Column

As long as I can remember I have loved watching movies. They spelt a strong magic for me, taking me into a world of song and dance and high emotion, all of which fuelled my fancy when I was still a schoolgirl, forced to spend much of my waking day with my nose buried into school books.

I think movies took second place only to my story books, which also opened a new world for me, and give my imagination new vistas to explore and dream about.
In other words, as you must have guessed, for me the imaginary world held more mystery and magic than the real, and for no little reason, I would be caught time and again and pulled up for day dreaming.

Of course this meant I was a poor student in class, and if I scored in grammar, and history and composition, more mundane aspects of my curriculum like math, geography or needlework left me cold and lagging far behind the rest of the class.

One of the many day dreams I had was of being a writer. Or an actress (women were not called actors then), or someday being part of a play.

None of which happened of course, for many years. So I became a movie buff instead, designating myself critic, applauding some films and decrying others, and since no one cared for a school girl’s opinion, talking to the stars on screen and telling them what I thought of them, good, bad or pure yuk!

Of course it was all very subjective, and like every naïve movie watcher, I hated the villains and loved the moment when the hero got the last word and the heroine. But if I think of the films I was allowed to see over the years, the ones that have lingered in memory are the ones which had wonderful songs and evocative visuals.

Which is what took me, to sit through an afternoon of talks organised by Rinki Bhattacharya as part of her father, Bimal Roy’s centenary celebrations. And though I chafe at speeches like every other person, and fidget if I have to sit listening for more than 15 minutes, I sat spellbound as the many speakers unravelled to me some of the magic of a director whose films still live in public memory, and influence generations of film-makers.

There were speeches on Roy’s art and his craft, and on how he walked the thin line between art and popular cinema and made heavy themes like untouchability relevant. But what got me thinking was a scene sketched out in passing by director Kunal Kohli. Bimal Roy, he said, was a great director, undoubtedly, but one of his strengths was his ability to gather around him people with equally impressive talent. And, more important, let them grow under his guidance.

A bit like Akbar, I thought to myself. Or Guru Dutt, or Raj Kapoor. Imagine, he continued, a set where as the director worked on his film, others from his unit added their bit, and the others were names like Asit Sen, Gulzar, Basu Bhattacharya, and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Besides this there were the music composers, Salil Choudhary, SD Burman, who also lent his voice for the first time for Bimal Roy’s films, and the lyricists, whose ranks Gulzar soon joined.

It is true though that most great work comes from collaboration. Sometimes, it is invisible, the influences that shape genius could be almost in the subconscious. But it is the group and its composition that makes the vital difference between mundane and extraordinary.

That and the dedication of the different partners in the enterprise. The way they keep their individuality and yet submerge it to become part of a cohesive vision, the tug-o-war of sensibilities, and the give and take of ideas for the common end, is what passionate creativity is all about. And if there is one visionary or leading light to the group, the fact that he does not blind the others but lets their light add to his own, is even more vital to success. In my years as a cine fan, doing countless interviews of cinema greats, this has always been a leit motif — collaboration is the trick.

Why then, are we so stuck in our individual selves? So full of what our egos tell us we are all about, so keen to garner every bit of credit as to be grossly unfair to those who deserve to share it . Is that why we live in an age of mediocrcity…and technology takes over what collective thinking can do? It is a thought that runs like a spool through my mind, and I think I know the answer.