1. You are in no way inferior to Western minds. You should just get rid of this mental block of yours. Ans: Thanks for your superior opinion Sir but my inferior feeling comes from a superior understanding of  how inferior we are to them thereby making me superior to inferior people like you who think [...]

1) What did you think of “Inception” Ans: It is the kind of a film which will make any Director in the world feel like an idiot compared to Nolan. The greatest thing about it is that Nolan takes it for granted that the audience are intelligent where as most of us idiotic Directors assume [...]

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1.  Why do you twist questions and then answer? Ans: I just straighten the twisted thought behind your straight question so that my straightened answer will twist your thought. 2. You are not only mad, but there is also a manipulative madness in you. Ans: I madly manipulate to manipulate madness. 3. Is there a [...]

When people keep asking me about how much truth there will be in ‘RAKTA CHARITRA’ I keep answering them that it will be an absolutely truthful depiction of the original story but it will be only an absolute truth as in of what I believe to be the absolute truth of the story but what [...]

1. Everybody wants money and power, but how come only a few achieve this? Ans: Dumbo if everybody achieved money and power then money and power won’t have any value. 2. Which is the strongest emotion of all in a human being? Ans: Jealousy. 3. Is out of box promotion and an innovative marketing campaign [...]

1. Sometimes women seem to be far better in fantasy than in reality Ans: That’s because in Fantasy you can control them and in reality they control you. 2. You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid consequences of reality. Ans: But by taking decisions on subsequential consequences you can still avoid reality. 3. The [...]

No one has ever been afraid to take a shower before 1960 until Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho turned a daily bathing ritual into a perfect setting for a murder. Even though the horror film turns 50 this year and inspite of us watching numerous films of the same genre it continues to remain in every film [...]

1.  There are those who analyze everything to the thousandth detail and then there are those who die without ever analyzing anything. Ans: And then there are those who analyze  everything and yet know nothing and also those who know that only by not analyzing anything can one know everything. 2. Including you, thousands would [...]

1. Is commercialization the goal of civilization? Ans: Civilization comes from Commercialization 2. Why do you think an affair is better than a marriage? Ans: An affair is where the couple work towards each other and in a marriage they work against each other. 3. The pursuit of any worthwhile goal will always be the [...]

In Vijaywada when I was doing my engineering there were so many times when I used to stand in the line waiting to buy a ticket for the new Sridevi movie and I used to keep staring in awe at her on the hoardings in the theater compound.

Her beauty and her sex appeal were so strong that it took many many films and many many years for both us audience and the film industry to realise and recognise the actress in her which was first showcased according to me in the most effective way in ‘Mr. India’ by Shekhar Kapur. Even though many films even in the beginning of her career showed her acting talent right from her debut film, her super stardom kind of brought out only her sex symbol image which was so strong that it blinded everybody to the tremendous talent in her.

Mr. India made the audience discover a new Sridevi primarily because of the way how Shekar Kapur’s aesthetics captured both her extraordinary beauty and her incredible performance.

My journey to Sridevi started when I was preparing for my debut film ‘Shiva’. I used to walk from Nagarjuna’s office in Chennai to a neighbouring street where Sridevi used to live and I used to just stand and watch Sridevi’s house from outside her gate. I just couldn’t believe that the goddess of beauty lives in that stupid looking house. I say stupid because I believed that no man made house deserved to house that beauty called SRIDEVI. I used to so desperately hope to catch a glimpse of her as she went in or out of her house. But sadly to my utter disappointment no such thing ever happened.

And then after ‘Shiva’ released and became a big hit producer Gopal Reddy came to me and asked if I was interested in doing a film with Sridevi. I said “Are you mad or what? I will die to just see her, let alone make a film with her!” Gopal Reddy arranged a meeting with her and took me to meet her at that very same house where I used to stand outside the gate and stare. At around 7.30 in the night we went and as luck would have it there was a power cut in her house. so I was sitting in her living room in candle light along with Gopal Reddy waiting for the angel to appear and my heart was thumping like mad. Her mother told us she was busy packing as she was about to catch a flight to go to Mumbai.

As we were waiting, every once in a while Sridevi was rapidly crossing the living room as she was moving from one room to another room in a rush to finish her packing even as she apologetically smiled at me for the delay. Everytime she was appearing and disappearing in a flash the director in me started slow motioning her and running her backward and forward for my visual pleasure.

Finally she came and sat in the living room, just said a mandatory few lines that she would very much like to work with me, which I am sure she would have said to a host of other directors and then she left for Mumbai. I continued talking to her mother with enormous respect and awe because she actually gave birth to Sridevi.

I went back to my place feeling like I was in the seventh heaven. The way Sridevi sat in front of me in the candle light got imprinted in my mind like an exquisite painting and with her image completely filling both my mind and my heart I started writing Kshana Kshanam.

I wrote Kshana Kshanam with the one and only purpose so as to impress Sridevi. Kshana Kshanam was intended by me as a love letter to her.

Throughout the making of Kshana Kshanam I just couldn’t take my eyes off her charm, her beauty her personality and her demeanor was a new discovery for me. She had an invisible wall around her and she does not let anyone cross that. Behind that wall she maintains her dignity and her self-respect and she never lets anyone inside. Also during the course of working with her and observing her technique of acting I began to understand more and more as a director about the nuances of performances and characterizations and for me she formed the epitome of cinematic acting which I believe is many times more complex and many times more effective than theatre acting.

When I was shooting “Andanantha Ettha Tara Theeram” song in Kshana Kshanam. After a certain shot in which Venkatesh and Sridevi were dancing I said “fantastic” and the dance master asked for one more take. After the shot was done, once again I said “fantastic” and the dance master again asked for one more…

I asked my assistant why he is asking for one more and he said “Sir, you are looking at Sridevi and he is looking at Venkatesh”.

Well, if she was in the frame no matter who else was there and what else was happening I and millions of others used to only look at her.

Her popularity and stardom had to be seen to be believed. We were shooting for the climax in Nandyal for Kshana Kshanam and the whole town came to a standstill when they came to know that Sridevi was in town. Banks, Govt offices, Schools, Colleges everything in town stopped functioning as everyone wanted to see Sridevi.

