I called him and agreed to do the movie. I did a stage version of ‘NeerKumizhi’ around the same time.

My family’s reaction.. There was obviously pressure from my family since they didn’t want me to quit a government job and start directing movies. But my father wasn’t around to reject it completely.

I got married, came to Chennai and was on leave for 4 years continuously. According to the fundamental rules, a government servant could only be absent for 5 years maximum, producing medical certificates. But I was earning money and publicity through my movies. So somebody saw the posters or something, noticed and complained. So I had to go meet the Accountant General at our head office, a gentleman named Hussain Aga. I told him that I got to know about the complaint upon myself , that I’m submitting my resignation letter and that I don’t wish to cause any embarrassment for the Government. He immediately told me that he would simply ignore my resignation letter even if I submitted one, and that they should all actually be proud that somebody from their office is into cinema and is famous. But I went ahead with my resignation as I was going to put him under pressure anyway by making him lie for

my absence. I had completed two films by then and everything fell in place.

My philosophy and my people. I tend to work with a specific set of people. For me, my people are very co-operative. They know how I work and how disciplined I am, so it’s easier to work with people like that. I introduced a lot of work discipline, and I used to be really happy with them, and vice-versa. I was working with a moderate set of people who were known to me. Slowly I diverted to others. I wanted to launch Rajini for this role, while I was writing ‘Apoorva Ragangal’. I wanted to introduce as many new people as possible. Sri Vidya was introduced by me in one of my previous films ‘Nootruku Nooru’. Kamal was introduced to me through Gemini Ganeshan and I gave him a small role in ‘Arangetram’.

technology should never precede me. I also don’t understand the business of Cinema now. The budget for marketing is enormous these days – with the marketing budget of one film I can make three films. And yes I have grown old and things are the not the same when you grow old. But take a look at Nageshwar Rao, he is 90 years old but how brisk he is! He was a very good man, no tension, no hatred, no jealousy. He also gave me the ANR international award. Even last time he told me that he never had a chance to do a film with me. So I don’t really know what I’m going to do next but am sure God has some plans for me. So let’s see.”

Basically my theory is that, you can’t just use an actor and leave it at that. You have to keep using them from time to time and groom them to make the person a good artist. So except for the big artists from that time like Gemini Ganeshan, I personally groomed every actor and actress according to my movie; I prepared and polished them.

They should remember me, they should understand my philosophy and they should represent my brand of film making. That’s why by God’s grace this practice went on to be called as “The Balachander School”. My school will have discipline and perfection. More than perfection, discipline is important. And also I don’t leave any stone unturned, I won’t just leave an actor because people have lost hope in that person, I will teach and make him shine. Everyone asked me why I was struggling with one guy who doesn’t know to act. So I took it as a challenge to make him a star. If I don’t stick to one disciplined guy, I will always have to continue searching. The search will never end. But an ambitious actor will have a talent and that hidden talent should not go un-directed. It should be discovered and put to good use. That is how I made 26 movies with Kamal Hassan in 8 years.

My brand of Cinema I felt that it’s not so difficult to be one among 100 people, but it’s a challenge to be the first among a hundred.

I should be the first person; I should be the first man. This has always been my motto. That is why I had my own preferences, my own choices. I casted M L Vasanthakumari’s daughter Sri Vidya as a heroine and in a leading magazine, they said that I was trying to make her a heroine but the truth is I made her a heroine and then she reached great heights anyway. It was all the grooming that happened then. Her eyes were very deep; that was her strong point, I decided to provoke it. What amazing roles she has played in ‘Sollathan Nenaikayelae’, ‘Apoorva Raagangal’ and so many movies. So I did not just try to make her a heroine, I did make her one; and a really good one at that.

The future Right now, I am unable to figure out where the industry is going. I’m probably the only person who is not able to understand where the film industry is going. The techniques and the technical tools used have improved to a great extent, but the film industry has lost its creative element. I’ve said before that I should never get appreciated for the technology used. The technology used those days was nowhere close to the technology now. I do not know why, but the word ‘technology’ seems like a bad word to me. I agree, 1 Rajnikanth was not enough and so we showed 2 or 3 Rajnikanths and there was magic. But a 100 Rajnikanths? Using graphics? 100 will become 1000 and maybe graphics makes it happen for today.

