Actor Rahul Bose talks about his forthcoming film, Poorna, the ‘sexualisation’ of women in film industry and the importance of appreciating gender equality. By Unnati Joshi
Suave, intelligent and passionate, Rahul Bose has always been unusual in his choices. What makes him special is his zest for life and blazing honesty, one that has made him produce and direct a biopic about Malavath Poorna, a tribal girl from Telangana who summitted Mount Everest at 13 and became the youngest girl to do so in the world. Her motivationIJ To prove a village critic wrong that girls couldn’t do anything worthwhile in their lives. Such was her determination that she forced a change in the mountaineering rulebook. Now nobody less than 18 can climb in China and nobody less than 16 in Nepal.
It has been over a decade since Bose made his directorial debut with Everybody Says I’m Fine (2001) but Poorna’s story made him want to be its sole narrator. “It was an extraordinary story. As a producer, I thought it was great because I could see the scope and sweep of this film. From the little tribal hut to the top of Everest. Along the way was her first obstacle, a 650 ft rock, in the middle of nowhere. It looked like mission impossible. During the expedition sequences, you will see them climbing through snow storms. All of this has been shot in real time and finally Everest, of course, is in VFX.”
Bose feels proud to have raised money for such an unusual story. “I have been extraordinarily lucky,” he added.
Bose and his team did a lot of research. “We did an acting workshop that lasted for about 10 or 12 days. It was crazy and hard but if you have emotional intelligence, empathy, the ability to understand what’s going on in the room and the talent to show it on your face, you are going to be fine. I don’t believe just because you acted you are an actor. I feel you need to have a potential to be an actor and the rest is up to the director to take out.”
He shortlisted Aditi Inamdar out of 500 other girls for playing the role of Poorna. “We auditioned 500 girls and shortlisted 109 and it wasn’t completely there. I don’t have any hubris to make non-actors actors. I don’t think you need to have acted to be an actor, all you need is the quality of empathising and putting yourself in someone’s place and being able to show it in your eyes and your face. That’s a quality very few people have. A lot of people feel what you are feeling but they can’t show it on their face, they can’t, they are not actors. Aditi is the only girl who had this combination. She also had a mixture of innocence and wisdom. When she is acting, you won’t even feel she is doing so. Poorna trained Aditi in rock-climbing and as far as acting and determination in eyes are concerned, I had to train her. She is going to become a very good actor. She already is,” he told us.
Bose has had his own cerebral track when it comes to his film performances. But why has he stayed away so long considering there is diverse content everywhereIJ “I am not consciously cutting down on acting assignments. It’s 50-50, I am not getting the roles that I want to do and I am refusing those that are being offered. Unless I get something really good, why should I even do itIJ I don’t think anybody wants to see me do stuff that ‘other actors’ do. The audience has to wait for me and if they don’t see me acting, they will get fantastic films like Poorna.”
What made Rahul act in the filmIJ Was it a producer’s call to cut back on costsIJ “I was actually offered this role as an actor and I decided to produce this film later. Once I was in, I asked myself very seriously, ‘would I have cast myselfIJ’ And I said, ‘yeah’. I am the most saleable actor available who would do such a role; it’s not a big role at all. But it’s my film and for your baby you will even clean up the vomit,” he quipped.
Bose is perhaps doing more for the girl child than any other celebrity. He runs a foundation that adopts and mentors 17 girls from Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Manipur and Kashmir. “It’s not an orphanage, their parents are very much alive but they get the right environs for a well-rounded education,” he emphasised.
About the gender biases in the film industry and across the country, he said, “Poorna is my tiny contribution to the gender-biased industry and the country but my contributions in real are much greater. I get attracted to women who buck every single trend. My mother never went into the kitchen, my dad cooked. So in that tradition, I thought let’s do it. But this is not a social service film, this is a big fat Hindi movie which will make you cry and laugh and be inspired and stand up maybe. But within it, it also has a phenomenal message.”
Analysing gender equality in the industry, he said, “There is gender equality behind the camera but in front of it, it is a different story. The sexualisation of women is prevalent in all parts of society as well as in the film industry but you must understand one thing, gender equality only means to give women the freedom of their choice. If you want to wear a bikini and sing a song in the film or you want to wear a veil and walk around a shopping mall, weather you want to be a NASA scientist or a supermodel, the choice should be the woman’s. You can’t stand in judgment of what choice she makes. Women don’t want to be protected and they don’t want their hands to be held. Women just want to be left alone to make their choices.”
So is digitisation and the internet revolution helping better cinemaIJ “It’s too complex a question to be answered. I think the online revolution has definitely had a constructive blowback in the movies but it might also televise movies and that has already began to happen. Movies, according to me, should always remain a separate medium. There is something in movies that online content can never capture.”
So what’s next for Bose ProductionsIJ “I am writing a fictional film based on a woman. It’s about a woman set in a gritty part of Mumbai. But it has a heart as big as a water melon,” he concluded with a smile.
Photo: Pankaj Kumar