There are stories about Ekta Kapoor and there is the story of Ekta Kapoor. Here, in a chapter from her book Death in Mumbai, Meenal Baghel profiles India’s most well-known TV producer like never before.

‘The young, especially those from small towns and middle class families, like Neeraj, join because they want quick money, they want expression—their names and faces on TV.’

—Ekta Kapoor

Ekta Kapoor walked into the meeting late, and within ten seconds, like a tearaway bully on the beach, she dismantled all the castles the others had been building. ‘I want Crash,’ she said, referring to Paul Haggis’s multiple-Oscar winning film.

The meeting had been convened to discuss her newest project, a movie ‘inspired’ by Neeraj Grover’s killing. Ten films, Ekta informed everyone, had already been announced on the subject. Since Neeraj was a Balaji product and Maria had come to Mumbai aspiring to work with Ekta, it only made logical sense that they should stake ownership. ‘If there has to be a film on the TV industry then why shouldn’t we be the ones making the story?’

Except, at this point, there was no story.

The executives of Balaji’s fledgling film division, and the actor Rohit Roy, who had been signed on to direct his first full-length feature film, were in a massive conference room, brainstorming. ‘I have the opening sequence all ready in my head—it begins with a woman’s audition tape running… ’ Rohit said to the young assistant who had joined the company two days ago; the assistant looked suitably impressed. Someone suggested a Madhur Bhandarkar-style voyeuristic drama, while another executive came up with the idea of an ‘intense love story’. The consensus was veering in that direction when Crash landed.

‘It blew my mind,’ Ekta said. ‘Let’s also have the plot set over one night featuring several characters and their stories… Your budget,’ she said, turning towards Rohit, who was beginning to lose some of his good cheer, ‘would be Rs. two to three crore.’

I met Ekta, India’s most successful television producer—and an astute mind—to get an insider’s perspective on the world that Neeraj and Maria aspired to. At which she suggested I sit in on her meetings to see how she works and creates.

In the US, a single episode of a television show like Sex and the City or The Wire costs more than the budget she was offering Rohit for his film. But television in India works on simple volume—the more episodes you produce the more money you make. ‘It’s not amazing talent that makes me special,’ Ekta explained without any hint of self-deprecation, ‘but the sheer volume of work I have done.’ In its fourteen years, her company has produced over seventy shows, which have defined Indian television. Her approach to movies is similar. ‘I’d like to produce quickies made on a tight budget.’

The quick turnover demands a constant feed of actors, technicians, and scriptwriters, making Balaji Telefilms one of the largest employers in Bollywood. ‘Every day about a hundred people come to us looking for jobs. I know, because I have to deal with them.’ Like Muammar Gaddafi’s battalion of women bodyguards, a brisk bevy of bejewelled, tilak-sporting women that included a writer, a head of production, and an assistant, insulate Ekta from the pressures of her own celebrity status. Tanushree Dasgupta, who has been with her for nine years, is at their head.

When Ekta, famously and publicly devout, goes jogging every Tuesday from Mahim to Siddhivinayak Temple at Prabhadevi, she is often waylaid by people on the road wanting roles for themselves, their children; she hands them Tanushree’s number. Others get in touch with acquaintances working at Balaji Telefilms while trying for a break, as Maria Susairaj did. Maria befriended Balaji employee Jyoti Jhanavi on Orkut, who in turn introduced her to Neeraj, who was in charge of auditions there. Most recently, Ekta’s Facebook account had been overrun with pictures of young men baring their six-packs. ‘They think that’s their show-reel,’ she said, quite tickled.

Last year, a twenty-eight-year-old aspiring scriptwriter from Naini, Uttar Pradesh, Akshay Shivam Shukla, having exhausted all avenues of meeting the Boss Lady, came up with a most ingenuous plan. On August 4, the day of Shravan Puja, he infiltrated the Balaji Telefilms office disguised as a priest.

Unfortunately for him, the staff soon realized that instead of mantras, Panditji was mumbling mumbo-jumbo. Shukla was pulled aside, questioned, and thrown out. In protest, he spent the night outside Balaji House, and when morning came he tried to immolate himself with a litre and a half of kerosene. The watchmen, desperate to douse the flames, pushed him into the open sewer that runs alongside the building. Cops were called in, a case was registered, and Shukla—finally deterred from his mission to meet Ekta—was admitted to Cooper Hospital.

‘Eighty per cent of people in TV today have gone through Balaji,’ she told me, with pride. ‘The young, especially those from small towns and middle class families, like Neeraj, join because they want quick money, they want a platform to express themselves, to see their names and faces on TV. In their hometowns, TV is the primary source of entertainment, and to have their families see their name and face on TV is a big power trip.’

Her own creative head, Vikas Gupta, was a loose-limbed, floppy-haired twenty-one-year-old from Uttarakhand who leapfrogged up the hierarchy one evening when he saw Ekta struggling to figure out what had gone wrong with one of her episodes. ‘My mother would not buy the logic of the lead character,’ he told her casually.

‘On instinct,’ she said snapping her fingers, ‘I decided to make him Balaji’s creative head. It’s a big job, and I’ve made him sign a tough contract, but he understands the audience consists of women like his mother. Also, I liked his attitude.’

That was also what had first brought Neeraj to her attention. As she waited for her private lift to take her up to her fifth floor office, one of the aspirants hanging around on the ground floor saw Ekta and flicked an impertinent salute. ‘It was a really arrogant gesture, but I liked it,’ she said, letting me into the secret of how she creates stars. ‘There are only two things we look for in our lead actors: the man should have attitude, and the woman should look innocent. Between you and me,’ she said with a wink, ‘virginal.’ This has led to some peculiar casting problems—‘It’s become difficult to find young urban women who meet this criterion.’ Ekta bypassed this problem by casting schoolgirls. Her youngest heroine has been a sixteen-year-old.

