It’s not often that you see a team speak so passionately about their film. But Team Begum Jaan is all fired up for the Friday release. The Hindi adaptation of the 2015 Bangla film Rajkahini, Begum Jaan marks the Bolly debut of Srijit Mukherji, with Vidya Balan stepping into Rituparna Sengupta’s shoes to play the title role. On Monday morning, Team t2 landed up at Taj Bengal’s Souk for a special chat with Team Begum Jaan — Vidya, Srijit, producer Mahesh Bhatt, Pallavi Sharda who plays Gulabo and Kausar Munir, the co-writer of the film.
Excerpts...
Priyanka Roy (Team t2): Srijit, at what point of time did you feel that Rajkahini had the potential to be remade and to reach out to a wider audience?
Srijit Mukherji: When I made Rajkahini, I felt it should be a bilingual because I felt Partition, as a subcontinental tragedy, has a national resonance. Somehow, things didn’t work out and Vidya was not in the correct mental zone to do it. I aborted that plan and went about making it in Bangla. The Hindi thing happened quite by chance. I had gone to check the subtitles in Bombay… (Mahesh) Bhatt sa’ab was aware of my work. A friend of Bhatt sa’ab had recommended my work to him saying that this is a person who carries your filmmaking DNA. He had told me that if I were in Bombay then I should tell him.We arranged for a screening of Rajkahini for him in Bombay. He came and then he was… (turns to Mahesh Bhatt) visibly shaken?
Mahesh Bhatt: I was deeply stirred by the emotional experience of watching Rajkahini. I came out and looked at him with respect, awe and gratitude. He saw that in my silence. Next day, when he asked me to write something I said that when the storyteller’s heart is in the right place, then the moral compass of this country is intact. My brother (Mukesh) is a businessman, very suspicious of me leading him down some reckless path where we would destroy the equity that we had acquired. But he was brave enough to say that the film also touched him. Then we got Kausar Munir, the great writer, on board. When she gave us a narration, we were astounded by the energy. Rajkahini had changed… that was the butterfly moment!
When Srijit came back (after the Begum Jaan shoot), I met him in Delhi, and I looked at a man who had survived a shipwreck… or someone walking through the desert like Lawrence of Arabia. I told him, ‘Srijit, I’m certain that you have made a masterpiece’. And he looked at me and smiled and said, ‘Your suspicion is not untrue’. Just two days ago, I sat down to watch the film with my daughter Alia (Bhatt) and Rekha and I was amazed that I was watching this film for the fifth time! For Vishesh Films, this is a new beginning, a new spring for us.
Priyanka: Is putting your money on Begum Jaan a conscious effort to change the image of Vishesh Films as a company that’s predominantly made erotic thrillers over the last few years?
Mahesh: Mahesh Bhatt was known for films like Arth, Saaransh, Zakhm and Daddy. At some point, Mahesh Bhatt chose a turn to make Murder, Jism, Raaz, which gave us a lot of economic muscle. People loved those movies and that’s why they saw them. And then my friend told me that you must see the works of Srijit, which has a certain kind of irreverence. In an age and time when most people are echoes, Srijit is an original voice.
Priyanka: Vidya, were there any regrets when you watched Rajkahini, that you were not able to do that film?
Vidya Balan: No regrets, actually. I couldn’t do it at that time. When he came back with the film, I was more than thrilled. When I watched it, it just grabbed me and how. This is the least amount of time I have taken to say ‘Yes’ to any film… just two days.
Arindam Chatterjee (Team t2): Srijit, Begum Jaan opens in 2016, which is a departure from Rajkahini. Why?
Srijit: Rajkahini was written keeping in mind a certain flavour, milieu, sensibility, aesthetic. And now we were going on a journey that was much bigger in scope and milieu. It was like theatre… on the second performance you take your act to another level. The story of Rajkahini, however heroic, ends in 1947. It was a snapshot of a page of history, a subaltern take on Partition with its heroic characters. Now, if I had to tell the story again in 2017, it needed to be topical. Why would one watch it? Whatever story you tell the audience now, there has to be an umbilical cord with today.