I always have believed that I should go before technology and

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h t i w g n i k r o "W was what G Venket Ram had to stay about his shoot with Modi. G Venkat Ram has always been a great guide for everything that Brew does. Be it cover shoots, or deciding which stories or whom to feature- he has always given a lot of insight and facilitated Brew for the better. So it’s simply apt to get a tinge of the best photographer in our final issue, isn’t it? He had a brief stint with none other than the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi himself. Let’s take a brief look at how the experience was like, once again.

“It was a vey humbling experience. When I worked with him, he was the CM of Gujarat so I was pleasantly surprised that he was so down to earth and humble. It was not quite what I had imagined. Being the Chief Minister, I wasn’t sure if he would be comfortable with the idea of a photoshoot- but man, he sure was! Very camera friendly and friendly by nature too, he did not have anything holding him back. The shoot which was scheduled to last for an hour went on for four hours. Sometimes you just get good vibes from some people, without any explicable reason- this was one such instance. I was pretty moved by his easy going and grounded persona- in fact, he even let me rummage in his wardrobe to select his clothes!

It was a great experience and I would love to get the chance to shoot for him once again”, he signed off.

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" ! e c n e i r e p x e e l b i d e r c n i n a s a w i d o M

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INTERVIEW

g n i h t y n A " , e m s r a e f that " e m s e t i exc said Heath Ledger, yes you read it right- the Joker himself spoke to Brew about his role and lots more. This interview was also said to be his last one before he passed away. Take a glimpse at what this talent had to say to Brew.

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Everyone says that you are kind of fearless about taking on the role ‘the Joker’ - is that really true?

I definitely feared it! Anything that fears me, excites me at the same time and, so that’s why I took it up. I don’t know if I was fearless, but I certainly had to put on a brave face and believe that I have something up my sleeve and something that was different.

Did you ever watch Jack Nicholson’s version of the Joker? Have you run into Nicholson ever since you got the part?

Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, not after I got the role, but I’ve seen it many times before. I was a huge fan of it and but you know, having seen Chris’s first film. I knew that there was a big difference between a Chris Nolan film and a Tim Burton film. And so therefore there was enough room for a fresh portrayal, so I kind of steered away from what Jack pulled off. Oh, I wish. I never run into him, but I’d like to, I may not literally, but yes, I would.

Wondering about getting to that process of getting to the Joker is the idea that he may have at once been a normal person. Unlike say, the Jack’s Joker was.

Yeah, I think, I think most of the villains in kind of the Chris Nolan style of Batman movies. These are normal people or once were normal people. And I definitely sort of came to my own conclusions about his background. But one scene, and I don’t know if I might be putting my foot in my mouth. By giving you that much, I guess it’s my secret to at this point. So, I don’t know if this is the first time I’ve had to speak about it. And no one’s really prepped me about what to say.

How long does your makeup take?

About an hour or an hour to an hour and a half kind of thing.

It’s pretty quick. They’ve come up with a new technology for the mouthpiece as the scars are made out of silicone not prostatic. And so they have free silicone stamps that they put on here, here, and here. My whole bottom lip is fake. Essentially and they glue it on in here, and so that like yeah, it takes a half-hour to put those on. And then 20 minutes to a half an hour to paint the face.

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What does your daughter think? Was she scared?

Um, she just frowned at him. You know, I don’t think she connected me to him.

Can you tell us more about how you prepared for the role?

Yeah, yeah, it’s definitely the icing on the cake to do all the research prior to shooting for sure, and there is something about you know, the metaphor to work behind the mask and from within a mask.

It always gives you the license to do whatever you want for the freedom, for your feeling like you’re being judged or viewed, and so I’m literally wearing the mask now, which is aimed empowers me twice as much to kind of feel free and feel unrestrained.

How do you get into this evil character?