As television boomed into a Rs 27,000 crore industry in just over ten years, Oshiwara transformed from the dump Ekta first came to in 2000 into one of Mumbai’s most fashionable neighbourhoods. Young television stars and technicians, who spent upwards of twelve hours a day in near-squalid studios at Goregaon, Saki Naka, and Malad, going weeks without a break, invested heavily in plush homes here. The skyline is dotted with Singapore-style condominiums with hard-to-pronounce French-sounding names. (The illusion of a First World lifestyle is reinforced with easy access to fancy cold cuts, cheese and wines, the latest Almodovar DVD, and 24/7 air-conditioned houses. This lasts only until one steps outside, and is rudely brought down to potholed earth.) Real estate expansion has been matched by a thriving nightlife, forcing even frou-frou South Mumbai restaurateurs like Rahul Akerkar, the owner of Indigo, to open branches here.

The idea and attitude of Oshiwara now pushes beyond the reclaimed marsh. It is in the vanity of little-known designers housed in glass-plated buildings announcing their genius tersely, like Giorgio Armani, or Jimmy Choo, and without a smidgen of irony: Rahul Agasti, Turakhia Dhaval, Roopa Vora, Babita Malkani.

It is implicit in the flashy EMI-driven lifestyle prevalent here. But most of all it lies, said Jaideep Sahni, in the ‘severe ambition’ that crackles in the air. His is the classic story of the outsider who made it big in Mumbai. The forty-one-year-old from Delhi is the most sought after scriptwriter in the film industry. ‘Just sit at the Yari Road Barista for half an hour and you will know what it’s about. The atmosphere is electric,’ he said referring to another coffee shop not far from where Neeraj and his friends hung out each evening. ‘Those men and women who look like Conan or Barbie behave as if they are out not for a cup of coffee, but for a screen test. Everything is about getting face time with the right people,’ said the writer of hit films like Company, Bunty Aur Babli, Khosla Ka Ghosla, and Chak De.

Jaideep himself is often accosted at film premieres, where a glass wall cuts the Bollywood hierarchy off from the hoi polloi. Such is the premium on these opening nights that cinema chains like PVR have introduced the idea of ‘paid premiere’ tickets. ‘A well-dressed stranger will persistently catch your eye and since it would be rude to not respond, and one may be unsure of having met them, you go across. That’s all they need. After small talk about how they admire your work, or similar fawning attentiveness, they’ll follow you back into the enclosure, past the usher, as if that’s their natural destination.’ He laughed half-admiringly. ‘Once in, the person will drop you to go mingle with other directors and producers. Mission accomplished.’

~

‘Every nation has a defining characteristic. If it is confidence for the American, for the Australian it’s his appetite for fun. In India, what defines us is striving,’ Rajesh Kamat told me. A Mumbai boy, Rajesh was the CEO of Viacom 18, the company that owns the entertainment channel Colors, at the age of thirty-seven. He has left that job since we last spoke. Colors had raced to the top of the Television Rating Point (TRP) chart within a year of its launch, forcing others, including Ekta, to modify their formula. ‘It’s our striving for a better life, a better lifestyle. There is, even in these tough times, a disproportionate amount of money to be made in TV, which is why it’s so seductive for the young.’

Having worked previously with Endemol, a Dutch company that licenses reality show formats—they produced two of the biggest shows on Colors, Fear Factor and Big Boss 2—Rajesh has closely watched this young workforce turn around the country’s television habits—television’s eternal saas–bahu sagas ceding ground to starlet Dolly Bindra getting foul-mouthed on camera.

Over the course of an interview that stretched past midnight, Ekta, who is now routinely counted among India’s wealthiest women, recounted how she started her own career as an eighteen-year-old producer. ‘I was in class twelve when my parents shifted from Bandra to their bungalow in Juhu, which I hated. I’d run away to Bandra every day to hang out at the Otters’ Club with my friends Anupam and Parvin Dabas, who went on to become an actor, and to walk around Joggers’ Park with Aunty Neetu [Singh-Kapoor].’

Additionally, three days of the week were scheduled for partying, which caught the attention of the ever-vigilant Stardust. ‘I was just excited about doing nothing. I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t smoke, I rarely drank, but Stardust ran a piece saying Jeetendra’s daughter was running wild.’ Her father, a man of modest and conservative upbringing—his family ran a small business selling artificial jewellery before he went on to become a big star, was appalled. ‘He couldn’t understand why I needed to be out of the house every second day… Not long after I turned eighteen he came into my room one evening and gave me an ultimatum— either I start working, or get married.’

Ekta grew up watching endless hours of television and devouring tubs of ice cream while her father was busy shooting three shifts a day, and her mother stayed away either travelling with him or at kitty parties. She decided to make television serials. ‘I loved TV, it gave me great joy.’ Her friend Ratna Rajiah wrote a plot outline, which her cousin Gattu (better known as Abhishek Kapoor, the director of the Farhan Akhtar starrer Rock On) would direct. ‘Our pilot was called Jeans ‘n’ Josh and I must confess that the title was the only colourful thing about it; the serial was a grim look at things like peer pressure, AIDS, bisexuality, parental hypocrisy. We wanted to be dark and meaningful,’ she said, letting out an ironic little giggle. ‘It was our equivalent of a Madhur Bhandarkar movie, and both Gattu and I were very proud of it. But when we showed it to Ravina Raj Kohli at Star TV, she took one look at it and dismissed us, saying no channel would commission something so dark, and which dealt with suicide and all. “Give me something happy and family oriented,” she said. We were crushed. I remember getting out of the Star office and shaking my head to Gattu: “What’s the world come to, I say!”’

But she imbibed Ravina Raj Kohli’s instructions well. ‘I am not saying we are ashamed of what we do… We did create Kyunki, Kanyadaan, Kkavyanjali, Kasautii, which have been about the urban middle class, but you are not my audience. You can go home and see Desperate Housewives just like I do.’

