Last year started off quite well for Marathi films. An advertising professional who quit a lucrative and comfortable job to follow his dream was one of the happiest people. Why? Because his debut film was doing so well that it was holding its own in multiplexes where 3 Idiots was running.
Meet Ravi Jadhav, an ad filmmaker who quit it all to make Natarang, a super-hit Marathi film. His latest, also a Marathi film, releases this week. On a busy Monday afternoon we caught the director for some guppa.
“We have worked so hard on Balgandharva, and now that it is ready for release [the interview was conducted before the release] we are very curious about the audience reaction to a film like this,” said Jadhav who was busy promoting the film. Asked what makes Balgandharva such a ‘different film’, Jadhav said, “The concept, the team and our collective passion!”
Balgandharva was conceptualised when actor Subodh Bhave stumbled upon Gandharva Gatha, a biography of noted Marathi Natyasangeet persona Bal Gandharva while researching for his role in a play belonging to the same genre.
For the uninitiated, Bal Gandharva was an iconic singer and performer on the Marathi stage who was famous for effortlessly and gracefully essaying female characters in an era when women were not allowed to act.
“Subodh was just obsessed with the story of this stalwart and narrated the concept to Nitin [Desai] and then they approached me and my good friend from college Mahesh [Limaye] who had shot Dabangg,” said Jadhav who quit all the projects he was working on at that time to devote time to the biopic. “The pull of the story was so strong that I was consumed by it immediately.”
The entire crew has been eating, sleeping and breathing Balgandharva, as the cliche goes, through the past nine months. “Come to think of it, it is like being pregnant!” said Jadhav.
Like a mother-to-be, Jadhav said he was “not nervous, but excited. People were curious what I would do next and Balgandharva is a great follow-up to Natarang. It has names that have established themselves for excellence in their respective fields. The film is about one of the greatest legends of the Marathi, scratch that, Indian entertainment industry. It’s a huge honour to have worked on this.”
Jadhav's first film was about tamashaa, an art form popular among the masses. His second is about a form of music that enthralled the classes. Do we see a pattern? “The parameters that defined whether an art form belonged to the classes or the masses are not relevant anymore," argued Jadhav.
"I believe that if the content offered is of quality, the line between mass and class dissolves. Natarang was enjoyed by the masses and classes alike despite the notion that classy audiences considered tamashaa crass.”
Natyasangeet, Jadhav observed, is a rather emotional topic for Maharashtrians of earlier generations and he hoped that his film would showcase and popularise the art form for younger audiences. He said the screenplay by Abhiram Bhadkamkar preys on dramatic instances from the actor-singer’s life to create a gripping story.
“Look, when the entire team is involved in the work, it makes the director’s job very easy," he said. "Also, cinema is an amalgamation of nine different art forms. If you get them all right, nothing can hamper a film’s success.”
One can’t help but wonder what brought about such strong conviction about the subject. “We all believe in Bal Gandharva and respect his contribution to the world of performance and art," said Jadhav.
"The man was a dream merchant. The grandeur he brought to Marathi stage in that era is unimaginable. And women were able to work in the entertainment industry because of him. I believe he broke some major barriers during his time.”
Jadhav sounded rather confident for a filmmaker whose movie is releasing along with a Hindi horror film and a Yash Raj product. “No, I am not overconfident," he clarified. "It is just that when you believe in what you do and have a team that pours passion into every little detail, it reassures you that the audience will enjoy the product.”
Balgandharva released on May 6, 2011.
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