I don’t know, I think we all have it in us. It’s kind of like eating raw meat. I don’t know what that does to your mouth and your eyes, and simple little visuals like that. That kind of twisted mind a little bit, and it feels evil when it’s not necessarily an evil thought, but it may look and come across as evil. And I don’t know, I guess the rest is just trusting like your research and trusting all the definitions of these words of a psychopath.

The Joker gets beaten up quite a lot, how was that experience?

Yet, not hard. He’s a total gentleman about it! But I enjoyed that it’s kind of a you know, I get battered and bruised, but you know I like feeling pain too. It’s kind of fun. I like it.

Tell us more about your scenes with Christian then, because you are the nemesis, you know, the iconic Batman nemesis.

Well, firstly, it’s an honor to work with Christian and I mean, the cast in general is pretty outstanding. I mean, every single one of these people I’ve wanted to work with and to have inspired me at some point. So it’s ridiculous, like, the cast and the first thing was with Gary Oldman, which was mind blowing. And then after he leaves the interrogation room. Batman arrives and it suddenly I realized what movie I was in, and it’s quite fun actually, because you know, I was supposed to nothing really gets under my skin, including Batman.

It’s quite easy as an actor because it’s kind of funny seeing somebody dressed up in a Bat suit it’s easy to laugh at it, but he’s incredibly professional and incredibly focused and one of the loveliest guys I’ve ever worked with and a brilliant actor. Even down to Batman how serious he takes it and how he transforms and his voice shifts, and how aggressive he gets. It’s really, really inspiring stuff.

So the concept is that Batman uses fear and I guess the Joker feels no fear of Batman. Is that part of the relationship?

Sure, yeah, it’s kind of, you know they can’t really live without each other. It’s that kind of relationship, like they have no real purpose in life without each other. So they don’t really want each other dead.

Could you describe what sets Chris Nolan, apart from other directors, what his quality is like?

He drinks a lot more tea than I’ve ever seen anyone ever drink. That definitely sets him apart. He’s so young, but seems so old, he is

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just incredibly mature and organized and relaxed and he’s definitely in his world he has a wonderful relationship with his DP while he is here and those two seem to have the entire world mapped out. And we just kind of follow in their paths. I cannot imagine what it’s like directing a movie.

Since he’s also the co-writer, did he involve you in any fine tuning of the Joker’s character?

Me? No, not really. It was all there, it was all on page. They did a really good job.

He seems so serious, how do you know if he likes your performance?

I guess when he laughs, you know, when ever he’s not taking it too seriously which is quite often. It’s just the way he holds himself. He seems like this very old soul kind of but he is youthful when he talks about his children.

Everybody has been saying how dark the film is, is there any moment of kind of twisted fun that the Joker kind of brings with him to the table with him?

Yeah, yeah, all the time. Yeah. There is nothing consistent about him at all. So he’s not consistently dark or consistently fun or funny.

He’s just going up and down the whole time.

Did you have fun in terms of playing it?

Yeah, it’s the most fun I’ve had playing a role. I’m really surprised Chris knew that I could do it, or thought that I had something in me like this. And I don’t know how he came to cast me to do it. But yeah, it is the bomb. It’s it’s definitely the most fun I’ve had in the most freedom I had and the work schedule is great. I work two days and have three weeks off. It’s been like that for six months.

Why is your clown posse so scary?

It’s good that they’re silent but deadly.

We understand these stunts are as real as possible, and there’s not much CGI. Christian did want to do his own, but I know Christian. He went and stood up on the Sears Tower himself. They took him right up to the very top, and they took his feet right to the edge and they put him on a thin wire and he just leaned off the tower like this. So I thought that was a pretty cool story. There’s been yeah, there’s been a lot of car chases and there’s an IMAX camera that got busted up got jammed between a truck and a car and they just replaced it and kept on shooting as you do.

Is this the most expensive movie you’ve ever made?

Yes, definitely.

Does the Joker have a special vehicle or mode of transportation?

Any other gimmicks?

He doesn’t have rollerblades, although that would be funny. No, he doesn’t have like, a set of wheels He steals whatever is around. No, not a lot of gimmicks. He’s just bloody, yeah.