Her serials are a volatile mix of traditional Indian motifs, often featuring joint families with all their stereotypes, clashing modern values, and are as formulaic as a Bollywood film. When Peter Chernin, then COO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (which owns Star TV in India), came to Ekta’s home for a meal he asked her what was wrong with one of their new launches, and why it wasn’t doing well. ‘Even then I told him that his new channel was trying to be a niche channel, and that could never be profitable in India.’

A few years after this well-meaning advice, Star TV terminated their decade-long exclusive partnership with Ekta, axed three of her daily soaps, and divested their 25.99 per cent share in her company. Balaji Telefilms’ stock went into a tailspin, sparking a shiver of excitement among Bollywood’s obituary writers.

We met again on the day her company lost its arbitration case against Star TV. She had just emerged from a marathon meeting with her creative team, but was still smarting from the judgment. ‘I gave Star the best eight, nine years of my life, I took them at face value, but they f***** me over… ’

‘Then again,’ she lowered her pitch by a notch or two, ‘my Rahu mahadasha has begun, and I’ve been told my secret enemies will start to surface.’

I asked with curiosity: ‘For how long will the mahadasha go on?’

‘Eighteen years, man!’

Early propagators of astrology, the Babylonians and the Mayans would read chicken liver for as many as six thousand warning signs. The greater the fear of uncertainty, and the less assurance there is of certitude, leaves the diviner and the follower to try every possible form of propitiation.

Such was the case with Ekta, who wore a stone on every finger, even two on some. Over the many doors of the seven-storeyed Balaji House, horseshoes, clutches of fresh neon-green chillies and lemon are tied along with coconuts wrapped in an auspicious red, dangling like the breasts of a baboon. On Ekta’s fifth floor domain as well as at her Juhu house the Gayatri mantra, sung in a fast-paced tinny-voice, as if on a worn-out tape, plays round the clock working like a force field against any possible evil eyes.

A former employee clued me in, ‘Whenever you meet her, take a close look at her shoes.’ The woman who could easily afford the latest Manolos and Louboutins only ever wore a pair of worn-out platform slip-ons, straps in tatters, with the clunky rubber heels roughened. ‘She considers them her lucky shoes and won’t trade them for another pair.’

Not long after hearing this, I read an interview with Ekta in Hindustan Times in which, speaking about her shows on Colors, Ekta said her association with the channel would be fruitful, she knew, because when its creative head first called she’d been in a puja, and as soon as their conversation ended a flower dropped from the head of the idol. It was, Ekta said, a divine seal of approval.
~~

I sat in on one of her meetings, hoping to catch some of the action—it was rumoured that in fits of rage she threw slippers (the lucky ones?) at errant employees; but while I was there, she remained regrettably in control.

Of the ten serials that are in production at any given time, Ekta only looks after three—the rest are taken care of by associates—but she decides the look and casting for each of the shows. ‘I remember we shortlisted a girl for our serial Kasturi, but when I came back from out of town and saw the hoardings, I realized her face did not reflect the innocence demanded by the character. Overnight the hoardings were brought down, a fake story about how pressure had made the actress ill was circulated in the media, and a new girl was found.’

Ekta talked from behind a presidential-size desk as Vikas showed her auditions of aspirants—this is what Neeraj Grover used to do at Balaji Telefilms. Also present were seven or eight young women, all under thirty. Ekta stared hard at the computer screen, and pressed the enter key with the speed and concentration of a tabla player beating a riff on the dagga. Though the air conditioner remote was lying next to her, she passed it to one of the girls every few minutes: ‘On karo… ab off karo. Switch it on… ab off… ’

Mothers, sisters—‘kindly faces’, buas and sisters-in-law—‘nice bitchy faces’ were swiftly cast before trouble erupted. ‘Where’s the father? The Marathi actor I asked you guys to locate, the one who looks like an older Ajay Devgn?’ There was a shuffle of confusion, and Vikas pressed ahead trying to show her other options, but she refused to be appeased.

‘WHERE IS THE GUY I WANT?’

The entire group involuntarily moved back a step. Was I about to witness a famous Ekta blowout? Instead, she abruptly switched her tone and turned to me. ‘I got the idea for the film on Neeraj from something you said. General wisdom is that creative directors like him have no clout, they merely audition… but I got thinking, and it struck me that I get to see only what they choose to show me. They actually have the power to make or break someone’s career. If my staff shows me the photograph of an actor just as I am leaving for home, getting into the car, ninety per cent chances are I’ll say okay. That’s the time I am exhausted and not as hawk-eyed… This power and what they choose to do with it is what I want to explore in the film.’

She then got up, and with a gesture intended to be theatrical, pulled me into the corridor. ‘If you’re doing a book on Neeraj Grover, you must speak to Smita Patil,’ she said sotto voce. ‘She’s a spook, man!’

Though Neeraj had quit working for Ekta Kapoor several months earlier, when he went missing Ekta got one of her colleagues to contact a clairvoyant for his whereabouts. It was a far more reliable source of information for her than any detective could offer. ‘I knew Neeraj was dead even before the police announced it. This woman had told us that his girlfriend, along with two other men, had killed him, and she also gave details of where his body could be found.’

Two days later she texted me the mobile number of her clairvoyant, Smita Patil.

The phone beeped, and Narendra Chanchal’s ‘Chalo bulawaa aaya hai, maata ne bulaya hai… ’ rang in my ear. Mid-crescendo, Smita Patil cut him short and answered the phone. She had been a Goregaon girl who got her degree in textile designing from Sophia Polytechnic, and married an assistant geologist in ONGC. For several years she taught art in various schools, all the while nursing political ambitions. In 1999 she was jailed during a political agitation, and was featured in the Bombay Times as ‘Star of the Week’.

A devotee of Durga from her early days, she did the punishing nine-day nirjala vrat every Navratri to invoke the goddess. ‘People started making fun of my bhakti so I prayed hard to Mata Rani, saying she needed to manifest herself and save me from such humiliation. In 2005, Mata Rani housed herself in my body and she has stayed on since, constantly showing herchamatkar.’