She stayed in a traveller’s bungalow in Nandyal and at a little distance me and Venkatesh were staying in another bungalow. There used to be a crowd of atleast 10,000 around her bungalow throughout the night just staring at it. There were about 50 tough local guys along with a 100 strong police force who used to continuously guard her.

When we were at location we used to know that Sridevi started from her bungalow to come to location because we used to see a column of dust that was travelling towards us from the distance. The dust was due to the thousands of people running behind her car.

Well anyway to cut short, a very long heart touching story of my feelings towards Sridevi I finished Kshana Kshanam and then went on to make Govinda, Govinda with her and in due course I have seen her going through a lot of personal tragedies like her father’s death and her mother’s mental illness.

The woman who the men of the entire nation desired was suddenly left all alone in the world till Boney Kapoor stepped in to fill the vaccum.

So straight from her super stardom and magazine covers and her dazzling beauty on the silver screen, I saw her in Boney’s house serving tea like an ordinary housewife. I hated Boney Kapoor for bringing that angel from heaven down to being just an ordinary housewife.

I don’t go to Boney’s house these days because I can’t bear to see Sridevi in a realistic house, in a realistic atmosphere and with realistic people around. For me she is like a highly precious diamond which should be seen only in beautiful settings or in exotic locations and only in the surroundings of cinematic brilliance.

Sridevi is the most beautiful and the most sexiest woman God ever created and I think he creates such exquisite pieces of art like her only once in a million years.

So what if Boney has the real Sri in his house…? …. I have her captured as a cinematic goddess in the temple of my mind camera and as a divine angel in the heart of my celluloid dreams.

I thank god for creating Sridevi and I thank Louis Lumiere for creating the movie camera to capture her beauty forever.

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1. Is pleasure the same as happiness?
Ans: Pleasure is more connected to the physical senses whereas happiness is a mental state. Pleasure would be during sex and happiness could be after sex.

2. What is failure according to you?
Ans: When you stop trying to be successful.

3. It’s not just cinema, any commodity in the market exaggerates its value.
Ans: The value of any true value is nothing but what you truly feel about its value.

4. Film-makers mostly think about impressing the audience.
Ans: The filmmaker should impress the audience but to be able to do that he himself has to be impressed with what he is intending to impress the audience with

5. Do you spontaneously come up with the different styles like in ‘Sarkar’, ‘Company’ etc.
Ans: Style always comes from within how, the Director wants to present the subject matter and the characters he is dealing with. For instance in ‘Satya’ there is a certain unpredictability in the characters so the camera work is designed to give an objective space to them and is never allowed to interfere with the actors performances. Whereas in ‘Sarkar’ pretty much the performances are designed for the camera framing as the film itself has a very specifically designed personality. If you pause any frame in ‘Sarkar’ or ‘Sarkar Raj’ at any given random moment a guy who just walks in can tell you which film it is if he has seen it.

6. The actors in your films convey their emotion instead of overacting and that’s the reason why your characters are remembered.
Ans: Overacting is when an actor emotes more than what the viewer in the theater feels was needed. But this could be subjective depending on the various parameters of the viewer.

A realistic character portrayal in Cinema more than in terms of his/her contribution to the overall story comes from their specific body language, speech pattern and facial expressions

That’s the reason you can enjoy watching an impactful character even in one scene even if you don’t watch the rest of the film.

7. Were films your only obsession in your childhood?
Ans: My first obsession was with reading stories, then I moved on to studying violence and it’s effects and then I was obsessed with super natural elements and then I discovered girls and then wisdom dawned upon me one day sitting in an Irani café in Panjagutta that all my obsessions can be combined into that one sexy thing called Cinema, and ever since I didn’t stop fucking.

8. Have you ever tried to portray a character like you in your films.
Ans: All my Male characters have shades of me. Be it in the brooding intensity of Malik in ‘Company’ or the lecherous Rajpal Yadav in Khallas song in ‘Company’. They are all drawn out of a certain emotion which I felt sometime or the other in my life.

Likewise all the men characters created by me look at women the way I looked at them at various times and in various phases of my life.

9. If everyone starts to think like you, Mankind will end in less than 10 years.
Ans: I don’t care about the existence of mankind starting from one second after I die.

The world as I know will die after my death.

10. I don’t agree that without a Cinematic style of shooting them, films cannot be called Cinema.
Ans: Well most of the examples you mentioned are great stories that have been filmed but they cannot be called films. Atleast  that’s not my definition of films. But if that’s what films mean to you I am not going to argue.

11. Psychology is more interesting and truer than Philosophy.
Ans: Psychology is to con others and philosophy is to con ourselves.

12. Your blogs are both unsettling and re-assuring.
Ans: They will be unsettling because I am shaking the foundations of your belief system and they will be  reassuring because now you know that you should not have a foundation.

13. I think you live your life to the fullest.
Ans: I never met anyone who lives and loves life more fuller than me.

14. I wish I had known someone like you
Ans: Reading my blog is like having an affair with me whereas knowing me in person will be like a marriage. An affair anyday will be far more fruitful and enjoyable than marriage and you can ask any married/divorced man about that.

15. I exist because you imagine I do
Ans: No you don’t exist because I don’t imagine you as you are not worth my imagination and hence my existential imagination cannot existentially imagine you thereby resulting in your complete non existential existence.

16. Is Porn Filmmaking an art?
Ans: Any filmmaking is an art if the maker wishes it to be and presents it in his style. It’s not the content that constitutes art but it’s the way one wishes to see the content.

God or nature or whatever the hell it is that created woman and sex is a true fucking artiste man. Ahhhhhhhhh!

17. Who is Ramu?
Ans: Who you want him to be.

18. In every movie of yours there’s always a guy who has no dialogue and looks on like in  ‘Sarkar Raj’ it was a tall guy with a scar. In ‘Rann’ it was the minister’s assistant. In ‘Satya’ the long haired guy. Any funda on this one?
Ans:  It’s just that I love mysterious characters. I think it’s something I subconsciously picked up from a scene in ‘God Father – II’ where a guy is just sitting in a scene without any dialogue but he somehow  made the scene for me.

