The just-released ‘Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola’ created a lot of buzz owing to its unusual title. Rajiv Vijayakar engages Imran, Anushka, Pankaj and Vishal in a conversation about the film.
When the film was announced, the title sounded bizarre, with no word making sense but for bijlee, thanks to the ambiguity of pronunciation with the words matru and mandola as spelt in English. The meaning has been long known — it simply refers to Mandola, who ‘belongs’ to Bijlee, who is Matru’s girl, as played respectively by Pankaj Kapur, Anushka Sharma and Imran Khan.
What was not publicly out, says writer-director, co-producer and music director Vishal Bhardwaj, is the fact that the film is not an esoteric piece of work, but a dark comedy or satire on land scams, something cleverly concealed by the team till now. Even the song, listed as Lootnewale on the audio soundtrack in the film, is actually Huq lootnewale (those who snatch away our rights).
“Today, huge scams are rampant,” says Bhardwaj. “So much so that a scam less than 100 crore is not a scam at all.” In a dig at mainstream cinema that is clearly not his scene, he says, “Wahaan bhi ek 100 karod ka club hai (There is a 100-crore club even there).”
The director says that he was having fun while tackling a serious socio-political issue, and that was the challenge in making his first comedy. “But there is a character study there too. Yes, I gave my film this title rather than something that reflected the subject. I could not have called my film Amar Akbar Anthony though.”
Asked why he has not done an outside film as a music director in years, he replies, “No one takes me. Why should I refuse otherwise?”
He admits that he had approached Ajay Devgn for the role of Matru, but Imran Khan, he feels now, turned out to be the best choice. As for the gulabi bhains (a pink buffalo) whom Bhardwaj describes as the ‘item girl’ in the film (she even winks!), the filmmaker reveals that the animal’s character has a special significance in the plot. “My friend Steve Alter suggested the idea,” he says.
Matru..., says Pankaj Kapur, is a sashakt (strong) film. After many years (Blue Umbrella), Kapur is working with Bhardwaj again, and rates him very high among filmmakers.
“Acting is my first and last love,” declares the versatile actor who has done it all — every kind of role on screen, stage and television, since the ’80s.
“My role in the film is almost like a split personality. I am lovable and even childish when drunk but ruthless and quite conniving when sober. I am, however, attached to my daughter Bijlee, and to Matru, my man Friday, so to speak. As a film, it makes a statement even as it is very entertaining.”
Kapur has always got pivotal roles in Bhardwaj films, playing the title role in Maqbool, and also the main lead in Blue Umbrella. “Bhardwaj also pushes the envelope and dares to enter areas others do not. Maybe it is just a coincidence that he has always given me key roles and I am additionally grateful to him for this.”
And while Kapur is obviously proud of his son Shahid Kapoor, he admits that he was pleasantly surprised to see the dedication and application of his young co-stars Imran and Anushka too. “My beard and hair have turned white,” he smiles. “Why are you asking me so many questions? Ask these youngsters who deserve it more.”
Camaraderie
Imran and Anushka reciprocally rave about their senior co-star. At the same time, Imran admits, “Working with an actor as skilled as Pankaj Kapur can be very unnerving for me. You never know what he will come up with when the camera rolls. He is like a bomb that explodes and whose impact, though known to some extent, is still unpredictable.”
Imran is doing a socially-conscious film for the first time in his career. The actor, who happily grew a beard and moustache for the role, is also quite conscious of issues like environment and conservation, which is why he has put in solar energy converters in his new home, the renovated house of his grandfather Nasir Husain, into which he recently shifted.
On a lighter note, he quips, “I have learnt Hindi gaalis (abuses) while working on the film, apart from other things.” The language used is a dialect of Hindi, adds Bhardwaj, who refutes the idea that it will be incomprehensible to the lay audience. “It will take a few minutes to get into the groove,” he feels. “There is nothing that cannot be understood.”
But the film is perhaps the biggest challenge for its lead actress Anushka Sharma, hitherto best at doing spunky, urban roles in Yash Raj Films’ confections, as well as outside (Patiala House), and also getting into Punjabi small-town mode in Band Baaja Baaraat. What’s more, Bhardwaj’s sensibilities are far different from that of her previous directors.
With a broad smile, Anushka admits, “Vishal’s world is very different from that of my films till now, and it was exciting to be a part of it. A director’s perspective is always a culmination of his life and experiences and I have never seen myself the way Bijlee is as a person. The relationships in this film are different too.”
Anushka makes light of the scene wherein she rises out of the water (a scene from so many Hindi films down the decades), though the buzz is that Vishal has edited out most of that sequence. She smilingly says that she wants to “kill him!” “It was not easy! The water was so muddy and dirty with so many insects in it,” she wails. The Haryana village where it was shot and the nearby fields had flies entering her nose while she was shooting songs too. But in an uncharacteristic understatement, she dismisses that with, “It was distracting.”
Perfect choice
Bhardwaj decided to approach Anushka after watching Band Baaja Baaraat, and the youngest Khan after another sleeper hit, Delhi Belly. Says the actress about her director, “Vishal makes you like characters who have flaws. Bijlee is perhaps the most layered character I have ever played, not just the spunky girl I felt she was, the kind that I have essayed in most of my films. Oddly, I still do not relate to Bijlee — she has no ambition, and no reference point in my life from which I could take inputs to essay her. There was a point when I was almost sure that I was not getting her right, which is where Vishal reassured me.”
Imran too was unsure about doing his role, and was again reassured by his director, even after he felt that he had messed up a shoot. “It was not easy though. The Haryanvi dialect, I thought, deserved a visit to the North and a spell of hanging out with the locals. They actually speak in a typical sing-song way, and more than practising, I had to absorb that nuance to replicate it when I shot for the film. Vishal gave me much more freedom than I expected. I was allowed improvisations I thought of, and that motivated me to do well.”
Unworried about not being a member of the 100-crore film club as yet, Imran feels that such parameters, like the jubilees of yore, have little significance unless a film is remembered years and decades down the line. “That’s the kind of film I would like to do, and if they have done great business too, so much the better,” says the actor.