Every Tuesday at her home, which is right next to a teeming mall at Bhayander, she holds a durbar where Mata Rani—and here Smita Patil referred to herself in the third person—gives darshan seated on her high chair, doling out individual benedictions after the prayers. From healing invalids to blessing the childless, Mata Rani’s bounty, she says, knows no limit.

‘In May last year one of my bhakts, a girl called Rasika, came in with her boyfriend Kushal who works at Balaji, he wanted to know the whereabouts of his friend Neeraj. I took one look at Neeraj’s picture and said, “The boy is no more, his girlfriend and two men are responsible, and the body can be found near water.” Kushal told me no one would kidnap Neeraj, and that he didn’t think that’s what had happened. So I closed my eyes again and told him that Mata Rani had spoken and that the girlfriend should be taken to the CBI and she would confess.’

‘This Kushal called me one evening some days later and said, “Mata Rani, please switch on the TV. Whatever you said has come true.”’ She has guided several celebrities in addition to Ekta, even telling a powerful Shiv Sena politician that he was going to die soon.

And, did he? It was impossible to resist the question.

‘Within three days of my informing him this, he had an accident and died.’

But it’s not easy being Mata Rani, taking care of bhoot–balaayein,and dialoguing with the spirits. ‘If it’s a shaitani shaktiI have to counter, I suffer tremendously, my feet get crooked, I start yelling and then my body starts to get heavier and heavier. Mata Rani needs to be in a pure environment and you can imagine what that means in a filthy city like Mumbai… It’s difficult to walk on roads, travel by train, I can’t clean my house, wash utensils, normal life is not possible with Mata Rani constantly living in my body. The family life is affected too.’ But her children, one of whom studies aeronautical engineering in Nashik while the other is in class XI, have come to accept the new presence in their mother’s life.