19. Is the movie fully only on Suri’s character as you seem to be to putting only Surya’s pics.
Ans: NO, Vivek’s portions I shot 5 months ago in RC-I and because of that I only put pics of Vivek. RC-II I just finished and because of that you are seeing only Surya’s pics

20. Film should be a dramatized fiction rather than a dramatized reality for reality is often dreary with no drama unlike in a film.
Ans: A film should be a dramatized version of fictional reality rather than a realistic drama as reality is often non dramatic and it cannot be filmed dramatically enough and so one has to fictionalize it to make dramatic sense out of it so that it won’t appear as nonsensical fiction thereby proving that I am talking fictional nonsense.

21. If you are to introduce yourself to someone who does not know you or your background which of these films would you mention that you are the Director between ‘Shiva’, ‘Rangeela’, ‘Satya’, ‘Company’, ‘Sarkar’.
Ans: ‘RAKTACHARITRA’. That’s because I genuinely feel that the only film I made in my life so far is Raktacharitra.

22. You are my God, Ramu.
Ans: Only when you truly understand that I am the devil can you realize that I am God.

23. I think you are a megalomaniac
Ans: I am much more.

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Ayn Rand said “if you see a beautiful woman with a pimple on her face you would think nothing of it but if an aritiste draws a painting of that same woman without removing the pimple it will seem offensive.  Of course there could be some people who would like the pimple being there and they will be ones who will have the same character as that of the particular artiste and that in effect would reflect their own personal view of life.”

But unlike in life, in cinema when a director uses style, dialogue, background score, characterizations etc to capture reality he will be just wanting to enhance and beautify what could be very ordinary in real life. He in effect is trying to show what is, in a manner of what it could be and what it should be and that would be his view of life.

And from that very specific point of view of his towards life is where his personal art will arise from. Whether his art is good or bad  is subjective depending on who’s perceiving it from which background.

It’s nothing but a filmmakers interpretation and presentation of an emotion which creates a feeling in a viewer sitting in the theatre. The way the director presents his own view is where we as an audience will just get sucked into. So once we finish watching, his view will become a part of our view.

What a filmmaker is really saying through his film is “this is how I want to see things ” Read it as  “ this is what life means to me ”. and also very rarely a filmmaker’s purpose would be wanting to communicate his view of life to the audience. His intentions will be more to capture his personal view in a physical quantity on the screen. But since cinema involves commerce and various peoples time and efforts he has no choice but to bring it down to communicable terms unlike a painter who while painting would never think of what will make people buy his painting.

Since we always strive to reshape the world for our own specific purpose we have to first identity our own individual value systems so as to have a specific personal view of everything in life in order to reshape both the world and ourselves. To an extent we can possibly reshape ourselves both physically and mentally but it’s only from our desire to reshape the world where our art arises from.

For instance if I have depicted gangsters in “COMPANY” in a certain way that’s just my artistic interpretation of the underworld. It says about my desire to see a guy like malik in the underworld but not necessarily  it tells that there is a guy like malik in the under world.  Similarly in “SARKAR” what I am saying is “this is how I would like to see Bala Saheb Thackeray” thereby giving my personal view of him.

On the other hand for a guy who has no personal view of anything in life at all the concertized projection of his malevolent non view towards anything and everything in life will serve not as an energy to move forward but as a  delusional moral premise to stand still and just make mindless comments on people who move forward.  These are the inane majority who keep screaming that values are unattainable that struggle is futile, that fear, guilt, pain and failure are mankind’s predestined end.

Between these two there also lie a sea of  other minds with completely mixed premises whose issues in life will inevitably and permanently remain unresolved as most of the time they just precariously balance on the edge of their little or no logical  brain.

In cinematic art It’s my conviction that more than the story it is the style in which it is told which is most creative and the most beautiful in it’s sheer artistic representation. A story is given and a scene is given and a character is played by an actor which is a physical quantity, but how they are amalgamated by the director with the use of the cinematic medium in his style is what which creates a sum total emotional catharsis in a viewers mind.

Of course it goes without saying that style cannot stand in for lack of content but at the same time without the application of style there cannot be cinema.

This best was put in the words of a corporate executive who once said about a certain film  “ It’s quite a nice story but if the director did not apply any  cinematic style  to it why did he make a film out of it.” I completely agree with that executive because style is truly where a director comes in. He might have other talents such as writing etc… but primarily by definition the director is the link between the performing and the primary arts. He is a performer in relation to the primary work of others namely actors, music director, cameraman etc…  in the sense that they are a primary means to what he is designing with his style to be his specific end.

But to integrate the primary arts he will require a first hand understanding of all the arts applicable to cinema and then he will have to have a very individualistic view of them combined with an unusual power of abstract thought and above all aided by cinematic imagination.

Directors with this kind of tremendous sense will be of course rare. Most of us directors most of the time ride on the talents of others and merely put the actors and technicians through randomly thought motions which will accidentally result sometimes in a great movie and most times in a movie with clashing intentions of all concerned due to the lack of a central thought to guide the film towards it’s emotional finale.

A film is at the end of the day an emotional experience. It can make you cry, it can make you laugh or it can thrill you etc… and a good story  gives the director a means to heighten that emotion and a great director will enhance and beautify that emotion with his artistry. For example if the script says “ she is very beautiful” in a cinematic application the director can make people in the theatre feel “she is verrrryy beeeauttifull.”

In written language  this will come across as wrong grammar but in cinematic language the girl will come across verrrryy beeeauttifull and that ‘s why I love cinematic EXAGGERATION!

It would be any Directors dream to have an Actor with a combination of intensity in facial expressions and a mind-blowing body to go with it. Most of the time there will be actors with good bodies but they can’t act and then there will be very good intense actors who cannot dare to take their shirt off. Only in Surya I found this never before seen combination of an extraordinary body coupled with an extraordinary intensity in his facial expressions. These pictures of Surya are from an action sequence in ‘RAKTA CHARITRA’

1. Which film do you think is a cult classic between ‘Shankarabharanam’ and ‘Shiva’?

Ans: Ofcourse ‘Shankarabharanam’ because its completely original whereas ‘Shiva’ was a far lesser and copied version of many films made prior to it. People liked ‘Shiva’ only because they were unaware of its sources.

