MS Sathyu’s classic Garam Hava, which brought alive the post-Partition woes of Muslims in North India, has now been digitally restored. The filmmaker tells Karan Bhardwaj that the national award-winning movie is more relevant today as it helps people be sensitive towards each other
In the last 67 years of Independence, there has never been dearth of jingoism in Bollywood. Movies rode high on national sentiments and featured animosity among people at each side of the border. However, filmmakers rarely portrayed what minorities went through when they chose to stay back in their native land. In 1973, MS Sathyu’s Garam Hava captured the dilemma most north Indian Muslims faced when they continued to be in India post Partition. The film brought alive the plight as well as the challenges the community braved over the years. The classic film, despite winning several national awards, couldn’t catch the fancy of moviegoers. However, Garam Hava is back on screens today in its digital version. “There’s a demand of good movies. If it works, it might set the trend. There’s a need and relevance of such movies today because the nation has become more communal and fundamentalist,” says the director, who has been doing theatre, films and advertisements for decades.
During its release in 1974, the film invited wrath of a few fundamentalists that also resulted in the delay of its release. “The Censor Board procrastinated the release by 11 months thinking it might escalate communal tensions and manipulate the law and order situation. But they finally understood the substance of movies and allowed its screening,” he says.
The movie was made on a shoestring budget of Rs10 lakh. That’s another thing that its digital version has amounted to 10 times more than its original production value. “I didn’t have money to make this movie. So from the writers to actors, everybody supported me. The Film Finance Corporation (now National Film Development Corporation) allotted Rs2.5 lakh and rest of the money was burrowed from friends. The actors were also paid peanuts. Balraj Sahni got Rs5000 while Farooq Sheikh, who debuted with the movie, was given only Rs750,” he says.
The digital restoration has been done by Indikino Edutainment while PVR Rare will release the movie. “The original tapes were sent to Deluxe laboratories in los Angeles. They lifted frame by frame and revised the audio quality,” he informs. The filmmaker believes that old classics didn’t work at the box office because there was no focus on marketing. “These films need to be shown today and we need solid marketing and corporate back up. Today cinema is more about violence and lack quality content and scripts. So it’s a good idea to bring the best of films back into theatres,” he says.
However, Sathyu doesn’t believe in the box office figures. He calls Rs100 crore clubs “bluff” and “marketing gimmick”. “There’s a lot of bluff which is going on. No film can generate Rs100 crore. Why don’t they reveal how much entertainment tax is being paid to the governmentIJ The tax will reveal the exact revenue. It’s a marketing stunt and nothing more. The hype that they are creating is misleading people. They are promoting cinema as cosmetic and trying to sell.”
The filmmaker has also done several television shows and find the contemporary content “boring and repetitive”. “All these reality shows and other programmes have lost freshness. There’s nothing artistic or variety in it. TV should be more journalistic. It is growing on the wrong lines. They are copying wrong trends from the West,” he says.