‘My dream is to serve the people and have a temple built in Mata Rani’s name at my residence, for that’s where her shrine stood four hundred years ago, and which was later buried under rubble. Mata Rani needs to be brought out from under the earth and allowed to breathe.’
~~~

Superstitions and clinging to totems sit oddly with the woman I’ve been interviewing. Ekta is bright, humorous, and in possession of a combative streak. I mentioned this to a television insider who has dealt closely with Balaji Telefilms, and who agreed to speak provided I kept his identity concealed. ‘To understand the Ekta phenomenon,’ he said chuckling quietly, ‘you must also know the father and the mother. Brand Ekta is the three of them operating as a unit.’

Shobha Kapoor, a former flight attendant, is the canny dowager whose business deals are as sharp as her diamonds. Her rough cuts are offset by Ekta’s father. Jeetendra was India’s original dancing star who, when thirty was thought of as middle age, famously endorsed a brand of virility capsules called ‘Thirty Plus’. ‘Jeetendra is charm and gentleness personified,’ my informer explained.

The final member of the troika is Ekta, the unpredictable, superstitious diva with a famous temper, who creates amidst chaos. ‘The mother will play hardball with a channel in the morning, but blame Ekta’s working style when executives complain of schedules going awry or tapes coming in late. If the channel ever suggests dropping a Balaji show that may be faring poorly, Jeetendra will take the executives out for a drink by the evening and get emotional and apologetic, saying: “You know just how eccentric Ekta is, all the shows are like her babies, I understand your problem but if you drop one of the shows, she may get upset, that in turn may affect her creativity, and impact the rest of the serials on the channel…”’ The insider laughed, putting aside his masalachai. ‘It’s a brilliant strategy.’

I got the drift of her mercurial style one evening when she called me over to her house. ‘I’ll be relaxed there and we can chat at leisure.’ But the meeting was rescheduled four times before she sent a message saying that she would definitely be home by 11 pm. These days Amitabh Bachchan might woefully blog about waterlogging at his house each time it rains heavily, but until recently, the Juhu Vile-Parle Development Scheme was one of the most elegant addresses in Mumbai. A generation of movie stars—Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Rakesh Roshan, Shatrughan Sinha, and Hema Malini—live in plush fenced-off bungalows there. A few years ago, when Hema Malini decided to reconstruct her home, she looked around for a temporary apartment in the vicinity—but quickly dropped the idea when she discovered she was expected to share the elevator with the other residents of the building.

Her contemporary, and one-time suitor, Jeetendra has a house, which stands out, in the neighbourhood as one of the largest. It also resembles a Jain temple, built as it is in blinding-white marble. But the presiding deity was not in.

Instead, I was ushered in with my Mumbai Mirror colleague Vickey Lalwani into a high-ceilinged room so large that it looked unused. In a far corner, Ekta’s photographs in various poses lined the shelf—she has a sweet face and a lovely smile, but the hauteur in the eyes is unmistakable. A sprawling chandelier hung over a bare dining table; Grecian-style pillars and a forlorn-looking marble nymph added to the mausoleum-like feel. The same tinny-voiced Gayatri mantra was playing here too, though there didn’t seem to be a soul around. As the minutes elapsed, Vickey and I silently stared at Ekta’s black pug desperately humping a velvet sofa cushion.

Suddenly, Jeetendra glided noiselessly into the room, looking dressed for a night out. After solicitous small talk he called out, conjuring a flurry of liveried attendants, as he did Ekta who arrived within seconds. It was past midnight, but she had been out jogging. ‘The three most important things in my day are: exercise, prayer, meetings, in that order of priority.’ She would jog anywhere, any time, which explained her perennial uniform of T-shirts and track pants. Very different from her growing-up years, when she favoured hip clothing.

‘I was 84 kilos when I was eighteen, that’s the heaviest I’ve ever been. That happened because when I’d be at home, I would do nothing but sit in front of the TV or talk to my friends on the phone, and eat tubs of ice cream. That too full cream—there were none of the 96 percent fat-free gelatos in those days.’ She laughed. ‘One of the reasons I partied so hard was to get slim. It was my way of keeping away from junk. I wanted to get into “fashionable” clothes,’ she rolls her eyes and makes the quote sign, ‘dance like crazy, and just hang. By the time I was twenty, I was drinking hot water twenty times a day and my weight had come down to 51 kilos.’

That must have made her happy.

‘I can’t say about that but I do know I looked ill. I remember my friend, the former actress Neelam, was hospitalized with meningitis; when I went to see her at the hospital her mother was berating her for not eating properly, and then she whipped around to stare at me and said, “You’re falling sick next.”’

The partying and the skimpy clothes, Ekta said, were a passing phase. Recently, she tried to stop her friend’s sixteen-year-old daughter from going off with a television actor after a late night party, and was snubbed for her efforts. ‘The young these days are so at ease with their sexuality, and they know what they want in life. They have the drive and the ambition, but I find many of them are so happy with their limited forty-thousand-rupee-a-month lifestyle that they will not work harder to get into the one- lakh-rupee bracket. They need to inculcate the value of hard work.’

Her own strong work ethic and her faith guide her life. Apart from visiting Siddhivinayak Temple every Tuesday, a Shani temple every Saturday, and the Tirupati Balaji temple before launching a show, Ekta said she needed to pray for ‘just seven minutes’ every day.

Ekta puts in sixteen hours a day—her friend, the Bollywood scriptwriter Mushtaq Shaikh, is writing a book on her called Holidays Not Allowed—working through the night, and very often clearing an episode that’s scheduled for telecast later that evening at 4 am. When Balaji Telefilms became a public listed company, the joke in the Star TV office was that the risk factor in the share prospectus should mention ‘Possibility of Ekta getting married’. Neeraj, who often complained to his roommate Haresh Sondarva about the ‘inhuman working conditions at Balaji’, and fretted about the long and irregular hours, nonetheless greatly admired Ekta’s drive and success.

‘I have no family time,’ she admitted. Four years ago she built herself a multi-storey bungalow a few hundred metres away from her parents’ home. ‘I wanted to know what it was like to live by myself.’ She shifted into the house with three household helpers, but didn’t last beyond a few days. ‘It was beautiful, but awfully quiet. . . Here, I know that I have my space but also the knowledge that my parents are floating about somewhere.’

At thirty-six, she is in a ‘happy space: I have satisfying work, friends, my own time, I lead a cocooned life.’ But things at Balaji have been getting worrisome. News came in that their ambitious show Mahabharat on 9X channel (for which Maria had auditioned) would go off the air mid-narrative. The expensive period sets erected cannot be used for any other show, and the money owed to them is unlikely to be paid.

Elsewhere, reality TV shows were flourishing, contributing about 25 percent of the total programming. During a trip to Mysore I met Maria Susairaj’s journalism teacher Shabana Mansoor, who has since quit teaching to pursue research on the ‘Priming Effect of Television on Young Female Adults’. The research was inspired by a train conversation with a young woman who said she would never want to marry a man whose mother was alive. She had been convinced that mothers-in-law were terrible creatures after growing up on a staple of Ekta Kapoor’s trademark ‘K’-serials. ‘But when I went for my fieldwork I found that most young women now watch the soaps mainly for fashion and interior tips, and their real interest lies elsewhere.’ In the villages of Kerala and Karnataka, Shabana was repeatedly asked why she had omitted asking questions about Roadies and Splitsvilla, the two most popular reality shows on television.

Balaji had been unable to cash in on this brash new phenomenon, still stuck with heavy duty drama. But Ekta had a plan to expand her business, which was soon revealed. As a first step she made up with Star TV, producing new shows for them. After parting ways with her mamaji, Shobha Kapoor’s brother and the well-known film distributor Ramesh Sippy, Ekta became firmly in charge of the family’s film business. A new CEO was hired, and five films had already been green lit. Three of these were based on real-life incidents, trying for a touch of realism that Ekta could not bring to her television programmes. The film on Neeraj Grover’s death never got made, though Ekta produced one of the most celebrated movies of 2009, Love, Sex Aur Dhoka, an edgy triptych about sexual betrayal, cinematic aspirations, and parental disapproval—themes that deeply resonated with Neeraj’s killing.
~~~~
But none of the stress from the dwindling bottom line was evident at the party the day after Diwali. It was the annual card fixture the Kapoors hosted to celebrate the festival. Invites had been texted that morning, but it was expected to be a full house. At 1 am the road leading to Ekta’s house was crammed with gleaming Mercedes and Beemers. In that darkened lane, Ekta’s bungalow was lit up like a piece of jewellery. The lift inside the house carried us to the third floor, and into a hall marked by its quietness. On a cluster of large round tables, Jeetendra, Rakesh Roshan, Sunita Menon, Saawan Kumar Tak, and Manish Malhotra were playing cards with serious intent.

Nobody looked up as other guests walked in and went past. The only sound was the clink of ice in the glasses of single malt and the rueful phew! of a substantial loss. In the adjoining hall, dominated by a stunning chandelier that descended from a dome at least fifty feet high, the scene resembled a Las Vegas casino more than a Mumbai house party. Certainly the décor bore out the excesses of Las Vegas. The room I was in favoured the ladies—Rakesh Roshan’s wife Pinky, Karan Johar’s mother Hiroo, Dimple Kapadia (stunning in green), and the actor Akashdeep were dealing with wads of thousand and five hundred rupee notes. Currency was spread out like a tablecloth.

A sudden shriek from the corner of the room had the others rushing over—Dimple had won her first big hand—Rs 50,000. The Juhu film aristocracy was out to play.

I spotted the now-familiar faces of Ekta’s associates Tanushree, Vikas, and some of the other girls—her young team was always invited to her parties—not participating yet, but absorbing the opportunities their new world offered; relishing the idea.