INTERVIEW

l a n o s r e p " Y our s y a w l a l l i w e l y st " ! h g u o shine thr exclaimed Mathangi Srinivasamurthy, the face behind the famous Chamiers of today. She opened up to Brew about how the idea took shape and evolved to be a fine one indeed.

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33 | DECEMBER 2014 | THE BREW

A concept like Chamiers is completely new to the Chennai crowd, at least at the point of time that it originated- so it’s a wonder how it turned out to such a huge success. To this, Mathangi said, “Amethyst has been here far longer than Chamiers, somewhere around fifteen years if I’m right. I had another shop called Crafts and Waves in CIT colony and it was in an old Chettinad bungalow- then I was in business for about 5 years there, retail business. My Aunt’s bungalow became vacant and Kiran came up with the idea that we could do something with it, She thought we could do something together. That’s how the whole concept of Chamiers came into being. She already had a small representation of Anokhi in her old Amethyst. Then she spoke to Anokhi and asked them if they would like to have a standalone store and I think they took a great deal of interest at that time so they came down. My aunt’s bungalow was one of those really old bungalows. Back then only a few of them were defined with most of them being grazed to the ground. Her bungalow was a typical vintage home complete with the outdoor veranda. So it blended very well with the concept of Anokhi and a café. Since Amethyst was already in existence at that point of time, we thought why not replicate Amethyst? We first started off with Anokhi and then the outdoor café eventually came into being. It was not easy at all contrary to what most people think! We had so many issues because it was an old bungalow, right from the renovations to the walls getting damp and then there was one of those years when we had huge floods- we had a lot of water coming into the place and a lot of stuff got spoilt. We had issues with drainage and the outdoor café had problems too like mosquitoes. I think we battled everything. We had a contractor initially who cheated us, by supplying faulty pipes. It took a good one year to set it up because of all the renovations which had to be done and all the things that needed to be done to set up a retail space in an old house. Then we had to get the cafe license. Once it started Anokhi themselves were surprised with the sales, because you don’t expect to sell quilts and jackets which are not conducive to our weather. We were selling as much as some of their other stores in the north. So that was very encouraging and then we never had any problem with getting people into our space. I had a database with my old shop and Kiran came with her own database. And Anokhi itself had a big crowd.

That is really when it all started taking shape.”

With profit comes expansion, so was she looking at branching out Chamiers? She answered “We never wanted to start a branch of Chamiers anywhere else, about that we were very clear because it had to be a stand alone to maintain the unique tinge that it is known for. There have been a lot of people asking us why we don’t

set up in ECR and other locations. But we never wanted to replicate it because we wanted people to appreciate its value. The reason why people kept coming to Amethyst and Chamiers is because they are unique. So we have suppressed the idea of setting up any more branches, but yes, Kiran has expanded in Pondicherry. Kiran and I had been getting offers of doing Retail Consulting which we have taken up”, smiling. When asked if she always wanted to get into the food industry she said “I had not really visualised being a part of the food industry, but I was always inclined towards retail. I was working for an advertising agency but I always knew that I wanted to set up a small shop, a boutique, of my own in Chennai. So in terms of being in the right profession, I think I am. It has opened up a lot of avenues for me and I have enjoyed what I have done and have had absolutely no regrets. I have met a lot of genuine people through this and people do know me as being a partner in Chamiers- it has been quite fulfilling in every way, I can say.”

Chamiers did not have a whole lot of competition back then, but at the time we took the interview with Mathangi it did have a good number of competitors. When quizzed on this she said “There is an influx of a lot of restaurants and cafes coming in now but this was not the same when we started off. And definitely the food that we served was then completely different from the rest. We catered to a lot of experts. We had English breakfast then, which is of course now available everywhere else. At that time it was a novelty. And our food was different; it was a fusion of continental and something else, just for example. We had problems with the food too because we were experimenting, we had a coffee guy so his repertoire was limited. We, later, had to get a consultant down from Bombay, and we had him help us for some time. On the whole, we aimed at giving good food. So Chamiers has evolved with food too and we have to keep evolving because there is so much competition these days. All we have to be is confident about our style and that alone will shine through!”