Kausar Munir: I have a 15-year-old daughter and I am always interested in finding out how things are going to be relevant. It is one thing to give someone a history lesson, even if visually it may seem grand and dramatic. But the ideology… to be able to show 60-65 years later that we are still grappling with the same situation, whether it is social or the division of the classes… a lot of things came out of our conversations, a lot of things came out of our silences.
Srijit: Here we were not translating Rajkahini or remaking it. A different womb was inseminated with that seed. Hence, a different child was born.
Mahesh: I was taking to Alia about the film… she had reservations about some of the shocking moments that traumatised her. I said, ‘Alia, hold it. How long ago did you talk about any of my films with such passion?’
Srijit: She (Alia) sent me a one-kilometre message after watching the film! After the screening, I was standing behind the door waiting and Rekhaji came out… tears (gestures with his hands). Alia came out… tears. Someone went to take a reaction from Tanvi Azmi, and she waved that person away, saying, ‘I can’t talk now’. Alia held me and said, ‘I don’t like you’. For a storyteller, that ‘I don’t like you’ is the greatest award. One beautiful moment happened when Rekhaji came and stood in front of Vidya… and she just looked at her, held her. Vidya wiped away the tears from her cheeks and then touched her feet.
Mahesh: The last time I heard Alia clap in a movie hall was when Mufasa comes to rescue Simba (in The Lion King)! And now in Begum Jaan when Pallavi’s character does something, she clapped. And so did Rekha!
Pallavi Sharda: The cryptic moment we are speaking about, that’s a vindication to what my character does throughout. It was the last thing I shot on set… it was very emotional, and I have a photograph of the two of us (she and Vidya) right after I shot it, and my tears are streaming down.
Tiash De (second year, Presidency University and a Vidya fan): Vidya, you become the characters that you play. What did you have to do to become Begum Jaan, who had been played before?
Vidya: I haven’t seen a woman with this kind of an attitude ever, personally or on screen. She really is the embodiment of power. She cares two hoots about anything. I enjoyed every word that I spoke. Bhatt sa’ab asked me when I was taking those two days (to decide), ‘Are you worried because Rituparna has done such a good job?’ Because yes, she has done such a marvellous job. And I was like, ‘No I am not scared, I am actually greedy’. At that point, I did not know it would be an adaptation… I thought it’d be a remake… and I am not open to remakes. But this one, I just couldn’t resist.
Arindam: Vidya, what comes to your mind when we say ‘snakes’? During the shoot in Patjor in Jharkhand, we know that Srijit caught two snakes and went towards your vanity van…
Vidya: And I ran! Sab bravery chala gaya.... I didn’t get out of the van until he had left the set. I’m petrified of snakes… and cats!
Priyanka: Cats?
Vidya: I don’t trust them.
Srijit: The snakes just wanted to say ‘Hi’ to Begum Jaan!
Vidya: He was just being slimy! [Everyone laughs]
Priyanka: Srijit, with so many women around, were you the ladies’ man on set?
Vidya: Oh yes! [Everyone goes LOL]
Srijit: We were not in a psychological state to be anything apart from being warriors. Warriors don’t have gender. They just have a battle on hand to be won. Men, women, snakes, scorpions, dogs, parrots… everyone became a warrior with one vision and mission… to live the story… every day someone would get hurt. Someone would faint. It was so hot... it was schizophrenic weather. And the tears that you see... it’s all real. There are scenes where people are actually sweating and it is looking so pretty on screen, and so real.