In the centre of the third enclosure, Shobha Kapoor presided over a mammoth table in white make-up, a white sari, and gothic lipstick. She wore rubies and emeralds the size of some exotic animal’s eggs. But there was something troublingly familiar about her. An attendant stood patiently behind her holding a crystal bowl of black grapes that she absent-mindedly picked at every few minutes. At one point she stretched out her hand and frowned when she couldn’t reach him, and suddenly I knew why she looked so familiar—all the vamps in Ekta’s shows, from their clothes down to their intricate bindis—looked remarkably like her mother.

There was no sign yet of Ekta. I was told she liked to make dramatic appearances. Familiar faces from television serials were killing time playing for far lower stakes near the bar. The scalloped ecru curtains had been drawn back, and from across the French windows there was a curious sight. In the adjoining building, standing at the window of their unremarkable two-bedroom flat through which the mussed-up bed and drying towels were visible, Ekta’s neighbours were lined up and looking in, stargazing.

At around 2 am a little buzz went around the party. Belying her reputation, Ekta had slipped shyly into the room, dressed in a zardozi lehenga with a pouch dangling from her wrist. For the television crowd, many of whom were there to mark their presence rather than play the great stakes, the party had just gotten underway.

‘This is my parents’ party, I am just being dutiful here… the bashes I throw are more fun, I assure you!’

‘But surely this was not going to last long,’ I suggested.

‘Oh, I don’t know, the last time round, because there was no place for me here, I went to my own house and when I returned at eleven the next morning these guys were straggling out.’

She then made her way around the room, stopping at the various tables, asking her friends whether they were winning or losing. When someone made a little pout signalling loss, she took out a fat wad of notes from her batua and gave it to them with a benevolent command, ‘Come on, play.’ Another wad was similarly offered at another table. Irrespective of losses, the party must continue.

Excerpted from ‘Death in Mumbai’, by Meenal Baghel, courtesy of Vintage/ Random House India. You can buy the book here.

TBIP chronicles the life of one of India’s best known film festivals, from its inception till now, through the ups and the downs.

On September 25, 2013, the Mumbai Film Festival’s curtain raiser event was held at the Taj Mahal Palace at Apollo Bunder. Here, in its Crystal Room, the lineup of this year’s festival was announced. Prominent films being screened at the festival were being live-tweeted by @Mumbaifilmfest, the festival’s official twitter handle. One tweet read: “Yes it’s true. Blue Is the Warmest Colour is coming to #MAMI this October!” Blue Is the Warmest Colour won the Palme d’Or at the Festival de Cannes this May. This rather enthusiastic tweet is a fair indicator of the long distance that one of India’s best-known film fests still has to travel. Most of the world’s renowned film festivals, including the Festival de Cannes, take great pride in hosting world premieres for films. They seldom screen films that have already been screened at other festivals. “We are not competing with film festivals either in Asia or in the world,” says Srinivasan Narayanan, Director of the Mumbai Film Festival (MFF, or MAMI as it is often called, after the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image which organizes it), when asked about whether MFF matches up to other leading film festivals. “Our only competition is with ourselves.”

***

On November 24, 1997, the first MFF took off. It was hoped that Mumbai, the city that had never had an independent international film festival to call its own, despite being home to the world’s most prolific film industry, would now play host to ‘good cinema’ from world over. Prior to MFF, the only film festival in the city was the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF), but its focus was solely on shorts, documentaries and animation films. Also, back then, the only major film festival in the country was the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). The Kolkata International Film Festival (KFF) was only two years old, and the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) had only had one innings. All of these had been sponsored by the state.

A need was felt for a festival organized by the film industry itself. “Mumbai being the premier filmmaking center in India didn’t have its own festival. We felt an initiative to change that was required, and that’s how we started,” says MAMI trustee, Amit Khanna. So several industry veterans came together to form the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), a not-for-profit trust. Recalls Sudhir Nandgaonkar, former Artistic Director of MFF: “The first ever MAMI meeting was held in April 1997 at Basu Bhattacharya’s home in Carter Road, Bandra. (Filmmakers) Shyam Benegal, Amit Khanna, Kiran Shantaram, Amol Palekar, Basu Bhattacharya, Ramesh Sippy, Manmohan Shetty, and the Film Federation of India (FFI) Secretary General Supran Sen made up that original gathering. And of course, there was the Chairman, Hrishikesh Mukherjee.”

A decision was made to set up the Mumbai Film Festival, an event that would cater to a population starved of world cinema. Hollywood films were already popular in the city, but there was scant exposure to regional films and those from other countries. “Our objective was to change that,” states Kiran Shantaram, former MAMI trustee and Secretary.

In the first few years of the festival, the films screened could be roughly divided into five categories: World Cinema (films screened worldwide in the last two years), contemporary Indian films (with occasional focus on regional films), retrospectives, tributes, and the ‘focus on a country’. The ‘focus on a country’ section endeavoured to “introduce film from a country that the viewer hasn’t seen before.” This section, still there, not only screened films from countries that were usually known world over for producing renowned auteurs—such as Iran, Japan or Spain—it also screened films from countries, whose cinema most were not familiar with, such as Israel, South Africa, Serbia, Montenegro, and Palestine.

Like most film festivals, MFF started small and without a competition section. It showcased 65 films from 23 countries, and its main and only venue, at the outset, was the Y.B. Chavan Centre at Nariman Point. NFDC technicians were brought on board to help check prints and manage screening-related procedures.

Getting by on a budget of Rs. 10 lakhs, the festival barely saw 200 delegates in attendance in its first year. Despite being launched as an independent film festival, Rs. 5 lakhs, or half their budget, had been received as subsidy by the MFF from the state government. “The other 5 (lakhs) came from Mahindra & Mahindra,” says Nandgaonkar.

The festival had many struggles with funding for the first decade. In fact, the state didn’t contribute to the 1998 edition, and the festival had to be cancelled that year.