2. Do you command respect or demand respect?

Ans: Neither. I don’t care about respect

3. I think ‘Shankarabharanam’ is closest to Fountain Head.

Ans. In a way yes except that you don’t feel heroic about the protagonist of ‘Shankarabharanam’ which you do by the end of Fountain Head. You only feel sympathy for him whereas you look upto Howard Roark despite his failure.

4. Your posts work and re-work are the most important articles I came across. But I again and again fail to follow them.

Ans: Keep re-re-working

5. Why do you take risks and where do you get this courage from?

Ans: I will quote Dayanayak the encounter cop when I asked him the same question “When you are playing cricket you should lift the bat and try to hit the ball with all your might. That will either result in you hitting a sixer or you will be out. Both of them are fine. But what you shouldn’t ever do in life is to just keep defending your wickets”

6. Why does success go to people’s heads?

Ans: Because success has no meaning unless it goes to ones head and also the successful person does not realise that it has gone to his head till it comes down to his feet.

 

7. ‘Shankarabharanam’ is not a flawless film

Ans: There is no such thing as a flawless film. Any film will have as many flaws or lack of flaws as that of the flaws and the lack of flaws of the viewer.

 

8. I think RC will redefine violence.

Ans: Actually it will refine violence.

9. I hope the background score in RC is not noisy.

Ans: Its very noisy

10. Why did you use your voice for the voice over in RC.

Ans: Well I tried a lot of voices but I felt that my voice was representing its emotion the best. Some criticized my diction and pronunciation but that voice over’s purpose was to convey a message and not to educate people on the fineries of the telugu language.

11. I just read 10 pages of Atlas Shrugged. Its boring.

Ans: For a guy who is as intellectually challenged as you to describe Atlas Shrugged as boring, I doubt you would have even understood one page.

12. Are you an emotional emotionless man

Ans: I am an emotionally emotionless emotional man.

 

13. I am so inspired by your blog that I might expire

Ans: Don’t worry as you will get reborn to inspire

 

14. Can you answer me the following questions regarding movies?

1. Why do people being chased by a car keep running in the middle of the road instead of ducking in somewhere where a car can’t go?

2. Why does a hero who shows absolutely no pain while taking the most ferocious beating wince when a woman just tires to clean his wounds?

3. Why after sleeping together a couple always places the covers correctly so as to fulfill the regulations of censor board

4. Why is it that in Ghost films women always investigates strange noise wearing the most revealing underwear?

5. Why always in police investigations it is necessary to visit a strip club?

Ans: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Lol ROFL…

 

15. Did you feel happy about the verdict on Kasab?

Ans: I felt happy for Kasab because any terrorist worth anything always comes prepared to die and by catching him alive we took away his happiness and after one year of torturing him by keeping him alive the learned Judge finally granted him what he always would have wished for. DEATH!!!

 

P.S: Am just posting here some details of a film I am highly excited about.

 

The Concept

By the year 2010, the underworld as we knew it has become non-existent primarily due to the Dawood Ibrahim gang going legitimate in Pakistan, Chota Shakeel becoming completely inactive, Chota Rajan co-operating with the various government agencies, Arun Gawli becoming a politician and Abu Salem being put in jail.

The success of the Mumbai Police in wiping out the underworld has been so total and so complete that the Police Department even disbanded their encounter squad teams as they were of no further use.

These developments were carefully being studied and observed by an entrepreneur from the South.

He was like so many other innumerable entrepreneurs from all over the country who land up in Mumbai with dreams of reinventing business practices which have become outdated. But this particular entrepreneur’s business was that of CRIME.

He minutely studied and educated himself on both the shortcomings and achievements of every gangster that ever ruled Mumbai, ranging from Haji Mastan to Vardha Bhai to Karim Lala to Dawood Ibrahim to Chota Rajan and then landed up in Mumbai to become its biggest gangster ever.

He believed that there is no such thing as right and wrong and there is no such thing as good and bad.

He also believed that everyone in this world go through their lives in one way or the other only by making deals. Whether it’s between husbands and wives or between parents and children or between Godmen and devotees or between politicians and voters, life is nothing but about making deals. So as long as everyone is into some kind of business or the other, he decided that even crime should be treated and dealt with like any other BUSINESS.

Welcome to the new-age gangster.

“The Business Man” - Guns don’t need agreements

The idea is to make “The Business Man” into a trilingual that is in three languages Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Unlike in the done to death rustic style of conventional gangster flicks the shooting style of “THE BUSINESS MAN” will fall somewhere inbetween the slickness of “COMPANY” and the entertainment quotient of “WANTED”

The shooting will commence from October 2010 and the film will be released by April 2011.

It will be produced by me, starring Surya and will be directed by Puri Jagan, the original director of “WANTED” (Pokiri in Telugu)

We used to keep hearing Basu Chatterjee’s name again and again in the times of mainstream commercial formula films like Deewar, Zanjeer, etc ruling the box office. He as a director at that time was completely going against type and yet making highly successful cult films like Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Chitchor etc

I myself remember seeing his film Chitchor seven times somewhere in the late 70s or early 80s in Ramkrishna Theatre in Hyderabad and the simplicity of narration that I learnt from it has what pretty much shaped my path towards Rangeela.

Cut to.

20 years later

I was at my office in Mumbai when my receptionist called me and said “someone called Basu Chatterjee has come to meet you”. I asked the receptionist “who is he” and he said “he claims that he is a Director”. I got a shock and I was wondering why he came to my office. In fact I didn’t even know how he looks like as I never saw a picture of his. I walked to the reception to see a gentle looking elderly man and I welcomed him into my room.

Even as I was wondering why he came to meet me I offered him coffee and started telling him how I used to stand in line outside Ramkrishna theatre in Hyderabad to watch his films. He was very pleased and told me that he knew it as I acknowledged that fact many a time in my interviews over the years.

After a chat finally he told me why he came to meet me. Apparently he has a script and a producer but he does not have access to any actors. He was desperately trying to get in touch with Manoj Bajpai but was unable to do so. So he came to me to seek my help in accessing Manoj.