Serving modern cuisine at her café, one becomes naturally curious if she herself had evolved into a foodie of many tastes and she exclaimed “Not really! I still like my Sambar and Idly.

But yeah, slowly I have taught myself more about baking, cheese appropriateness with food and wine, simply out of interest. I keep reading and evolving- I have done so many food-tasting sessions and now I know how it is supposed to be. For me it has been a huge learning curve, for Kiran not so much because she has German lineage and already knows about all of this.” She thinks for a moment and then laughs out loud saying “And yes, now I can confidently talk about a German or a Greek salad!”

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INTERVIEW

s t o l e v a h "I of " l l e t o t s e i r sto promised Anurag Kashyap, one of India’s most influential filmmakers and one among India’s top inspirers. Known to write/film/ produce the most realistic and hard hitting films, mostly in Bollywood- he is a torchbearer of the future of what is hopefully, the best phase of Indian Cinema.

Here is a recap of what he had to say to Brew back then.

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36 | DECEMBER 2014 | THE BREW

Gangs of Wasseypur (GOW) was a crime mafia movie that had running length of more than five hours, a first of its kind, that was released in two parts co-written, directed and produced by Kashyap. He certainly had a lot to talk about this film of his that was received by many as a modern cult film. “Given a choice, I would have loved to release the film as a whole with a full running time of a little more than five hours- but I remind myself time and again, to take one step at a time. The response for the film was very good, and the film managed to sell in a lot of international markets, some of which really took me by surprise as well.” The Girl In Yellow Boots (TGIYB) was yet another striking film that was a masterchild of Kashyap- and this movie was the one that opened the doors for GOW. “With TGYIB we knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy proposition. But I was super keen that the movie should reach out to the maximum number of people, in the maximum number of locations. So it was a calculated call that I took from actually giving away the film almost for free in a lot of countries just asking them to screen the film. In the process we hardly made any money! But it certainly opened new roads for us and indeed, when we came up with GOW we were prepared and we managed to get the film pre-sold with an impressive minimum guarantee almost all over Europe.”

Apart from brnging about hard-hitting films, Kashyap was the filmmaker who bought about the novel idea of Guerilla/ Indie filmmaking, which is essentially, shooting films in real life sets without any permission or modern facilities as such. He stirred hope for aspiring filmmakers in the countryto go on to shoot films even without any financial back-up- questioned on this he said “When the chips are down and you just know that you cant afford any means of luxury- all you need is sheer determination and there will be a way out. This is what I always believed in and will always believe in. When we worked on TGIYB we had to without much of a choice shoot with hidden cameras as we couldn’t have managed it otherwise. In fact, this trend started much earlier. In the case of Gulaal - there are various scenes in the film where the streets are brightly lit. Since we were shooting under a really tight budget we definitely couldn’t afford all those lights. That was when my DOP Rajeev Ravi came up with the idea of shooting during Diwali when all the streets would certainly be brightly lit. Fortunately/unfortunately the film got delayed way too long and thus we went there year after year during Diwali to shoot those scenes” he claimed. More than a

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filmmaker, he is a writer by nature and this is what sets him apart from the crowd of filmmakers it seemed like. “Earlier I was just a writer and not a filmmaker, I should admit it was a lot easier to do that. If I write a complete script for someone else I start visualizing the whole concept and begin wondering why I cannot make the film myself. Hence this is something that I wish to avoid as much as I can! I just try to stick to writing only the dialogues so it wouldn’t complicate things for me”.

What took us at Brew by surprise was how much Tamil Cinema had influenced him and how much respect the prodigy had for us! This is what he quoted- “I personally feel that Tamil Cinema right now is going through a wonderful phase and I have been following the works of a lot of Tamil filmmakers. I was thrilled to watch films like Subramaniapuram, Paruthiveeran, and Naan Kadavul and it was by watching these films that I realized that these filmmakers are making their films in a milieu that’s more familiar to them. This made me feel that even I have lots of stories to tell about the place I come from. Watching Bala’s Naan Kadavul made me feel pretty ashamed of myself since I’ve lived in Varanasi myself but failed to direct such a film that spoke about the essence of it. That’s why I have decided to personally dedicate GOW to the 3 musketeers – Ameer, Bala and Sasikumar, the sons of Madurai as I call them” he said, signing off.

