ELECTION 99
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Shabana puts onus for Water on State

Suparn Verma in Varanasi

This time the moral brigade has struck right at the heart of the holy city of Varanasi where Deepa Mehta was about to start shooting the last of her trilogy, Water.

For a month, Mehta's production unit was assembling the sets in the basement of the Clarke Hotels. Four days ago they began moving the sets to the ghats where the shooting was to begin on January 30.

On the night of January 29, District Magistrate Alok Kumar received a visitor. It was the local member of the legislative assembly, Bharatiya Janata Party politician Shyamdeo Rai Chaudhary. Chaudhary warned that if the shooting began, he and his supporters would physically stop it.

Alok Kumar informed the producers, "but they did not ask for security, so I could not provide them with anything".

According to the officer, the protests had actually started 10 days ago. "I told them to approach the state government and show them the script too, so that these rumblings would stop. But they did nothing of the kind," he says.

"I believe in freedom of speech, but I'm against violence," he continues. "We have now put guards on all their sets and given them bodyguards. In fact the producers didn't even let us know where they had erected the sets! As of now shooting has been suspended. I'm not competent to give my opinion on anything. It is up to the state government to get back."

The protesters complained that the film attacks Indian culture and the Hindu religion. Since then there have been various distortions of the script going around.

Clarifies actress Shabana Azmi, who has tonsured her head to portray the role of a widow, "The film is not about a lower-class man falling in love with a Brahmin girl. I play a widow in the 1930s who has been in the ashram for 25 years or so, and is stoic, rusted, until a child widow Chuniya (Urvi) comes to the ashram and acts as a catalyst in everyone's lives."

Azmi, a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha, says, "We need to keep our focus on the fact that this film was cleared by the I&B [information and broadcasting] ministry which is the necessary permission you need if you are a foreign film-maker. They read the script and cleared it without a cut, obviously because they did not find anything offensive. Having done that, it now becomes the responsibility of the State that we are allowed to do our work without being hampered, peacefully.

"But now it is being said that a law-and-order situation is being created. But we are not the people who have created that. We are the victims of that. So how can we be penalised?

"The people who are creating disorder are the people against whom the State needs to take action. Where does the law-abiding citizen of this country go after having fulfilled all conditions? That is the main question, let's not move away from it!" says the parliamentarian.

Azmi says the shooting never actually began. "They have reportedly destroyed the sets. I haven't been to the sets because I have been housebound. Mercifully nobody was injured."

She says negotiations are still going on and "I don't want to shut off the chances that the negotiations might result in our being able to do the film".

She says it is not as if the entire city is up in arms against the film. "There are many citizens who are standing up in support. There is only one section that is hell-bent of creating a furore. This means they don't trust their own government."

"In fact," laughs Azmi, "one man even told us there was no child widow in the 1930s!"

But why does the film have to be shot in Varanasi? 1947 -- Earth was shot in Delhi because it was felt that shooting in Lahore could be troublesome.

"I think that is a choice the director should have, where he should have the freedom to say this is where I'm basing my film; what do you mean why?"

Commenting on Mehta's statement that she had suffered a loss of $600,000, Alok Kumar says, "That must be the overall cost. In my report to the state government, I have stated that the damage on the sets is not more than Rs 4,000-5,000."

The BJP legislator had rushed off for an "urgent meeting" before rediff.com could reach him for a statement.

On the way to Assi Ghat, one of the two venues of the shoot, we hear an interesting anecdote. When Sunny Deol was shooting on the ghats for Rajkumar Santoshi's Ghatak, he had hired a famous Benarasi wrestler for some fight sequences. During one such sequence, the wrestler outclassed Deol and slammed him down. Perturbed, the star told the muscleman, "I've hired you to get slammed, not slam me." This irritated the local people who were watching the filming, and they began pelting rotten tomatoes on the unit. Ultimately the police had to be called in.

At the ghats is a huge crowd. A youth explains, "Abhishek Bachchan is shooting for Dil Ek Khvab Hai."

A litter of policemen are drinking tea. On being asked about the disputed sets, a head constable looks up. "Don't you read the newspapers? There are some ladders here, some there [he points to Tulsi Ghat]. That woman just loves doing this, making films like Fire and Water. Why should they make so many negative films?"

Another of the men joins in. "I have seen Haathi Mere Saathi 12 times and so have my kids. Now that was a movie."

A smile from the head constable makes a wiry-looking policeman pipe up. "She didn't even tell us where her sets are so that we could have guarded them. Now look at us, we are on guard here for Water and this Bachchan film, plus we have guards there."

But the film is about women's suffering, we tell them, repeating what Azmi has told us. "If you talk of liberation there has to be some degree of oppression. If there isn't oppression, what will they be liberated from? What is important is what the film is ultimately saying. It shows emancipation through a dramatic story. It leaves you with hope, with courage."

But the head constable doesn't appreciate logic much. "Yes, but there are so many problems. Do you only have to concentrate on them? A good cop dies, no one writes anything. A corrupt cop rapes someone, that makes headlines!"

The wiry policeman pipes up again: "You know, she is making her films on the five elements -- water, earth, fire, air and space."

No, she isn't, she is just doing three, we clarify. "Oh," he smiles. "She must have got scared!"

EARLIER REPORT:
Uttar Pradesh government disallows shooting of Water

Tell us what you think of this report