Producer-director Anand L Rai’s latest venture Zero is a reflection of the transformation that is underway in the Hindi film industry, says Saimi Sattar
A little arrogant but still loveable, which is a brilliant combination. Self-confident, sure, a little quirky, edgy, sharp but has a heart in the the right place. If I list all these qualities, it is very difficult for me to say whether I have described Meerut, where Zero is set, or the character of Bauua, who is the protagonist,” says director-producer Anand L Rai, who is the narrator of a resurgent India that is rising from the raw earth, dusting itself casually and claiming the mike to announce its right to co-exist. This isn’t the first time that his protagonist personifies the cities that aren’t shy of disembowelling their angularities and spilling out their guts. “In Raanjhanaa, Kundan was Benaras, in Tanu Weds Manu, Manu was Delhi,” he adds.
With mofussil towns lending the canvas on which a film’s story is painted, Rai has been adding layers of complexity with each film that shows us a cross-flow of identities that a changing India has become. “My stories are where the real country lives. When I was making Tanu Weds Manu, nobody expected that a girl from a small town could be so bold. But now it is acceptable that a Kanpur girl, who studied in Delhi, would have evolved and developed her own set of ideologies. In Raanjhanaa, Kundan, Dhanush’s character from Benaras, was organic in his completeness and could take on the world. Abhay’s character, who studied at Jawaharlal Nehru University, had his own sensibilities and confidence. They represent the country equally well and it is important that we don’t homogenise youth,” he tells us as he lounges in his suite at a hotel in Gurugram, which overlooks the road that’s leading to or coming from, depending on your perspective, Delhi.
Rai wanted the cast of Zero to travel to Meerut to get a feel of the city but they couldn’t. However, he did spend a lot of time there before he started shooting. Along with the shift towards smaller towns is the readiness to explore stories where the protagonists are less than picture-perfect in appearance — something that had been a no-go zone earlier. Rai says, “Film makers are more confident about having real conversations and are more in sync with the audience which enables us to present the stories that we do today. It is our way of taking something from our society and giving back to it. It is about normalising what we consider taboos. This is our chance to say that the so-called physically or vertically challenged person is as good as we are for we all have some flaws. Flaws are beautiful — filmmakers are understanding that and making the society comprehend that too. One can’t calculate happiness. Perhaps a girl on a wheelchair can be happier than me. It is all about enjoying and celebrating the incompleteness.”
Another manner in which the story-telling has progressed is the way it looks at different kinds of relationships beyond the paradigms of conventional ones. “Zero is complex and layered. If you want me to describe it, then there is a love story (Shahrukh-Anushka) and then there is a bond (Shahrukh-Katrina). It is not a triangle. There is a modern perspective rather than the usual man-woman love story. Somewhere it is also breaking the rule of strata where a top actress and a dwarf can have a conversation and chemistry,” he says.
Rai believes that as story-tellers, filmmakers have to give the audience a little extension of themselves every time they get down on the floor. “We were limiting ourselves by working on formula. You can’t play safe any more. If you do, there is more likelihood of you failing. Go a mile and the audience will walk with you,” he says.
Though any industry assessment would attribute the swing towards unconventional content to a change in audience taste, Rai believes there is greater empathy. “More than the audience acceptability, what is working is that we as makers are understanding the audience way better. Earlier, we felt a hero with an erectile dysfunction or a geriatric pregnancy would not be acceptable to the viewer but that was because we were judging for them. The minute we broke down our barriers and thought that we have to tell a good story, things changed. It is a gradual process and during the journey there were films like Tanu Weds Manu, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, Vicky Donor and Badhai Ho. For the first time, there is no talking down from our rarefied spaces but a give-and-take. There is an unsaid conversation that has put both the director and audience at ease with each other. A decade ago, a Badhai Ho would have been rejected by the studio but today it is ideal.”
While many feel that it is the the digital medium which is powering the change in content, Rai agrees only partially. “It is a very healthy competition. The digital medium is like a delineation tool, because it helps us understand what is cinematic and what is not. What the digital platform has done is give us more clarity and bifurcation,” he says. However, he is yet to foray into the new platform. “It’s a different structure and form and needs a different kind of story-telling. I need to understand that before I start,” he adds.
A consistent theme that runs through his films are strong women characters, who are no wall flowers or pushovers and whom Rai insists are drawn from the world around him. “Women today are strong; they are holding up families, while making us proud. They aren’t as dependent as they were earlier. So Datto from Jhajjar in Haryana can take care of her family and be an able athlete in the same breath and not feel apologetic about loving a man who comes from a different cultural context. Why, she even unsettles the worldly wise Tanu,” says Rai as he chooses each word carefully.
While being true to his storyline, Rai has been undaunted by the star system, having worked with a string of actors, young and old. This is the first time that he has worked with SRK and has nothing but praise for King Khan. “He really works hard on the detailing of any character. He is well-read and does his homework even though people might believe, that given his star status he doesn’t. Apart from that, he is fun to work with and the most obedient actor. In fact, one has to be very careful about asking him what one wants because he won’t stop till he delivers his 100 per cent,” he says. He was quite comfortable working with the trio of topliners, SRK, Anushka and Katrina. “Very easy to work with, professional, loveable and intelligent. At no point did they make me feel that I was working with big stars. We were aiming at the same target of telling a story as best as we could. Life was beautiful and there were no egos or tantrums.”
The filmmaker ensures that the audience, too, believes that life is beautiful. “I want to give them their money’s worth for the 2.5 hours that they spend in the theatre. There should be something that they take away but it should be layered with entertainment in a manner that it is not in your face,” he says. And though he is now a producer himself, he maintains his balance between his dual roles. “I am a director by choice and a producer by chance. The producer in me gives everything to the director, which the latter in me wants from the former. As a director, I want a certain kind of space, responsibility and work. I understand the economics of film-making very well and this enabled me to create a platform, the Colour Yellow Productions, which I can claim is ‘ek director ka production house’. I don’t direct films every year. I do it once every two or two-and-a-half years. This platform is for like-minded people who can direct films that I can’t like a Tumbadd or Newton.” Clearly, he has attained a balance of sorts.