INTERVIEW

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e h t t a h t s e i t i l a u q o w t e r a y t i r g e t n i d n a m s " Professionali " s d e e n y l e t a r e p film industry des quoted the talent behind Pizza and Jigarthanda, the movies that became a phenomenal success.

Filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj sounded off on the trails of his journey – and his plans for the future to Brew.

Hailing from Madurai, this dream chaser grew up watching the many movies of our very own Rajinikanth. An ardent admirer of the Super Star, he said, “I love all his films and my inclination towards movies is directly attributed to him, to be frank. Spending time with family at that time either meant going to the temple or going for a movie, and my family always chose the latter! My interest in films began and grew because of that, I suppose.” From being a software engineer to becoming one of the most sought after filmmakers, there is no denying that Karthik is an inspiration to many. He revealed, “The journey so far has been challenging, and exciting too, in a way. I quit my full time software job and decided to venture into cinema when I practically didn’t know anyone in the industry!

I attended this one-day workshop conducted by Sanjay Nambiar, and he was my first sound teacher of this art. I then started out by making short films, one of which led me to ‘Nalaya Iyakunar’. I learnt the nuances and the different aspects of filmmaking myself, through trial and error. There were more downs than ups in that phase as it took me time to figure out who the genuine people were, in the industry. After I wrote my first script for a feature film, I struggled quite a bit to find a producer. I even went bankrupt for a while! The one special thing that happened and that spurred me on was falling in love and getting married in that very same phase of my life. My wife and her family understood my dream and drove me to pursue it. It took me two and a half years before I landed up on the sets of Pizza for my first directorial debut.”

Looking back at it all, he claimed “I have always looked up at films made by Mani Ratnam, Mahendiran, Balu Mahendra, Bala, Anurag Kashyap, Clint Eastwood, Tarantino and Coen Brothers. My dream is to create many more films that equal the high standards of such films.” Karthik, more than a filmmaker, stands out in being a benchmark for bringing ethics into a profession that is widely

believed to be extremely unethical. “It’s a common assumption that being unethical is a job requirement in the film industry. The truth in fact, is nowhere close to this. Professionalism and integrity are two qualities that the film industry desperately needs, and I’m happy to see many such genuine people emerging in the industry. I’m confident that they will go on to make their mark in Cinema”. Moving on to his films, he said, “My first script in reality, was Jigarthanda.

In fact, it is the one script that reflects many instances from my life. Unfortunately, it was a big budget film and being a newcomer I couldn’t rope in a producer. That’s when I started to work on a script for a small budget film that takes place completely in just one house; featuring actors I was already in good terms with. That’s how Pizza came into being. When C V Kumar agreed to produce it, everything fell into place. He was sensible and professional, and it was quite easy for me thereafter!”

In an era of big-budget commercial movies, the filmmaker proved that even small-budget films could make huge profits as long as they had a solid storyline. His record-breaking thriller movie Pizza and his more recent film Jigarthanda, stand testimonial to this fact. Having climbed to great heights in such a limited time span, the question arises- will he move on to make himself known in Bollywood and Hollywood? “I wanted to direct Pizza in Hindi, but it got dropped as the schedules didn’t work out as I would have liked. I would love to do Jigarthanda in Hindi too, if the opportunity arises”, he discloses. About his plans in the pipeline, “Jigarthanda opened the door to many new opportunities that I would like to make the best use of. I have began writing my next script and I’m hoping it’ll turn out as I want it to”, he said, signing off.

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d l u o h s g n o s A " n i t s e b e h t t u o bring

INTERVIEW

ME "

were the exact words uttered by Aruna Sairam, who needs no introduction. A prodigy in the field of Carnatic music, she talked to Brew in a casual chat about her Bombay days, move to chennai, her collaborations and more. Let’s have a look at what she had to say.

