I no longer want to impress anybody: Amol Palekar

Amol Palekar has acted in over 50 films in five languages and directed six films in Hindi, eight in Marathi and two in English. But now the actor has showcased another facet of his personality by holding an exhibition of his works. Having graduated from the JJ School of Art in 1965, he had his first solo exhibition in 1967 at the Taj Art Gallery. By 1982, he had seven shows to his credit. After that, he began his journey in the field of theatre and film. Now, after many years, he has showcased his recent works.

Were there any apprehension when you decided to showcase your paintings?
Of course, there were many. When I began painting, it wasn't with the thought of having a show. I have been working for one-and-a-half years, then Sandhya (his wife) and my close friends insisted that I must have a show. That's when I planned the show. The entire work seen here is only of 2014. I haven't mixed it with my previous work. I felt it would be good to show recent works. Maybe after five-seven years, I will have a retrospective and have people see my early work as well.

What is it about abstracts that attracts you?
I think abstract is the most natural extension of any art form, wherein the deeper you want to go, you go towards abstraction. Just recreating reality can be a starting point, but as you go ahead, you are bound to head towards abstraction. Take literature for example, you are more interested in subtext that the actual text. That what is not written, conveys the strength of writer. It is a journey towards abstraction. Even music...it's about a few notes, ragas that create a mood and you are comfortable with that. I have always wondered why one is not that comfortable in visual arts. I think we still are under the British influence that put us into realism so much that we are now very used to it. The Britishers have moved on, but we are still there. Any art form's natural journey is towards abstraction.

What is the starting point when you create a painting?
When I create a painting, it is the blank canvas posing questions to me and I try and answer them, or it is me asking the canvas many questions. It is a dialogue between just the two of us, or sometimes a dialogue with myself. This is one obvious but major difference between performing arts and this. Performing arts in an outward journey and when I want to say something, I use it. It's essentially a group activity to reach out to an audience. Whereas creating paintings is about going deeper within. It's like taking a dive in the ocean, every time you take a dive, you come up with something different and new. Sometimes you find only sand, once in a while you come up with a pearl. That search is nice and exciting.

What changes do you see within yourself as an artist?
The main change is that I have greyed. Hopefully, I have become more mature. Along with that I am very comfortable with this dialogue with myself. I no longer want to impress anybody. I have never painted like that, but now I am at peace with myself. After having dabbled in painting, theatre and films, one realises that there is a common search. That thread is very interesting.

What is your search about?
I want to explore silences. I am very comfortable with that. I am not scared of silences any more. Sitting alone when there's nothing happening around them, quiet a few people get very uneasy with that. I am very happy and comfortable with silences. This was a journey that also started with theatre where I realised that as an actor one of the biggest triumphs was to hold my silence. It's completely my victory. It's not because of the dialogue that I have said, or what the director has told me to. I mean, I take the applause on various accounts - when the writer's lines are nice, the applause is his, same holds true for the director. But holding the silence is completely my victory, my control, and you don't get an applause for that. I don't know about other actors, but I got immense satisfaction in that moment when I am not saying the next dialogue, when I can hear my co-actor's clock ticking, I can hear my own heartbeat, and I can also feel the audience holding their breath. They don't even move thinking there will be a creak...that silence is so golden and so important. And I am trying to explore whether I can do it through this medium. The search is also towards been a minimalist. Kam se kam keh ke kitna zyaada keh sakte ho? That shows your maturity. In a painting, ending a trickle to end at a particular spot so that the rest of the canvas breathes nicely is also a challenge. These kind of searches that keep me busy.

Have you always visualised you movies in the form of paintings?
Always. It's always been like that. When I directed my first movie Akrit, I asked the director of photography whether he has seen Rembrandt paintings. He said he hadn't. So I gave him a book and told him that this is the kind of lighting I need. In a Rembrandt painting you'll see complete darkness and only one old man sitting with a candle. A huge frame with a small man and an even tinier candle and rest all is darkness. But it's not just black, the various shades of grey, that's what makes Rembrandt great. I told him that we need to look for as many shades of grey as possible.

Many directors use a particular colour for their movie, have you ever been influenced by it?
It happened with Anahat. It is the only film that was given permission to shoot inside the monument at Hampi after sunset. When I visited the site, I came upon a stepwell that probably has a thousand steps in grey colour. When I saw it I told Sandhya that against this backdrop I can see a female nude with only a bright red cloth covering that nudity. You can see the female body at its peak, covered only with the red colour and that's what we tried to achieve. Also, I am not the kind of director who likes anything to shout from my frames. There are directors who try to tell you, 'Look what I have done, look at the composition, and look at the angle, see where I have placed the camera'. I am not interested in impressing the audience like this. In a very subtle way, I like to convey the mood, the aesthetic beauty and that's why I do.

Your movies were about the common man, do you find those missing today?
The vision was of those great makers like Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, I am only a small part of it. Of course, I take great pride in those movies. Having said that, those times were fascinating times. You had movies of various sorts. Bachchan gave us angry young man, Jeetendra brought a lot of dance and energy, Rajesh Khanna was was the king for romance, Dharmendra was associated with being macho and also there was Dara Singh-Mumtaz kind of cinema. They all had different versions of larger-than-life persona. Simultaneously came Amol Palekar-Basu Chatterjee, Amol Palekar- Hrishikesh Mukherjee, that's what people loved. No one had any complaints. So why are we scared today, and claim that the audience doesn't want it? The audience is always ready, but we fail to give it. Today, everything is down to whether the movie will make it to the 100 crore club or the 200 crore club. So there's just one way of looking at cinema.

You haven't directed a Hindi movie after Paheli...
We have somewhere become poorer without realising it. When we talk about film, we only talk about Hindi mainstream. You cannot deny the fact that regional cinema is rich and meaningful. We don't talk about it, we don't even see it. After Paheli, I made four films, Doosar won three state awards, but nobody wants to acknowledge that or talk about it. People have lost perspective. Look at Rajinikanth's cinema. It so much bigger. People crack jokes about it, but people here will never accept how huge it is. Bollywood is shit scared of that success and so they keep talking about their own success stories. They want you to forget anything else. Bollywood doesn't want to talk about movies like Paan Singh Tomar and Lootera. I am huge fan of Vikramaditya Motwane. But we don't talk about that movie. We want to talk about the Rs 100 crore club. Is that the only yardstick of success? It's not, but that is what we are made to believe. And so there's only one kind of success. The biggest success in Indian cinema is actually Jai Santoshi Maa. Made in only Rs 5 lakh, its business in just the Mumbai circuit was more than Rs 5 crores! But we don't want to talk about that. Whatever is convenient to us, we want to project that. I am not interested in that, nor am I impressed by that. My simple, small Marathi film Anahat ran for 60 weeks in multiplex. I made huge profits. I am very happy and comfortable with that. And I don't want to compete with movies like Dabangg and these kind of success stories.

Among the actors and directors in today's times who has impressed you?
I like Vishal Bhardwaj, Ashutosh Gowariker, Rajkumar Hirani. Hirani is is a damn good maker. I try to watch his movies first day, first show. Among the current lot of actors there are many excellent actors in Marathi cinema and theatre. In mainstream cinema, Ranbir Kapoor is lovely. Every time he tries to come do something different, which is excellent. I love Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra...very fine actors.