The best of friendship are forged not with smooth sailing but a
rugged start and a constant exploration of new ideas that keep the bond strong.
The same can be said about the friendship between filmmakers, Saeed Mirza and
late Kundan Shah. They were close friends for over four decades and Saeen Mirza
wanted to share his experiences with Kundan with the whole world because he was
not just his friend but also a beautiful mind that looked at society
differently.
Saeed Mirza recently released his new book, ‘I Know the
Psychology of Rats’ in Delhi and now will give Goans a better understanding of
his book on January 13 at Literati, Calangute. How did Saeed meet Kundan? “We
were both students in the same at the Film and Televisions Institute of India,
Pune. The first thing I noticed about him was his need to take down notes of
everything. In a film institute, you need to absorb the film and then make a
note later. He was very passionate and that habit got on my nerves. We called
them the gang of three, Kundan and two of his friends. Towards the end of third
year, we became slightly close because we were in the same class but not really
friendly. It was when I saw his final diploma film, ‘Bongo’ I felt it was a
wonderful piece of work and it struck me that this person who I thought as so
irritating, what he film he made! And to me personally, it was the best film in
class,” says Saeed.
“After college, we
went our separate ways. He and his gang went to Hyderabad to do some film work
there. They couldn’t pick Bombay because it was too big for them. I moved back
to Mumbai and worked on making my first feature film and I heard stories of
them trying to do something with the Municipal Corporation and ad films for a
garment shop in Hyderabad. It was a big struggle for them to make ends meet
them. When I just finished my first film, ‘Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan,’ I
heard that he had quit filmmaking and had gone to England with his wife. I
thought what a waste of talent. When he came back to India, his first project
was with me. I was making my second film, ‘Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata
Hai’ and I was so happy that he was back. We became really close when he became
my assistant and he was such an incredible help. He started doing films,
documentaries, television series etc. and that was our journey.
His three year stint
in England made his incredibly political. He realized what is racism about,
what is colonlism and how an imperial power looks upon its ruled people. His
reading habit started changing and his work also changed.”
Explaining the title
of the book, Saeed explains, “His work was basically a way to reflect the
reality of society. This is our story, Kundan Shah and Saeed Mirza, two
different kind of people and how we became friends and our social and political
journey. It is about our times and Kundan’s basic aim was to reflect our times.
The title is a quote by Kundan. He used to say I’ve been a rat all my life, I
know what it means and I made it the title of the book. The book is a social,
film and historical journey and the history of modern India and simultaneously,
the history of the world. We used to spend a lot of time together and from 2008
when his work slowed down, he used to come to my house regularly and we used to
talk about the world. He was always writing scripts, whether they were made or
not. It was important for him to continue writing scripts. We used to pick
fights about the scripts but it was a give and take between us, a straight
friendship.”
Saeed comes from
family that was into films and script writing while Kundan came from a trading
family, two people of completely different backgrounds. “He was a beautiful
mind. The fact that people from all backgrounds make up a world and one can’t
judge and also what you think is mediocre can be absolutely brilliant. Since
his passing away in 2017, it left a empty hole inside me. I was reliving those
memories while writing. He was not just friend but a passionate Indian who was
trying to understand our world. That’s his way to create a form in cinema that
reflects the absurd world we are living in. He tried very hard to make sense
out of it and made forms that were wild, grotesque, absurd, funny and
nonsensical, just to reflect. He was passionate about his work.”
Would Saeed be so
experimental without Kundan? “I really wonder. We pushed each other. He
deserves a book because he was absolutelty extraordinary. ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’
was not a funny film, it was a satire about our times. It became one of the
best films that was made in India in the last 100 year.”
Speaking about the
style of his of writing, he says, “I tried to make the book as much as a
screenplay as possible. Its understable and my books are experimental in form
and structure. It doesn’t have to a beginning and an end, it can be mixed up
and there can be a lot of things. The biggest mediocrity is the beginning,
middle and end.”
Nachiket Patwardhan
has worked on the visuals of the book with a myriad of photographs and
illustrations especially the character of a little rat running across the pages
of the book. “Even the typography and the words which are increased and
decreased in size and not just the visuals and drawing and what comes on the
next page, how do I give a pause. All these elements are important. Nachiket
Patwardhan is an eminent filmmaker and art director. He was my art director for
‘Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho!’ and he knew both, Kundan and I very well. We both
enjoyed doing the book. It was not me dictating my ideas, but both of us
putting in our inputs together to write the book,” says Saeed about his bond
with Nachiket.
Dividing his time
between Mumbai and Goa, Saeed finds Goa more peaceful for his writing. “I
prefer writing in Goa and the hills, Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh. My friend
Vivan Sundaram’s house is a nice place to write, or on a houseboat in Kashmir,
where it is not cold. I need to be quiet and I need solitude.”
Literati
and MOG will celebrate Saeed Mirza’s new book, ‘I Know the Psychology of Rats’
on January 13 at 6.30 pm. Saeed Mirza will be in conversation with Subodh
Kerkar and Sachin Chatte on thel book published by Tulika Books.