Adding spin to his plotlines and thrills to his song lyrics, he has virtually been reigning supreme in the realm of celluloid world of Odisha for long. Winner of State awards for best screenwriter for Akase Ki Ranga lagila and the best lyricist for the movie Nai Separi Kanak Gori, the best lyricist for title songs in two feature films and for two serials like Abujha E Mana and Kemiti E Bandhan and four times Taranga Family Award winner and Taranga Cine Award winner as the Best Dialogue Writer for the films Pagala Karichhi Paunji Tora, Hata Dhari Chalutha, Bad Girl and love You Hammesha, this juggler of words has a big-budget biopic on the anvil based on Buxi Jagabandhu with many other top-grossing ones like Abhimanyu in his ensemble. A screenwriter, lyricist, storywriter, editor, journalist, announcer-compeer-actor of AIR, TV talk-show host, stage anchor and orator, this cool, calm, composed, affable and unassuming persona with rich fecundity has turned into a brand name. In fact, Bijaya Malla instantly evokes trust in the entertainment world. In the midst of his exquisite lyricism, viewers and listeners are carried away by an emotional rhythm. Opening his innings as a storywriter way back in his college days with a compilation of stories called Amari Gapa and a regularly-published literary tabloid Chitrita Chithi to his credit, Malla later worked as a sub-editor in the Odia daily Prajatantra and bagged Harekrushna Mahtab Gold Medal as the best scribe before making the silver screen his writing pad. Some of his creations of this period compiled into two volumes called Dasa Dishari and Alapa record decades of how Odia cultural panorama marched forward, gossiping about legends and laurels of this land. Kuhudi Kakar Megha, Kuhuka Kabita and Prema Kebe Kebe are fascinating volumes containing some of his more than five hundred lyrics and poems. As member of Shahitya Akademi, member of Censor Board of Film Certification for three terms and member of TV Film Screening Committee, he is famed to have performed without bias. In between sending urgent emails to the shooting sets or talking with his directors briefing about sequence or dialogue, Malla talked to Sugyan Choudhury about films, tele serials, Odia language and how contemporary culture is held captive by MlA and MP lAD Funds.
A season of recycling and remaking has set in here long since. The Odia films we watch today are a remake of either South Indian films or Hindi cinema. Do you think we lack original storiesIJ
No, not at all! We have plenty of original Odia stories that can be turned into beautiful movies and a lot of writers who can weave amazing stories at par with their peers at national and international level. We indeed lack people to understand them. The new breed of producers are ignorant of the idioms of moviemaking .They are misled by pseudo characters prowling in this glamorous world of showbiz. They lure the investors with false promises of making top-grossing block-busters with so low a budget and during half way into making or so they surprisingly hike the budget when the producer could not leave but meet their demands as a ransom. Then, these so-called directors and moviemakers begin to copy a South Indian film and Bollywood picture frame by frame, sometimes committing grave errors like ludicrously translating August 15 into Paradip Bandar as the joke makes a buzz around here. Then, they ruin the financiers with presenting them with big flops. They are inept in the art of adapting to our social ethos. On the other hand, they are foolhardy to aspire to clamp a big-budget original production into a little purse of meagre cash. Those golden days are gone when stalwarts like Gour Ghose, Dhira Mallick, Basanta Nayak and Debabrata Kar could weigh the strength of a story by themselves and flamboyantly take the risk of hiring new talented writers for their movies. This culture of recycling is also a threat to the emergence of new scriptwriters in future. On the contrary, movies are no more made for whole family entertainment warding off all except a target audience consisting of illiterate or semi-illiterate audience. The scenario is so bleak and frustrating! Besides, the precarious conditions of our theatres and the professional rivalry of people in the industry are responsible for making movies flop to a considerable extent.
What is a substantial recipe for a successful movieIJ
An unconventional story and a seamless screenplay: they are the sine qua non for roaring success of a film. The story must tread on an unbeaten path with cliffhangers at the end of each scene, bringing the viewers to the edge of their seats. Here, some people pack up their camp within a schedule of mere fifteen days including scriptwriting and editing within it while script preparation takes two years or so in Hollywood practice. These are not genuine folks; they are business folks masquerading as producers, directors, composers, scriptwriters who sneak into this world surreptitiously and trade obscenity and vulgarity for money.
Why are the stories of our TV serials and soap operas always invariably set on a backdrop of city lifeIJ
It’s due to cultural shift the people across the world experience after globalisation and liberalisation. The rustic characters like farmers no more hold fascination for the new generation who under the influence of rank consumerism, inadvertently, long for dwelling in rosy beds and cozy chairs as epicureans. There are more dramatic twists in the life of money-maniac web-savvy sophisticated young man and rich urban families than in the predictable fate of a hapless farmer.
How do you assess the contemporary cultural ethos of our StateIJ
From my own perspective, I think the cultural adrenaline of our State is held captive by the MP and MlA lAD Funds. The petty party workers with their bosses pose as vanguards of culture disparaging the collective endeavour of a society that is actually a breeding ground of cultural heritages. These imps call the shots behind the scene when district and State festivals are being organised. The pop artists from Mumbai are invited instead of folk artists. The channels telecast such shameless programmes like mothers dancing. It’s sheer cultural decadence in the name of popular entertainment.
What would you like to say about issues concerning Odia languageIJ
I love my mother tongue the most. I have forged a relation with it that can never be undone. I see this entire furor about our language having a tag of being Classical all superficial. Are we doing anything substantial to embellish and enrich itIJ Have we any agenda for translating our literature into other languages to get it recognised in a global scenarioIJ Are we stealing a part from our purse, even a tiny portion of our earning for buying an Odia bookIJ We take more pride in possessing an English novel or journal in our hand than Chha Mana Atha Gunth of Fakir Mohan. During my stint as a member of Shahitya Akademi, I found many rare books rotting on floor of its premises. I had then proposed them to degitalise them for preservation and making them easily accessible to those interested in them. But horrible! They are still left there to be torn away. The Government is so poor to afford to the preservation of these precious wealth of our literary heritage!