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In an atmosphere charged with communally-fuelled hatred, a new film starring Nobel winner Amartya Sen’s daughter Nandana Sen will be very relevant. After a really long time, filmmaker Ketan Mehta, who once did splendid cinema like Mirch Masala with Smita Patil and Naseeruddin Shah, has surfaced with a beautifully filmed Rang Rasiya, the story of the severely criticised Indian artist Raja Ravi Varma. Whether it’s M.F. Husain or Ravi Varma, separated by over a century, the debate over artistic freedom and politically-motivated censorship never really subsides. And when the story of Raja Ravi Varma unfolds like a painting on celluloid, it’s certainly going to make the audience sit up and either tear it to pieces or laud it.
It was Anup Jalota’s wife Medha’s birthday and she celebrated it differently by screening Rang Rasiya for a small ‘ladies only’ audience. Anup, who was there to ensure that the show went off without a hitch, called Ketan Mehta on the dais and chuckled, “I told him to come along and give me company since I was going to be the only male around.”
Ketan and his wife actress Deepa Sahi have had almost as tough a time as Ravi Varma himself to bring Rang Rasiya to the theatres. It is a controversial film for sure, as Ketan has taken all the artistic liberties that Ravi Varma did. With Nandana Sen, who plays the beautiful, young keep of a decrepit politician, as his muse, Ravi Varma paints without inhibition. And Nandana plays her part with equal abandon, baring much more than Zeenat Aman did in Satyam Shivam Sundaram. It would be a pity if the nudity fetched more attention than the film because Ketan has sprung a pleasant surprise by making every frame of Rang Rasiya look like a painting. And the stark truth that emerges from the film is that the story of Raja Ravi Varma is still relevant, a full century later.
When passions are unleashed with fury, it is calming to tell the real-life story of three friends. Robust Punjabi Anup Jalota, known as the bhajan samrat, Hyderabadi Talat Aziz, whose speciality is ghazals and has a Sindhi wife, and Gujarati Pankaj Udhas, who sings ghazals and geets and has a Parsi wife, have been a trio since the late 1970s. They have been such firm friends that 10 years ago they decided to revive Khazana, an annual musical event where a variety of singers come together to raise funds for cancer patients.
Anup Jalota, Talat Aziz and Pankaj Udhas may all be very big names in the music world but they are in and out of one another’s houses, they attend one another’s parties and there is a very strange absence of rivalry among them. In fact, sometime back when Anup was committed to do a bhajan programme in the north and couldn’t make it, he requested Talat to fill in for him. Talat who does not sing bhajans quickly shored up on his stock of devotional songs, augmented by some from Anup’s repertoire, and pulled off the show. Similarly, Pankaj’s daughter Nayaab, who has started putting together various events, calls up and books “Talat Uncle” for her shows. One day Pankaj even good naturedly reminded her that her dad too was a singer and in the same business.
It’s a friendship that has lasted over three decades with their families also holidaying and partying together. Talat remembered one evening when all of them had gone out of Mumbai for a show. After the programme, where all three of them sang, they headed back to the hotel and had such a blast drinking and singing a variety of songs, including old Hindi film numbers, that close friends told them it was far more entertaining than the formal show they had done earlier in the evening.
Anup, Talat and Pankaj have struck up a friendship that goes beyond religious and regional lines. It’s a friendship where they celebrate their differences and don’t allow competition to vitiate the atmosphere. Surely this is what the country needs today.
By the way, have you been following the slanging tweets between Anupam Kher and Taslima Nasreen? Kher asked Mukul Roy, the Trinamul Congress minister who didn’t visit a railway accident site, to wear bangles and sit at home. Taslima, the eternal feminist, breathed fire over his sexist remark. Lost in their battle of words was the real issue as the minister was soon forgotten. Losing focus, guys?
Bharathi S. Pradhan is editor, The Film Street Journal