I'm launching 170 children with 'Stanley Ka Dabba', says Amole Gupte

“He’s running a little late,” the PRO tells the bunch of journalists waiting in Amole Gupte’s office in a Mumbai suburb. The wait of an hour gave me ample time to screen the walls of the screenwriter and creative director of Taare Zameen Par, which are adorned with paintings and drawings done by Gupte himself in the 1990s.

If you remember Priyanka’s Chopra’s brother Bhope Bhau in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey, you know we’re talking about an eccentric-looking, arty guy who sports long hair and moustache. Gupte lives up to the image.
 
A hour and a half later, in walks the man himself. “I’m very sorry,” he apologises profusely. His humility has already earned him brownie points.

When it's my turn to interview him, Gupte again apologises to me personally for having kept me waiting. Gupte’s directorial debut Stanley Ka Dabba releases on May 13. The film is co-produced by his wife Deepa Bhatia and stars his son Partho in the title role. I ask Gupte about the autobiographical element of Stanley Ka Dabba. “Well, I’m not Stanley, That takes it away from the autobiography,” is his reply.
 
“Of course, it has a huge cache of memories from where I studied [Holy Family School in Andheri]. For the screenplay, I had to revisit the recesses of my mind, go back to those days when these tiffins were opened 40 years ago. It does have a lot of memories in it, but it’s not autobiographical.”

Ask him about introducing his son Partho with Stanley Ka Dabba and the very humble Gupte shoots back saying he has introduced 170 children in the film and not only his son. “Partho’s doing his own thing, why burden him with my name? If he’s capable enough he can stand on his feet. I chose him because he’s a superbly capable child and not because of his genes,” he says.

Gupte reveals the unique and interesting way in which the film was shot over a period of a year and a half. “It is a process which takes place every Saturday for four hours in their school. It is an acting workshop where children are taught theatre exercises and breathing techniques and that’s where I got 500 unpolluted and exemplary smiles. I did not take them out of their natural surroundings; rather I went where I could get the most natural performances. My script was ready, just that the children did not know they were shooting for a film,” he says.
 
Itching to get him to talk about the controversy that surrounded the release of Taare Zameen Par, I get to see the non-fussy side of Gupte. “I can’t talk about it,” he says flatly. Gupte was reportedly sidelined by Aamir Khan while filming Taare Zameen Par, with the latter declaring that he was the director of the film. Though the episode upset Gupte, he has clearly moved on from all the empty chatter.
 
Gupte’s love for children is evident in the way he passionately talks about how they ought to be treated. He is on a crusade against the ill-treatment of children in performing arts, especially reality shows, which require them to undergo rigorous training, depriving them of the joys of childhood. “For Stanley Ka Dabba not a single child missed a single day of school," he says. "In India, nobody looks after child rights. Making kids work for 14-16 hours is child labour. I’m trying to enforce a child-friendly atmosphere in the industry by bringing the attention of authorities to the issue of child rights.”

Directing films not directed at children is something Gupte hasn’t thought about but does not rule out. “You never know, being a film student someday if I feel like making something wicked, I will,” he says adding that he has several scripts ready. The multi-faceted director has also written the lyrics of songs in Stanley Ka Dabba along with Hitesh Sonik and even composed the song ‘Jhula Jhool’.

Gupte points to the need for intelligent children’s cinema as opposed to the “dumbed down trash that goes in the name of children’s cinema” in Bollywood. “We need more talented mainstream filmmakers to make children’s movies," he says. "Dumbing down content is demeaning to the intelligence of a child who is probably way smarter than adults think he/she is. Indian filmmakers are confused between simple and simplistic movie-making. They tend to make everything simplistic. I use Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid as a textbook for any cinema class. The film’s perfect in every way.” Gupte adds Makdee (Vishal Bhardwaj’s 2002 film) and Gupi Gayen Bagha Bayen (Satyajit Ray’s 1968 Bengali film) to his list of best children’s movies.

As I prepare to leave, Gupte makes it a point, yet again, to apologise for coming late. By now I’m convinced of the warm human behind that huge mop of hair and beard.