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42 | DECEMBER 2014 | THE BREW

“My music days started before I knew that it had started!” she began. “My mother was a singer and she often used to step out of Mumbai for her career and she was seen as a woman with great standards. Yet she always used to teach at home. A lot of musicians would keep coming home. On some days, Bala Saraswathi Amma would come home for hours of music and dance. In fact many would come, and be house guests for weeks and sometimes, for months.

Therefore I would say that I was influenced by music without my own knowledge at a very young age.” When asked when she was taking her singing to the professional level, she said “Much, much later. For me; Music was a pleasure, to listen to and to sing; I never looked at it as a career. I went through with my school and college; you know, the usual things just as everybody else. Maybe it was at much later point of time, around my late twenties was when I really took a decision that this is going to get professional. Not that I hadn’t done concerts before but they were all pretty small, they were different before I decided that this is going to be my career.

To make a commitment and to take it up as a profession was a very important decision in my life.”

She also spoke about her transition from Bombay to Chennai- “That was much, much later. You will be surprised; I actually came down to Chennai only in 2002. For 15 years I just lived between Chennai and Bombay. In the sense, my children were growing up. We were living in Bombay. I did not want to disturb that, so I rented an apartment here, and I used to fly up and down every month. People thought I lived in Chennai but it was only by 2002 that I came down here completely, with my children, husband and everything else. It has been a long journey for me. The Chennai that I saw when I came from Bombay as a young girl was unforgettable. The musical part was great, but otherwise Chennai was difficult to get by basically if you were raised in Bombay. Everything would just shut down by eight in the evening, people where very conservative. But now Chennai has opened up so much. It’s really an amazing city.”

Talking about the collaborations that she has done, she said “Each one has actually been special. Each musician makes me see something very specific and individual in what they bring to

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their music. Of course, working with Dominique Vellard for the Gregorian chant was very special because up until I met him, I did not realize the variegated history of western music. Though I knew western music and was familiar with it I did not know much about the different phases, the prebaroque period, and the pre-romantic period. How the music developed? Why it was called liturgical music? How the monks developed it? The whole history fascinated me and actually made me more grounded as a carnatic musician.

Up until then I might have taken my music in a different way but when I realized so much has happened in each history, I knew that he was struggling to reestablish early music here, I am like a direct continuum of an unbroken chain of music, like from Guru to Sishya, how special is that? Our music has been one continuous tree.

Though poorly documented, the oral tradition is so strong and each change integrated the past and welcomed the future. That is like the Indian trait of inclusiveness. I found that very fascinating. Now Coke Studio is another step into being a little more radical! I have always been a carnatic singer but I also was a Beatles fan, I love listening to Elvis Presley. I am a big fan of Hindi music, a Vishvanathan and Ramamurthy fan. My parents always encouraged me to listen to all kinds of music; but when it came to singing, I sang only a few styles.

My vocal cords couldn’t go astray while singing but I loved listening.

I was a ‘Rasika’ of music in general. And when I came across CokeStudio programs, I was really impressed with what they were doing.

That was when Ram Sampath, being a friend of mine from my Bombay days, called me and it was for Coke Studios!”

Towards the end of the interview, the obvious question emerged and when asked her if she is open about singing in films, she said “Yes! I have always been open to singing in films. I would love to. In fact I want to and I hope I get to sing in films. Of course there is only one quotation that I stand by- Whoever offers me a song; it should be something that brings out the best in me. Because for me, at this situation unlike other playback singers, it is difficult to be very flexible or get molded easily, so if it can bring the best in me and if I feel comfortable, I will be very happy”she concluded, ever beaming.

" k s i r g n i g a n a m t u o b a l l a " Business i s

INTERVIEW

said the young entrepreneur who forayed into production of films. Varun Manian is sure as hell making heads swerve in his direction! Brew found out what makes him more than just a business icon.

