Title: 'If your intentions
are honourable make the script public'
(The Rediff Interview/
Shyamdeo Ramchaudhary)
Author:
Publication: Rediff
on Net
Date: February 2, 2000
When irate mobs decided
to take the law, and Water's film-sets, into their own hands, leading the
brigade was the BJP legislator Shyamdeo Ramchaudhary. Never mind
if the government headed by his party had cleared the script, never mind
the impact such 'spontaneous' protests will have on the image of the nation,
Ramchaudhary's demand, made clear to Suparn Verma, is: make the script
public if you have nothing to hide.
Q. What is your
objection to Water being shot in Varanasi?
A lot is being said about
the film, whose script is under dispute. I want to say this, that
there are certain norms and cultural ways of Kashi and they must be shot,
we have no objections to them being shot either. When the complete
image is being portrayed, we have no problem. But when you narrow
your view down to some issues that may have existed years ago, issues which
were stray, it is not a good thing to show them.
From what we have heard
and what we have been told, the script has not been disclosed to everyone.
Maybe because the people will have objections to it. Hence the entire
populace here is of one mind, that in Kashi there may have been some incidents
long ago, but today Kashi is known everywhere as a holy land, Gautama Buddha
gave his first discourse here, this is the workplace of Saint Tulsidas,
Saint Kabir, it's famous for Benarasi saris, it is famous for the Ganges,
the ghats. It is a historical place. It is not known as a place
where child widows used to come and live in ashrams, where they would sell
their bodies or would be forced to sell their bodies. We have never
heard of it, it is not even documented in the history of Kashi, so how
can you tarnish the image of a city without reason?
There may have been stray
incidents but that is not part of our culture or something that is a practice
here. I protest against the picturisation of Varanasi the way it
being picturised in the film, it is an insult and shows utter disregard
of our tradition and we will never tolerate it. No one can come to
Kashi and insult our sensibilities by shooting negative stories, show them
to the West and portray the wrong signals.
We also understand that
the director of this film, Deepa Mehta, has always been a very disputed
and controversial filmmaker. Some time back she made Fire, there
was no Sita or Geeta ever in the film. Ismat Chugtai who wrote it,
never had a Sita or Geeta, so why couldn't she shoot that film in Lahore,
why did she have to come to Delhi to shoot it? And the names of the characters
insulted our religious sensibilities by calling them Sita and Geeta and
then she wins awards and makes money!
It was Radha and Sita
and the film Earth was shot in Delhi, not Lahore, and Bapsi Sidhwa wrote
the novel on which Earth was based, also wrote Fire.
Whoever it maybe, she
couldn't shoot there and that is why she ran away and then she comes to
shoot in our India and insults our culture. The homosexual encounter
she showed in the film, I have not seen the film, but that is not part
of our culture, nor does it exist in our lives! It doesn't even happen
in India, it is only rumoured that it exists except maybe for stray incidents.
So if someone wants to show all this and insult India, we can't give permission
to this nor can we appreciate it.
Q. But your own
BJP government cleared the film after reading the entire script.
Don't you trust your own government?
I have full trust in
my government but they may have seen something else and passed it.
Assume this, the story has it that someone gets married and he goes on
his honeymoon. Now no one will object to this, but if you film the
honeymoon, if you show wrong scenes, then it is definitely objectionable,
and the people who must have read it at that point must not have read it
in such depth. They may not have realised how the cultural image
of Varanasi is getting affected, but now that we are protesting they will
have to think again.
Q. Are our religion
and culture so weak that a film can shake it up?
It is not weak, it is
very old and very tolerant, but in the name of tolerance we can't let anyone
do whatever he wants.
Q. So you state
that there has been no incident of widows being exploited from 1930 till
date?
See, like I said before,
widows are revered in our society. Every family must have suffered
a loss in the family, but to show that child widows come here to sell their
bodies, to show that ashrams were created to exploit widows -- that is
what we object to. This is not our culture.
Q. The film doesn't
show that. As to the aspect you talk about, only one girl has such
a problem in the movie, the other widows are unaffected.
It maybe only one girl
but the story has been made on Kashi and Kashi has been represented in
such a way that in that period the widows or child widows who came here
were prostituted. People come to Kashi to attain nirvana, to learn
the Vedas and evolve as human beings. Another film is also being
shot here and no one has anyone objection to that.
Q. But do you approve
using violence and destroying the sets?
As far as breaking the
sets is concerned, when there is a mass movement people cannot control
their sentiments.
Q. So what do you
plan to do now?
Now we are informing
the public about this and trying to get the people involved and raise their
support -- slowly stoking the fire, so to say. Telling everyone that
this lady called Deepa Mehta has always tarnished India's image and portrayed
our culture and religion wrongly to the West. The Ganges is the most
revered place for us, to call it Water is so insulting! Calling it plain
Water!
Q. Mahashweta Devi
wrote a novel which was made into a movie starring Dilip Kumar, called
Sungharsh. It was shot in Varanasi and the story was about ghat thugs.
The move was seen, and forgotten. So why does Water scare you?
Passing that was a mistake,
but we won't allow the mistake to be repeated.
Q. You haven't
even seen the script, how can you have so many objections without knowing
what the movie is about?
We asked them to make
the script public and show it to everyone! We are telling you, people have
a problem with it, so if your intentions are honourable then make the script
public.
Q. No writer, no
painter or poet or artist makes his idea public until it is complete, so
why should this be any different?
You are right, but we
all know that a book is read by very few people, but when a movie is made,
a wrong message and a good message makes all the difference, minds are
affected by this message and films are seen by millions of people.
I'm sad that you know more about the script than us, but the common man
of Kashi doesn't know so much!
Q. So if you read
the script you will quieten down?
My anger or irritation
will come down, that is not the point, we have always said read us the
script first and clear our doubts.