I said “sure” and I went into the other room and called Manoj. His phone was off and so I called his secretary. The secretary told me Manoj was out of town and when I asked him if they knew that Basu Chatterjee was trying to get in touch he said “Yeah, I am figuring out how to get rid of him”

I was pretty taken aback with those words but knowing Manoj, I knew these lines of his secretary could not be of Manoj, but the general drift was very clear to me that Manoj for whatever reasons was not interested in working with Basu Chatterjee.

Then I came in and told Basuji “Manoj is not in town, so I will talk to him and get back.” He chatted for some more time and left.

Then a few days later Basuji called me on phone and said “Apparently Manoj is back in town but I have this feeling that he doesn’t want to work with me”. I didn’t know what to say to that. Then he asked me if I can recommend him to Aftab Shivdasani to listen to his story. I said sure and after hanging up I called Aftab and said “Aftab, Basu Chatterjee wants to meet you”, He said “Sure, sir but who is he?”.

Now knowing Aftab’s age and that he is maybe 2 generations down of Basu Chatterjee that answer didn’t shock me. So I explained to him that Basuji was a highly successful director who made cult films like “Chitchor” etc. Aftab asked “But Sir, what did he do now?” I told Aftab “Look here, I don’t know what he has done now, or what he is going to do but being such a respected senior director the least you can do is to meet him and hear out his story”. Aftab said “Ok sir, please give him my number”. With a sigh of relief I gave Aftab’s number to Basuji and got back to my work.

Two days later I got a call from Basuji thanking me for what I did. I asked him “Sir, so did Aftab come to meet you?”. He said “No, he didn’t have time so he sent his secretary to hear the story. I didn’t know what to say to that. So after a long pause I asked “So did his secretary listen to the story”. He said “No, the secretary after listening to 10 minutes of the story he said he had to rush somewhere. So I couldn’t finish it, “Anyway thanks for whatever you tried to do for me” and he hung up.

That’s the last I heard of Basu Chatterjee somewhere in 2000 and I didn’t even hear his name mentioned since for the last 10 years and now I myself am just left with a faint memory of how I subjected him to my disrespectful respect.

Shankarabharanam released when I was in Engineering college and there used to be an almost a temple kind of an atmosphere in the theaters where it was running. In my college campus everyone used to speak in hushed respectful voices about its Director K. Vishwanath.

One day in those days I was singing a song from that film in my hostel room when a guy from a neighbouring room angrily shouted at me for disturbing the sanctity of that song with my totally off tune singing and bad voice. He wouldn’t have reacted like that if I was singing a regular commercial song off tune. That was the kind of impact K. Vishwanath had on the audience with his Shankarabharanam. There were so many felicitations for him at that time which included touching his feet to putting shawls around him to almost praying to him. Though he did many good films even before Shankarabharanam that was the film which brought him a cult status.

He followed it with many more great films like Saptapadhi, Sagara Sangamam etc which we in college couldn’t wait to see and we all always had a completely different mind state when we went to see a K V film compared to let’s say a K Raghavendra Rao film or a Dasari Narayana Rao or a Kondandarami Reddy film. Some of his films did well and some not so well but I don’t consciously remember anyone ever saying his film is bad. They might have done bad at the box office and even if someone did not like his film they would just remain quiet out of respect for him.

A long time later after I did my first film Shiva, I got the Nandi Award for Best Director. And when I was staying in a hotel in Vizag awaiting the function time (The only time I attended an award function)I got to know that K V was in the next room. I was so thrilled to hear it and rushed to meet him.

There were lots of people waiting in the corridor outside his room to meet him. I waited for my turn and finally when I got to meet him and told him how much I loved his films he said “I heard about your film Shiva. I didn’t see it but I hear that you made it quite well” and he gave me a patronising pat on my back.

After that I lost touch with him completely. He was doing films off and on which were working at various levels. At a particularly very low phase in his career lyricist Sirivennala Seetha Rama Sastry came to me and said K V wants to meet me. When I asked him why, he said K V was looking for a Producer for a new script of his as by that time I have become quite a prolific Producer. I told Sastry garu that there’s no point in meeting him as I stopped producing films.

Sastry garu left and the next day he called me and told me that K V wants to come to my home to meet me. He just wants 30 minutes to tell me the story. I said I can’t meet him as I don’t have time. Sastry garu was shocked that I am saying that I don’t have time to meet K V.

He couldn’t bring himself to say the same to K V so he made some other excuse of why I couldn’t meet him and then the next day my mother came running into my room in excitement saying that K V is on the phone and asking for me. I told my mother to lie to K V and tell him that I was not at home. She was shocked and demanded to know why I am being so disrespectful to K V. I said I can’t answer that just tell him that I am not at home and you don’t know when I am coming back. She was so upset with me and thought that my success went to my head that I was being this disrespectful to none other than K V.

I knew that K V will eventually know that me stopping producing is a lie as I was continuously producing films with various directors not even anywhere comparable to his standard and also he would know that home me not being would be a bigger lie as that must be the most clichéd excuse since the invention of the telephone.

I know that the low phase of K V’s career is inevitable to everyone in their lifetime irrespective of whatever they achieved whether me or anyone else. It’s just a question of time who first and who next.

The reason I did not want to listen to his story or meet him was because I can’t say no to him out of my respect for him whereas with others I can do that. Also nothing about my actions concerning films were anywhere in the domain of such sanctity or purity as that of K V’s films. I might be making horrible films but I don’t have a taste for his kind of films.

The people I have choosen to make Directors could be stemming probably from a very personal and particular attitude of mine towards films. Read this as not taking films so seriously where as with K V he makes his films with a devotee’s passion and puts in his soul and his tremendous commitment and that would have been too difficult and hard for me to shoulder and bear.

Just a month a ago I met Music Director Manisharma and he was telling me with so much pride and respect in his eyes that he was doing a film with K V. The feeling in his eyes was very reminiscent of what I saw in many peoples eyes at the time Shankarabharanam released.

Whether I will ever seek that kind of respect for me in people’s eyes is secondary but I know for a fact that I have not achieved nor will I ever achieve the kind of respect K V achieved and I will at best just remain as a foot note in his life for respectfully disrespecting him.