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Coming from an out and out business familysuccessful in realty, infrastructure and what not, it was sure a pleasant surprise when Varun forayed into film production. Quizzing him about this, he said, “The extension is not as unusual as it may seem. When I entered business back in 2004, my aim was to leverage the evolving tastes and demands of the growing consumer class. The broad vision of the Radiance Group, which I head, is to evolve as a consumer-focused SouthIndian business powerhouse. As a first step towards achieving this vision, we launched Radiance Realty that is focused on creating living spaces for Chennai’s elite, who have a unique blend of traditional and global ethos. The next step is to provide them with intelligent and wholesome entertainment, which is the idea of Radiance Media. So if you see it from that context, our media venture is pretty much a logical decision”. Here the question arose- compared to his previous business scenario, the film industry might be very chaotic, wouldn’t it? He answered, “Well, it’s both a yes and no. Yes, because compared to how we are used to running our infrastructure and real estate businesses, movies are definitely less process driven.

No, because though it may seem chaotic from outside, there is a certain method in the madness in the movie business, which I have grown quite comfortable with.” All said and done, there is no denying that Cinema is very unpredictable. “Getting down to it, business is all about managing risk. As you know, I come from a business family – risk management is something I have been exposed to and trained in from a very early age. Being objective, identifying, acknowledging and quantifying all the things that may go wrong and having a ‘plan B’ for such eventualities, is the right way to tackle them. It’s all about keeping your emotions at bay, and out of decision-making”, he summed up. Being a newcomer to Cinema,

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was he welcomed with open arms? “I do not see myself as a complete newcomer.

It’s interesting how there has always been a connection between the business and film fraternities of Chennai. I have been here a long time, so I knew a lot of people in the industry before I became a producer. I must also say that the film fraternity has been very warm and welcoming, and I’m happy about getting to know a good number of veterans in the field.”

Having been in Chennai almost all his life apart from a small stint in New York, it’s certainly a positive to Tamil Cinema to have someone from it’s roots contributing to it.

“Chennai is a unique city – it blends oldworld traditions with modern globalism effortlessly. It has something for everybody, but at the same time it is mysterious. As a businessman I have to admit that the citizens of Chennai, no matter where they come from, are evolving, demanding and unique. I studied in New York for a while, and it did influence me pretty well. I have seen many sides of that city- I was there during the 9/11 and witnessed how a community can come together in the face of unprecedented adversity. Also, it was in New York where I learnt that talent and commitment matters more than where you come from. It is a city filled with rags to riches stories and living there gives you the conviction that anything is possible. That’s probably the best thing about that city, but the urge to come back here was strong. It is not easy to fit this great city into a single stereotype and that is why I love it here.”

Juggling so many different things all at the same time, how does he manage to unwind?

“I am so busy running the Radiance Group that I literally steal time to unwind. I try to catch some good movies from time to time.

I play a bit of golf and tennis and sometimes go running after a long day, simply to keep

myself mentally and physically active. I have a close group of friends who keep me sane, though” he smiled.

Filmmaking in the south is currently taking a big turn towards never-seen-before intelligent storylines. Is Varun headed that way too? “I see two exciting changes. One is external focused, which is in terms of the content that artists are now dabbling with. The era of intelligent, content-driven movies is here and I am proud to say that Tamil Cinema is a front-runner in adapting this trend. The other is internal focused with movie making evolving as a serious and respectable profession, showing a much needed potential of attracting the best and brightest talents. We at Radiance Media hope to play a small, but important role in making both these evolutions happen”. Aspiring talents are always looking for supportive platforms, regarding this, Varun stated “We are always open to new age directors and technicians with good content”. Kaaviya Thalaivan, his latest production, sounds a wee-bit quintessential with names like A R Rahman and Vasanthabalan in the picture.

He beams, “Working with ARR was exciting.

It is a unique feeling to be in the presence of a pure genius- it’s like they know a few secrets of the universe that will forever remain a mystery to the rest of humanity.

Kaaviya Thalaivan, on the whole, was a unique learning experience. The movie portrays the eternal struggle between the effortless genius and the sincere plodder, a struggle most of us will be able to connect with at some level. I expect it to appeal to both urban and rural audiences” Is he planning to move on to Bollywood and make content drive films there, too?

“Absolutely. The demand for high-quality, content-driven wholesome entertainment is universal and not bound by language or geography.”

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