Arun Kuckreja’s movie Blind Noor-E-Jehan captures his cataract surgery. The filmmaker tells Karan Bhardwaj that his vision lies in his undeterred spirit
You wake up one fine day and realise what you are seeing now is just a fraction of things actually lying there. Even the thought of becoming visually impaired can scare us to death. Capturing his personal experience, eminent filmmaker has come up with movie titled Blind Noor-E-Jehan. The 30-minute film captures Kuckreja’s complicated cataract surgery and talks about human endurance and self-realisation. “I woke up early and thought to give a quick glance over newspapers. Surprisingly, I could not read an iota of the content. After struggling for a while, I immediately rushed to hospital where I discovered that I was ‘legally blind.’ It was shock of my life,” says Kuckreja, who has produced and directed over 35 short films. The filmmaker’s surgery was not a normal one. It was so complicated that the surgeons couldn’t fit the lens in one go. “They called me again for the second surgery. While I was going for the operation, I decided to capture the experience in a movie. The doctors also cooperated and allowed me to shoot,” said Kuckreja.
Blind Noor-E-Jehan is a compilation of surgery teamed with a collection of single worded screenplays. The chapters of love, peace, truth, beauty and God are represented by the paintings of Pablo Picasso, leonardo da Vinci and Van Gogh. “In a way, the film is also a tribute to fellow world cinema directors touching upon the belief ‘the director is the superstar. He makes the film, he creates it!’,” he said.
According to him, this movie is most imaginative work he has done so far. “There is complicated lighting that I have personally done. I have imagined all the messages of humanity and mixed them with large canvasses of paints. I have done experimental films earlier also. The major autobiographical film I made was Robot in 90s. It was a complicated film when robot became humans,” said the director.
Up next is Kuckreja’s film on Kashmir. “It is based on poem, Ya Khuda Mere Khwabo Ki Tabeer Ho, Kashmir Phir Wahi Kashmir Ho. It’s a short film of over six minutes. I have picked up selected 75 paintings on Kashmir. It also has filmy paintings from the film Kashmir Ki Kali, showing Sharmila Tagore and Shammi Kapoor,” he said.