1. Don’t run behind money, run behind excellence which will make your movie a hit automatically.

Ans: Don’t run to give advises. Run to use your excellent wisdom on yourself which will make you a even bigger hit automatically.

 

2. Did you ever think you had a damn good idea but in the making you realized that it won’t work?

Ans: No, that never happened to me because once I decided to act upon an idea I like any other maker will tend to become blind with regards to how the idea is shaping up. That’s pretty much like how a parent will be blind to his offsprings faults and that’s the primary reason why any film turns out to be bad even after the filmmaker spends years of work believing in the film. After the release every tom, dick and harry of the country who sees the film becomes an expert on the film just in 2 hours or lesser. It’s only when that tom, dick or harry gets to make a film himself that he will realize the gospel of this truth.

 

There are billions of people in the world and every one of them have their own individual mind and every one of those individual minds thinks that only it itself is individually right and all the other individuals minds are wrong and that’s the reason all the minds in the world individually are visionaries when it comes to their analysis of others individual minds but they are totally blind to the individual vision of their own minds.

 

3. If the human race is evolving, then all imperfections that are a part of its collective psyche are just a part of a journey towards being the perfect species. Isn’t this true?

Ans: Very true and apart from a race it’s even more true for an individual but the problem will be always with a said individuals perception of what is perfect and what is imperfect, and if he happens to become the leader of that race then it will become a problem for that race too.

 

 

4. From what age could you control your emotions?

Ans: Roughly when I was around 8 years old when I stopped believing in God and started understanding where the idea of God came from. Once you get God out of your life most of your controlling emotions go out of your life and from then onwards you can just revel in the purity of your debauchery.

 

“I would fain bestow and distribute until the wise once again become joyous in their folly”. – Nietzsche.

 

5. What’s your opinion on cricket?

Ans: The only thing I hate more than cricket are the people who love cricket.

 

6. How the hell do you manage to be so ridiculously entertaining?

Ans: That’s because many a time I tell the truth and truth by nature is both ridiculous and entertaining and then when I lie I make it sound like the truth which makes it even more ridiculous and even more entertaining.

 

7. I find you more engaging and interesting as a person than a filmmaker. Why doesn’t your personality reflect in your films?

Ans: That’s a very good question. When I speak here my thoughts are raw, straight and direct which for the same reason will become a direct extension of my personality. In my films they are coming through characters which are not me and in the form of a story developed over a long period of time and as a sum result of decisions taken at different time periods influenced by quite a few extraneous factors. Hence no film of mine can be ever as straight and as direct as my own personality.

 

8. Intelligence is simply the ability to self refer to the information available “contextually” within yourself.

Ans: That’s superbly put, Surya. I never thought about it that way.

 

9. What is the driving force for you to want to make films? Is it money, power, women or your philosophical perspectives?

Ans: The driving force in me is primarily nothing but a strong urge to see the world exactly the way I want to see it and hear it exactly the way I want to hear it and then I through my films try to ram it down the throats of others. Whether the others want to puke or swallow it’s up to them.

 

10. Your answers are like tongue twisters sometimes.

Ans: That’s because my thoughts are twisted and I design my answers to twist your thoughts.

 

11. What is love?

Ans: It’s a highly infectious dangerous disease which can only be cured with a very strong medicine called marriage.

 

12. Mr.RGV you may make me feel like a dumbass with your answers but the bottom line is that you need to reflect on your stories. I am sorry to say that I am really disgusted by the majority of films that are coming out of the industry these days.

Ans: Why should you be sorry, Mr.Dumbass. We in the industry should be sorry, for subjecting you to our films Mr.Dumbass. Sorry again Mr.Dumbass.

 

13. There is a concentrated strong effort to write you off.

Ans: Writing off strongly will only break the nib of the pen. They would be better off in stabbing me with it. But however sharp their nib is it can’t ever pierce my heart since I don’t have one.

 

14. When your answers are so simple, clear and real, why do people still ask same questions?

Ans: Mannar, people never listen to answers as they only want to ask questions. If one listens to answers there will never be a need to ask questions. That’s because for every question there was always an answer available since time immemorial.

 

15. Fascination or admiration for anything in life would be of no use unless you make them a value addition in your life.

Ans: I am not sure if “Rifle” and Sridevi would be “fascinating” and “admirable” if they were to become value additions. So it’s better to enjoy just the feeling of “fascination” and “admiration” towards them as value additions and not really add them to your values.

 

16. As someone who lives life to the fullest do you think death is the ultimate tragedy?

Ans: Anything which is certain cannot be a tragedy and death is a certainty. It’s life which is uncertain and hence full of tragedies.

 

17. Since “Kagaz Ke Phool” we didn’t see a film on a director.

Ans: I am actually planning to make a comedy on the life of a film director.

 

18. If you compile “My Reactions to Reactions” and publish it, it will become a best-seller.

Ans: I don’t know about that but, “Saakshi” the Telugu newspaper is planning to do a weekly column called “Naa” on my views, thoughts and experiences in their supplementary called “Funday” starting from 15th May.

 

19. An intelligent is a man who talks more words than necessary to tell more than he knows. – Dwight Eisenhower.

Ans: A dumbass is a man who never gets it no matter how many more words are used than necessary as he simply does not have the capacity to get it. – RGV

 

20. Did you gather any gyan from us bloggers here?

Ans: Ha Ha, Jaani. I loved your passage from “Thus Spoke Satyendra”. Regarding your question, I definitely gathered tremendous gyan here, probably as much as what Satyendra, Ayn Rand, Nietzsche and Mad magazine gave me and I mean this from my heart. Whether the learning is coming from the unlearned or the unlearning is coming from the learned, it is nevertheless “learning”.

 

P.S: I loved your points on PHOONK 2.

 

21. I control myself not to open your blog as I fear you are becoming an addiction to me. My boyfriend tells me not to read your blog.

Ans: Well Harini, a long time back when a friend of my father caught me reading “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, he made a big issue about it almost as if I was caught reading a porn magazine. (It’s another matter that I value a porn magazine more than “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”). But when I debated with him about what is wrong with it, he finally sheepishly confessed that he is scared of being swept away from his existing belief systems. His words, “I have been too long embedded in my belief systems and I don’t have the will and energy now stand against the strength of “Zarathustra”.