Also, Air India and Jet Airways were approached to fly down international delegates for free, but only a few tickets for domestic routes were offered. As a result, organizers had to cut down on foreign delegate invites. Kiran Shantaram runs through the list of sponsors: “In 1999, we got Rs. 20 lakhs from Indian Oil (Corporation Ltd.) and Rs. 5 lakhs from the Maharashtra Government. In 2000, Star TV gave Rs. 20 lakhs, Godrej provided Rs.10 lakhs, and the state government increased the annual subsidy from Rs. 5 to 10 lakhs. For the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions, we got Rs. 25 lakhs from Star TV. In 2005, Sahara One contributed Rs. 25 lakhs.” But the backers were still felt to be too few, and the money they pledged wasn’t substantial enough. Nandgaonkar attributes this to the fact that: “In India, corporate companies have no ‘practice’ of supporting a film festival.”

The budgetary concerns were especially relevant because the MAMI trustees wanted the festival to be independent in the truest sense and not kowtow to unpalatable demands from corporate giants. For instance, Pepsi had approached MAMI in 2000 with Rs. 50 lakhs but had wanted to rename the festival the ‘Pepsi Film Festival’. “Of course we declined,” says Nandgaonkar.

In 2006 too, the festival was about to get cancelled due to budgetary constraints, but an intervention with funds from Zee Cinema and AdlabsFilms Ltd. kept it afloat. Even then, it was in such dire straits financially, that there was no cash prize for Indian films that year.

All of this was further exacerbated by the fact that there was no marketing manager for the festival, who could solicit sponsors. The festival couldn’t afford one because of lack of funds. It was a vicious cycle. Then, says Nandgaonkar, “I got a call from Shyam Benegal in 2007 saying, ‘For how long will you toil to support the festival? Why don’t we go to Reliance?’”

Reliance had branched out into the media and entertainment business with Big Entertainment two yearsago, in 2005 (It had acquired Adlabs in July 2005). “The company became a sponsor for the festival in 2007 and 2008, contributing Rs. 1 crore in each year,” says Nandgaonkar. “It was then Tina Ambani suggested that: ‘Instead of sponsoring the festival, why don’t we take over?’”

In 2009, Reliance Big Entertainment officially partnered with MAMI for the 11^th edition of the Mumbai Film Festival. The impact was evident. From no cash prize for Indian films in 2006, the total cash prize in 2009 increased to Rs. 85 lakhs. The budget of the festival has since then increased, and is around Rs. 6 crore for the current year, with cash prizes worth more than Rs. 1.2 crore. Also, with the advent of Reliance and a steady source of funds from 2008 on, the festival seemed to be seeking out ways of reinventing itself, of becoming more inclusive.

This can be gauged from the introduction of new sections to the festival, focusing on the younger film enthusiasts of Mumbai. In 2008, MFF introduced ‘Dimensions Mumbai’—a short film competition for filmmakers from Mumbai under the age of 25. In 2009, they launched ‘Mumbai Young Critics’—a film criticism workshop for selected students from various Mumbai colleges, whose critiques got published either in the festival bulletin or the Hindustan Times Café (the festival’s media partner). A jury of young film critics was also formed to confer the ‘Mumbai Young Critics Silver Gateway Award’ upon the best film in the International Competition section. The young are an important ‘target audience’ for the festival. Says Narayanan, to emphasize how important student involvement is: “Besides other reasons (not wanting to clash dates with other major film festivals), the reason we have the festival in October is because at this time of year, schools and colleges are comparatively free, and it’s not exam time.”

The festival also simultaneously introduced awards and sections with more international appeal: a global ‘lifetime achievement award’ was introduced in 2008 (Costa-Gavras will be honoured this year), and, finally, an international competition for first feature films was introduced in 2009. Even the nature of the opening film reflected this new trend. From 2009 on, it wasn’t just about a well-made film, but also one that had a buzz around it. In 2009, the festival opened with Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant, followed by David Fincher’s The Social Network, Bennett Miller’s Moneyball, and David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook in years to come.

MFF has also garnered a lot of attention for the kind of foreign art house films it has screened in the last few years. Films such as The Turin Horse, The Artist, Amour, Beasts of the Southern Wild. Among this year’s screenings will be Blue Is the Warmest Colour, Inside Llewyn Davis and Le Passé to name a few. “They really track the best films that are being shown at various international film festivals,” says Aseem Chhabra, a film critic and writer who curates the New York Indian Film Festival. “To bring the films and significant jurypersons to India, which is still not a premier market for Hollywood and other foreign language films, is a remarkable feat.”

All these films have either been prizewinners or screened in the competition sections of major film festivals of the world. There is a curiosity about them, especially because most of them don’t find a theatrical release in India. And even if they do they are more often than not heavily censored. The interest in these films can also be attributed to a ‘good cinema’ watching culture in the country that is growing slowly but steadily with the proliferation of the internet. “Now people follow what’s happening in other festivals (across the world) online,” says Chhabra. “There’s an audience and they are hungry for good cinema.”

Successful film festivals are also often known by the filmmakers they discover. Filmmakers such as Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Wong Kar-Wai, Jafar Panahi, Darren Aronofsky, and, more recently, Ben Zeitlin all found fame through film festivals. This is possibly one of the reasons behind two of MFF’s new sections— ‘New Faces in Indian Cinema’, a non-competitive section which screens first and second films of Indian filmmakers, was added in 2010, and India Gold, a competitive section comprising Indian films that have not been released elsewhere in the country, in 2012. Aniruddha Guha, Film Editor at Time Out Mumbai, who is part of a 13-member selection panel at MFF, feels MFF has finally made a start at discovering new voices: “Ship of Theseus got a lot of attention this year. I saw Ship of Theseus last year in June, when it was entered into the competition category and it played at the festival where many people watched it, which helped create a lot of buzz.” But, since even films being screened in the India Gold section do not necessarily have to have their world premiere at MFF (something other better known festivals demand) the two acclaimed Indian films that screened at MFF last year—Miss Lovely and Ship of Theseus—were actually first noticed at film festivals abroad (Miss Lovely premiered at the Festival de Cannesand Ship of Theseus premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival).

