There's no person who is completely Indian. We have people whose ancestors come from Persia, or Mongolia. It's a secular nation, that's very important. There is no pure Indian as such. So Manorama being half Irish and Indian doesn't make her less Indian. John was born in India, being half Syrian Christian -- what you're doing is by saying that you're saying all of South India and Tamil Nadu and Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, which are filled with Syrian Christians, are not Indians. How can you say that?
I'm not personally saying that -- I agree with you that there's no such thing as "pure" Indian, but the fundamentalists who hounded you would say that there was.
I know, but I'm just really amazed. I'm not being critical of you, I'm just telling you that it wasn't a jab at anybody; there was no anger, it was a desire to make the best film possible and to cast the most appropriate people that I thought were right for the characters. I'm just curious -- what made you ask that?
I read your daughter's book, and she called attention to the fact that so many of the actors in the film were from mixed backgrounds.
I think what Devyani was trying to do was show the secular nature of India. And I don't think it was that important.
How did you feel, reading your daughter's account of this experience?
It was great. I'm really proud of her. I'm a mom, what do you expect? [laughs] It's really well written. Also, it's really interesting to see her perspective. And I know the times were difficult for her. It was not easy for her to come there, to come to Varanasi, as an 18- or 19-year-old, and come there as a camera trainee and have to deal with this hell breaking loose and her mom being threatened and dealing with that. So reading that from her point of view was lovely, and I was very deeply moved.
I remember when "Fire" came out, and my parents and their friends were so excited, not just because it was one of the first Indian films that broke through to the West but because it was about Indian women. My mom complains about this concept of "susheel Hindu nari" --
[Laughs] I think I'd like your mom! Susheel Hindu nari, the epitome of the good Indian woman.
Right, the idea that a good Indian woman is one who understands her place in society and that suffering is her lot in life. "Fire" was one of the first Indian films that refused to buy into that concept. But most of the other Indian women that my mother talked to about the film, they liked it but they couldn't relate to it. They were befuddled by the film, and I wonder if you've seen something similar, this inability to see, even among Indian women, that desire is important and that being the long-suffering Indian housewife --
Isn't the be all and end all?
Right.
I think probably your mom's reaction is right on. This susheel Hindu nari, that's the epitome of what's considered a good Indian woman. And we call India "Bharat Ma," Mother India. So it's interesting, we put the Hindu woman on a pedestal; we worship her like a goddess. And yet socially, she is so unequal. There's a whole dichotomy going on about the way Indian women are perceived. And the way we are perceived, somehow, we almost subconsciously imbibe, and we start believing that that's the way we are. So a lot of the reaction was, "I know I like it but I'm not supposed to like it." That's what happened with "Fire." And it's not because of not believing in desire; it's because it's too deeply ingrained that we shouldn't believe in desire.
You definitely belong to the Indian art-house cinema tradition, which had its heyday in India from the 1950s to '70s, but has been overshadowed by Bollywood in recent years. Art-house films like yours, though, have become more prevalent overseas. Do you think it's becoming a crossover genre?
I really don't like the word "crossover." I think cinema's cinema, and either it appeals to a lot of people -- I think that's what we mean when we talk about crossover, right? Something that's indigenous and can actually work somewhere else. I think very few Indian films are so-called crossover. Probably "Monsoon Wedding" is one that was actually seen by a lot of people. I think "Bend It Like Beckham" was seen by a lot of people. I can't think of any others. I think the ones that do get seen in the West are seen by the Indian diaspora, which I do not call crossover. So I don't think there are many so-called crossover films.
Who are your influences? Your films have such a Western -- or maybe I should say international -- sensibility, that I sometimes forget that I'm watching an Indian film. Then in "Water" you have these song situations -- the song sequences in Indian films that move the narrative forward. Those caught me a little off-guard, because I forgot for a while that I was watching an Indian movie.
I was influenced greatly by a filmmaker called Guru Dutt, who I think made some of the most lyrical films in India. I think the imagery [of "Water"] is very Bengali, in fact. The construction is very much a 1950s narrative, a humanist cinema narrative, which is flowing, which is not about the juxtaposition of images, but about trying to make them lyrical, which is very different from contemporary cinema. And to me that's very Indian. And the construction is very Indian. Satyajit Ray has influenced me, and Guru Dutt has, and there's an Indian director called Bimal Roy, again in the '50s, who made very strong films. Ray, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Kurasawa, these have been my greatest influences, and to a certain extent Bergman as well, because to me they really are the epitome of humanist cinema. About human conditions, but told with a lyricism that's breathtaking.
About the writer
Priya Jain is a freelance writer in New York.
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