 

But Harini, most likely your boyfriend will not ever get it as I know this from a similar thing that happened to me with my cousin who used to look after my productions a long time back. He had a fad for ecological issues and environmental protection matters and one day as we were driving together he was telling me with a great deal of concern that there will be water wars in about 50 years and he was very worried about what would be the earths status then and what will happen to the people when they start fighting for water.

 

I told him that, ‘we could die at the next turn of this road hit by a truck in an accident so let’s not worry about water problems after 50 years. Frankly, I don’t care what happens to the earth one second after I die and I also know that no way I am going to live anywhere near another 50 years. But if you really are concerned about the people 50 years from now facing shortage of water then instead of wasting time on film production activities you should work on a scientific solution and if you don’t have the education and brains for that you should opt for a cheaper and an easier solution like praying to a God or a Baba. On the other hand if you just keep worrying your entire life about that impending problem and then just one day before you die if some smartass scientist comes up with a mind blowing solution for the water problem you would have lived your entire life like an idiotass who lived his life worrying about a non-issue.

 

After I bestowed upon him my above wisdom he became completely quiet and I thought I enlightened him but then after 4 days I overheard him telling the same concern of his to a girl that 50 years from now there will be water wars.

 

It was then that a burst of some more additional wisdom dawned upon me and I got enlightened to the fact that my cousin and many like him are incapable of getting in any new knowledge into their heads. That happens because my cousin kind of species are so full of their own locked in programmed belief systems and so they do not have an ability to absorb any more growth. So no amount of logic can get their stupidity out. Even if we somehow manage to get their stupidity out only a vacuum will remain in their heads and then they will have no identity left and because of that they will either violently defend their belief systems when they can get away with it or just go completely quiet when they can’t get away with it.

 

P.S: An earlier girlfriend of mine used to stop me from reading Ayn Rand and Nietzsche. Maybe your boyfriend and my girlfriend should get together.

 

Nothing is more truer than that line from the “Idea” campaign which says “An idea can change your life”. My whole life and also my career as a Director is a living testimony of that truth both in positive and negative ways. It could range from a film like “Satya” coming from an Idea like “We always hear about gangsters only when they either kill or when they die. But what do they do in between?” to “RGV ki Aag” coming from an Idea like “What if Sholay kind of story happens in today’s times?”. We all know the sum effect of those two Ideas and where they landed up but at the time the Ideas came to me I was equally excited with both, if anything maybe much more with the “Sholay” Idea. But irrespective of the strengths and the final effects of those 2 Ideas one common thing that both of them achieved is that they changed the direction of my life though in far different routes.

The story of Paritala Ravi and Maddelu Cheruvu Suri has been happening in real life since more than a decade and in spite of that nobody ever thought of making a film on them. Whether I will screw up their story in “Rakta Charitra” like “Aag” or make it a cult classic like “Satya” only time will tell, but the fact that about 200 people are working non-stop since 6 months and more than 30 Crores is being spent on it is the point I am making. Apart from that the mind space of so many people being occupied whether it’s of the people who are involved with the original incidents or of the people who want to just debate or discuss its proceedings or of the three marketing teams that are breaking their heads to figure out how to sell the concept of a film being made in 2 parts and then of people belonging to various factions and parties who are wondering about who the film is going to side between Ravi and Suri, and also Paritala Ravi and Suri becoming famous even outside their State, the sum centre stage culprit what caused all the above happenings is nothing but just my Idea “What if I make a film on Ravi and Suri?”.

Lot of my detractors wonder how in spite of the kind of films I make, I still can go on doing what I want to do and exactly as I wish. The secret of that is nothing but the power of the Idea I get at any given point of time and my ability to make the people who matter to the project also feel that it is powerful.

Many people think I work on multiple films at the same time which is not at all true, but what is true is that I work on multiple Ideas at any given time. Each of them to be developed into a script and then into a film, can take their own sweet time depending on so many factors but they are continuously brewing in my head and in various others heads where I put them, namely writers and Assistant directors. For instance I had the Idea of “Sarkar” for 5 years before I got around to making it. The Idea of “Ek” I have since 8 years and I don’t know when I will make it. It could be next year or 5 years from now. The moment I get an Idea I will put a writer onto it and then periodically discuss with him on its progression depending on my priorities. But the moment I talk about my Idea of a certain film, the media will project it as it’s already in the process of being made and hence it will appear as if I am working simultaneously on many projects.

For instance, I am working on the Ideas of “Raksha”, “Department” and “God and Sex” which are tentatively titled and apart from them I am also working on 10 other untitled Ideas which all will take their own time to get made. But the beauty of each one of those Ideas is that each of them is like a ball of bundled up potential energy just waiting to get kinetic. They can anywhere become a 5 Crore film to a 50 Crore film whenever their time comes.

Recently an Ad agency came to me to direct an Ad and I told them that I can’t think of directing a 60/30 second Ad with a creative given by someone else suiting the requirement of the consumer and the client which is how the advertisement Industry works.

I said instead of that I would make a full length movie with the products name. When they asked me what I meant I said, “For example, what if I make a movie called ‘LUX’. The story will be about a village girl who believes that bathing with a lux soap will make her as beautiful as a film actress and then in the course of the story she becomes a star and actually models for “Lux” in the climax.

They were taken aback with a tremendous excitement on my Idea as they never ever heard of this kind of an extreme product placement idea before. They realized it that it’s not an In-film Ad but it’s a Film-In Ad, and they gave me a fantastic financial deal for it.

Whether I will make that film called “Lux” or not is a secondary point, but I just felt like bragging about the ‘Power of my Ideas’. Ha Ha!

1. Do you ever get bored?
Ans: No. I only bore… many times through my films and sometimes in person.

2. Why don’t you make films with good scripts?
Ans: I was recently called for a meeting with an industrialist who wants to come into films. This is how the conversation went.

Industrialist: Mr.Varma, I understand that the backbone of any film is a good script. So we are investing a lot of money on good scripts.

Me: How can you invest money on a good script? You will know a good script only after the film releases.

Industrialist: What do you mean?