Vidya: It was so real! We spoke to Gopida (Gopi Bhagat, cinematographer) after that. Any other cinematographer would have said, ‘Nahin Srijit, zara ponch do’, but he didn’t…
Srijit: To begin with, there were women who were trying to be pretty… they were doing make-up on the sly. And I used to sit with a tissue near the gates of the set and there would be a school inspection! [Everyone laughs]
Vidya: The cute part of it was there were people who came and told me, ‘Par usko toh lagaane diya!’ [Everyone laughs out loud]
Srijit: Yes, some would come and complain to me, saying ‘Sir, Gauahar (Khan, who plays Rubina) has put on some make-up’ and Gauahar would be like, ‘I haven’t done anything… this is my natural complexion!’ Main kya karoon? I am fair!
Vidya: The person who had the most amount of make-up on was Ilaji (Arun)!
Srijit: She used to do make-up between shots! On the shot, her character couldn’t wear make-up. So between shots, she would put on make-up and also sing and dance because when the other girls were singing and dancing she couldn’t and she would scream at me, ‘I’m Ila Arun… I am supposed to sing!’
Mahesh: Srijit, which was the first scene you shot?
Srijit: The first scene was a remarkable scene… there was a torrential downpour and the raja, played by Naseeruddin Shah, comes to meet Begum Jaan. So on the first day of shoot, I had Naseeruddin Shah, Vidya Balan, a song by Asha Bhosle… and a leaking terrace! They were doing an intense scene and my ADs (assistant directors) would be standing with buckets so that the drops of water didn’t come into the frame. And I was like, this can’t be real… first day of shoot of my debut Hindi film and what if a droplet falls on Naseer sa’ab’s head and he walks out?!
Tiash: Vidya, your characters have been helpless on some level, even if they have overcome it on their own. Does Begum Jaan also have a certain helplessness?
Vidya: No, no… which is why Begum Jaan is such a unique woman. She’s never needed anyone. She just doesn’t crumble. Which is why I needed to spend so much time with Srijit because I needed to know what has led her here. She does have fears, but she never crumbles…
Kausar: Even if she does have those fears, she’s unapologetic about it.
Mahesh: Vidya is also a very generous actor. The kind of performance that’s come from her, it’s not possible to do it unless there is something subliminal… it’s not instruction or craft, it’s something else.
Pallavi: On behalf of all the other girls too, I want to point out how generous an actor Vidya is. Her generosity is overwhelming and you know you are working with Vidya Balan, but on set she gives you so much.
Srijan Mukherjee (t2 reader and a Srijit-Vidya fan): Srijit, your Autograph was inspired by Nayak. If you had to remake a Hindi classic, what would it be?
Vidya: I think he should make Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam with me!
Mahesh: Bandini…
Srijit: Autograph was about a guy who wants to remake Nayak… so there was a film within a film structure. In 2011, there were lots of whispers about it being remade in Hindi with Shah Rukh (Khan) and Ranbir (Kapoor). So when I thought that if I made Autograph in Hindi, then what’s the film within the film we would make? We shortlisted two — Kaagaz ke Phool and Abhimaan.
Arindam: Vidya, what was it like handling a gun on set?
Vidya: Initially at the workshop, the guns seemed like child’s play, but on shoot, they actually felt heavier probably because there was some level of anxiety. They were loaded…
Srijit: And they were firing! The workshops helped a lot… and we did a photoshoot with the guns also.
Priyanka: Vidya, you should have run after Srijit with the gun when he came in with the snakes!
Vidya: I did, I did! [Everyone laughs] But I am also greedy, na… I wanted him there till the end.
Priyanka: Vidya, did the abuses roll off the tongue easily or did you have to work hard on getting them right?
Vidya: Happily… not just easily! [Laughs out loud]
Srijit: I was thinking of directing her, but I saw she was doing just fine! Ritu is a very soft-spoken person, so in the Bengali version, I had to show her how to abuse. But here (points to Vidya) I would go like, ‘Ho gaya… cut, cut, cut!’ And she would say, ‘Ek aur!’ [Everyone laughs, Vidya loudest of all]
Pictures: Pabitra Das
