Madhur Bhandarkar was in town recently — his leggy cast of Calendar Girls in tow — to promote the film that releases today. t2 caught up with the three-time National Award winner on what makes him tick.

You’ve been travelling extensively promoting Calendar Girls. What’s the buzz been like?
I have been getting tremendous response… right from the teaser to the trailer. Arijit’s (Singh) song Khwaishein has become a huge hit. We started the promotions from Nagpur and then went to Chandigarh, Pune and now Calcutta… and over the last 10 days, the buzz has only grown. I am on Twitter and Facebook and I get instant feedback. I have made the film with newcomers… they are not star daughters, and yet the buzz is so much. People are curious to watch the film. I have made Calendar Girls on a budget of Rs 9 crore and shot just 41 days… it’s a very tight film.

But you did have a problem with the censors, resulting in a delay…
See, the problem was that I wanted the film to have a U/A certificate (the film now has an A certificate). It would have been great to show this film to a 13 or 14-year-old because that’s the age when minds are impressionable. The censor board, however, felt otherwise and gave me an A certificate and asked for two-three words to be changed. Then, I went to the revising committee and they told me the same thing: ‘Madhur, you have made a film high on content. We don’t mind giving you the U/A certificate, but then you will have to chop a lot and we don’t want you to butcher your film’. I agreed with them and let the film be the way it is — taut, hard-hitting and very high on emotions. I am not against the censor board… this is a country of diversity and we need to be sensitive to what others feel. But I feel they should be a little liberal… they should know the credentials of a director whose film they are censoring and what his intentions are.... Yes, I do feel a little restricted… in this whole film, I haven’t shown anyone smoking because I didn’t want the ‘No Smoking’ warning on screen to distract my viewer. 

But that means you had to compromise on showing the reality of your subject…
Exactly! I have made my whole career on showing reality. People like me because of the reality I show in my films… they connect with it. But unfortunately, we can’t always do that as filmmakers in this country.  

If one has to go by a Madhur Bhandarkar film, then the worlds of fashion, Bollywood and journalism are crass and cut-throat. Why just explore the underbelly?
(Laughs) I love to show that! My question is that if one can write about these things in newspapers and broadcast them on news channels, then why not in films? I show the true face of these worlds. I don’t think there’s anything wrong in that. I am happy that I have created a niche for myself showing the underbelly of these glamorous worlds. I am not here to worry about: ‘Yeh kya sochega, woh kya sochega?’ 

I make films from my gut. I followed up a blockbuster like Fashion with a relatively small-budget film called Jail (starring Neil Nitin Mukesh) because I wanted to do a dark film on the lives of undertrials. I don’t regret anything… I make the films I want. These questions are never asked to people who constantly keep making romantic cinema or those who have made a career out of just making films on the underworld (smiles).

I have always faced mockery in my profession… when I made Page 3 (with Konkona Sensharma), people were like, ‘What’s this?!’ With Traffic Signal (starring Kunal Khemu), they said, ‘Arre, yeh toh ab traffic signal pe ghoom raha hai’… but that film got me a National Award.

Everyone shows the happy and candyfloss side of things… the challenge is to show what actually happens. In Calendar Girls, I want to show what happens to these glamorous girls who adorn our calendars once the year is over and we throw these calendars away. My research shows that 99.9 per cent of them sink into oblivion. It’s a microscopic minority who make it. My film is on this 99.9 per cent of girls… where do they go? I researched and saw that many of them are now in rehab. 

Your films always have strong women protagonists. Is your understanding of women from observation or experience?
Observation. I talk to a lot of people to get stories for my films. But I am also interested in stories about men… stories are not gender-specific. I like delving deep into human psychology. My story can be about a bar girl or a top Bollywood heroine. I interact with people at the grass roots on a day-to-day basis. I often take an auto from home to office… that’s why my stories are so authentic, the worlds that I create are so real. People ask me, ‘Arre Madhur, how do you get these details and nuances so minutely?’ My knowledge of films is tremendous. But yes, I feel I have a talent for telling stories about women… their strength and their struggles…. 

But then your films also objectify women…
You mean the item numbers I have, right? Halkat jawaani (in Heroine) was a part of the script. And we have, as a Bollywood-loving country, always liked item numbers, right from the time of Helen. I haven’t been doing anything new. But my films have no nudity. 

Most filmmakers with a body of work are ultimately known for that one great film. Do you think you can make a Chandni Bar again?
I don’t know, really. But I make all my films with the same passion. They all may not have the same box-office results, but my zeal and enthusiasm for every film is the same. Certain films just become big with time… that’s what’s happened with Chandni Bar (starring Tabu). Even I didn’t understand when it became so cult (smiles).

Priyanka Roy
Which is Madhur Bhandarkar’s best/ worst film? Tell t2@abp.in