Me: Each and every one of the 120 odd filmmakers who come up with their films every year imagine that they have a damn good script. No filmmaker on earth ever will want to make a film on what he thinks is a bad script or even what he thinks is an average script. So it follows that a good script is only what gets proven at the box office, so you should rephrase your comment and say “I know what a good script is” and that’s what not only you but everyone of us flop filmmakers also believe.

Another investor came to meet me awhile back and the conversation went like this.

Investor: Let’s make a movie like Monsoon Wedding.

Me: But that’s already been made.

Investor: I mean as in something like that.

Me: So you mean if Monsoon Wedding is on a Punjabi wedding and if Hum Aapke Hain Kaun is on a Maharashtrian wedding, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam is on a Gujarati wedding, should we make something on a Oriya or a Rajasthani wedding. Or if you think it’s the pedophile angle which worked in Monsoon Wedding, should we make something on incest?

Investor: Oh ok, I see your point. What if we make a film on a topic which is very popular?

Me: I will ask you a question. If Mira Nair came to you much before she made Monsoon Wedding and she told you that she has 2 scripts to be made for international market, one is called Monsoon Wedding, a film on a Punjabi wedding and the other is Kamasutra on a topic which is popular throughout the world, which one would you have chosen?

Investor: Kamasutra

Me: Well, my case rests. Any films greatness is after the fact. At the project intiaition stage all films are thought to be great by the people who are making it.

3. Why can’t filmmakers make good films as in good content with fresh presentation?
Ans: Good and fresh to whom is the question.

4. When do you personally qualify a film to be successful?
Ans: That was the point of that whole article. I said I can only tell if I liked it or not and never about whether it is successful.

5. What explains nobody liking Aag?
Ans: To start with I don’t know if nobody liked Aag. What is true is that most who have seen Aag did not like it but it’s also true that most did not see it. If everybody had seen Aag and did not like it, the collections would have been still there and made it a commercial success. Aag to start with did not have an opening which just proved a lack of interest in the people to watch it and that was the reason for its commercial failure. The people who have seen it and not liked it, are another matter. The tremendous negative wave against it was even from people who have not seen it. And that’s because it just feels tremendously pleasureable to pull a film down. Critic Mayank Shekar told me that he happened to be at a table in a restaurant where Aag was being torn to shreds by 7 to 8 people sitting at it and it took him some half an hour to realize that none of them have actually seen it.

And as per Sholay’s success is concerned my argument was not on the success of a film but its on the possibility of the filmmaker foreseeing and planning for it. For example, how can the maker of Sholay make “Akeyla” and “Brashtachaar”? And Neo, regarding the math you gave I think you still missed the point of the article. I was not defining success and failure but I was just drawing attention to their relative perspectives.

6. How and why do you think a common man decides to see a film?
Ans: Dumbo, if we in the industry knew it why would we make flops?

7. I can generally tell in advance which film the audience will like or not.
Ans: You should pack your bags and come to Bollywood immediately. The distributors will make you the richest man in the industry.

8. Rangayakamma’s Vishavriksham is trash. Marxists like her spend their creativity and thrive in showing anything ancient and religious in bad light.
Ans: I don’t know about Marxism and neither did I care about her motives. The very fact that she gave a point of view to the antagonists of Ramayana unlike the original writers who sided with only the so-called good guys was what I was impressed with.

One brilliant excerpt from her book goes as follows:

“Kaikeyi:- I want you to send Ram to forest and make my son Bharat the King.
Dasrath:- Have you lost your head? The people of Ayodhya are expecting Ram to be the next King.
Kaikeyi:- Ok then, don’t send him if you don’t care about keeping your word.
Dasrath:- But how can I not keep my word? You should not ask me this.
Kaikeyi:- As a mother I have a right to ask what is best for my son and as a King it’s your right to decide what is good for your people. You can just say ‘no’. But you won’t because you are scared to lose out on not keeping your word as then you will lose out on getting moksham and going to swargam (heaven) and then you as a consequence will lose out on drinking Amrutham and enjoying Rambha, Urvashi and Tilothamma. It’s your call to decide between your responsibility towards the people of Ayodhya and having personal fun in swargam.

If you really think I am selfish and bad in making this demand, how can you even consider my demand weighed against the well-being of your son Ram and the people of Ayodhya? This itself proves that more than Ram or Ayodhya you are concerned about your own selfish ticket to heaven”.

Vishavriskham was not about reviewing Ramayana, it’s about giving a realistic unbiased view point on Ramayana as it is not a just another novel. It’s something which is considered sacred and people follow it blindly and are also expected to follow it without questioning it.

9. You were super intelligent in many answers but you were bullshit in your comments on how to overcome guilt.
Ans: I am so sorry I made you so angry Sir.

10. (a) Don’t twist Satyendra’s logic to make your point.
      (b) Don’t quote Satyendra as he deserves his own life.
      (c). I think Satyendra won’t be comfortable the way you are using him. 
Ans: (a). :)
       (b). :)   :)
       (c). :)   :)   :)

11. Don’t you think even after all your reading and being influenced by Ayn Rand and Satyendra your thought process still lacks depth.
Ans: Actually it lacks surface.

12. How can one study emotions?
Ans: By controlling one’s own.

13. I learnt many things from you.
Ans: I would prefer that you unlearn.

14. I have about 100 book marks. Your blog is the first one.
Ans: I want to be the only one.

15. Satya will remain your best work.
Ans: Ok Sir. Thank you Sir. Any other predictions Sir?

16. How much of a world Satyendra would have seen to philosophize so much?
Ans: Some roads in Vizag and some lanes in Vijayawada.

17. Your cold demeanor and callous attitude remind me of Dawood Ibrahim.
Ans: Beware… he might put out a contract on you.

18. Why do villains have names like Bikhu Yadav, Bhai Thakur, Gaddam Narayana etc instead of Santosh, Ramu etc?
Ans: Larger than life characters demand larger than life names. If Vito Corleone’s name was John David, Godfather would not remain Godfather.

19. You try to actually programme us by preaching about deprogramming.
Ans: My intention is to deprogramme a programme which is reprogramming you by reprogramming you not to be ever deprogrammed into a programme.