Most leading film festivals around the world not only screen films that break free from conventional commercial restrictions but also host a kind of ‘art film market’ where such films can be picked up for distribution. MFF too introduced the Mumbai Film Mart in 2011. The objective was “to promote Indian films globally, beyond Bollywood. And also provide a platform for a lot of independent filmmakers,” says Rashmi Lamba, Manager of Mumbai Film Mart. In the last 3 years, the mart has helped release three mainstream Indian films (3 Idiots, Don 2, Jab Tak Hai Jaan) break into non-traditional foreign markets such as Japan. But the modest number of buyers (around 15 in 2011, 25 in 2012, and 50 this year) so far means films from Indian independent filmmakers are still waiting to be picked up.

While there’s no doubting that MFF is highly anticipated today by cinephiles in the city, it is yet to attract a sustained interest from filmmakers across the world. For instance, the filmmaker and leading actors for last year’s opening film, Silver Linings Playbook, besides Anupam Kher, were absent. So were a lot of other international filmmakers whose films screened at the festival. “Why is it that MAMI is not able to attract a lot of journalists for instance? Sure, there will be journalists coming from outside, but why not the kind of press that comes to Toronto or Berlin—500 to 600 journalists from around the world?” asks Chhabra, before answering the question: “But MAMI can’t have that because most of foreign language films that are screened in the festival have already been shown elsewhere.” He adds: “And even though they hold world premieres for Indian films, there’s very little excitement for Indian cinema abroad.”

The Mumbai Film Festival also differs from a lot of international film festivals because of the absence of a permanent venue. Unlike its counterparts in Toronto, Busan, and Venice, MFF has no cultural or cinema complex that serves as a nucleus. This deprives it of a personality. Currently, the film festival resembles a travelling cinema within the city. It kicked off at Y.B. Chavan Centre (Nariman Point) and has since then moved to Marine Lines, Wadala, Versova, Ghatkopar, Juhu, and Sion.

Also, the majority of the screening venues being located in South Bombay makes it difficult for people from far-flung suburbs to attend. Most screenings used to be in South Bombay in the initial years of the festival since its cinema halls were technically equipped, but the mushrooming of multiplexes with better technology has opened up many more possibilities.

“MFF was held at INOX and NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) last year because both are in one area. So we have Metro and Liberty this year,” says Narayanan. But when deciding on venues for a film festival one has to consider both seating capacities as well as their proximity to the audience. The ideal MFF venue should have one cinema with a large seating capacity for the biggest draws, and there should be a multiplex or multiplexes to allow for multiple screenings as well.

Filmmaker Sudhir Mishra, MAMI trustee, reiterates the need for a cultural centre in Bombay: “There should be a facility built by the state for cultural occasions, preferably in a central location like Bandra, so it can be convenient for everyone to visit.” But the dynamics of the space-clogged city poses a logistical challenge to such a permanent venue for the festival.

Perhaps such a venue, with state-of-the-art technology, could help prevent technical glitches of the kind the festival witnessed in the last few years: issues with aspect ratio, missing subtitles, disappearing audio, screening cancellations. When asked about this, Amit Khanna says: “NCPA didn’t have the proper facilities, so temporary facilities were made. This year, we have two engineers from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers of America (SMPTE) coming and helping us.”

Narayanan elaborates on the remedial measures MFF is taking this year to prevent such catastrophes: “We have brought in Real Image and Reliance MediaWorks, and there’s a big technical team working on that. But remember, even festivals like Cannes and Berlin have minor glitches.” Sudhir Mishra also underlines the need for dry runs before films are screened, which he says are already underway this time.

INOX, Nariman Point (one of the venues for last year’s MFF) had come under fire in 2012 for making people stand in line for tickets barely 30 minutes or an hour before films were screened. “They issued tickets for each show instead of letting us get tickets for multiple screenings in a day,” says Deepa Deosthalee, a film writer and last year’s MFF attendee. “It was a huge problem, especially for films that were in demand. I was unable to watch Miss Lovely for this reason.”

Narayanan says: “This was a decision made by the exhibitor, and not MFF”. In an effort to cut down on queues and long waits outside venues this year, MFF has now introduced a seat reservation system. Seats can be pre-booked online against a delegate pass. So now viewers can handpick the films they want to attend and make their bookings— a system followed by international film festivals. Delegates will, however, have to turn up at least 15 minutes before a screening to collect their tickets. MFF hopes this will make things easier for everybody. “If you are not there five minutes before (the film), your reservation will be cancelled,” says Narayanan assertively. Here’s hoping they are, in droves. For when all is noted and said on what makes for a successful film festival, nothing is more significant than its audience.

Firoz Khan has made a name for himself as the nation’s most popular Amitabh Bachchan lookalike. But his greatest gift is also his prison.

When Firoz Khan stood tall on a makeshift stage in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh, this June, there was no one around. His only companions were a microphone, two speakers, some chairs lying vacant and a multitude of banners surrounding him that read: “Arize kisaanon ke naam Junior Bachchan ki ek shaam (An evening of ‘Junior Bachchan’, dedicated to the ‘Arize farmers’)”.

Not far away from the stage was a bazaar, bustling with people. This absolute lack of any attention seemed to discomfit Firoz. Moments later, his voice boomed on the microphone: “Bhaiyon aur doston, meri jahan tak awaaz jaa rahi hai, mera kisaan bhaiyon se kehna hai ki yahan aa kar humaare program ko dekhne ki koshish karein (Brothers and friends, if my voice is reaching you then I want to ask my farmer brothers to come here and try to watch my show).”

Slowly, people began to trickle in. The voice seemed to draw them closer to the microphone. A rich, commanding voice. Most significantly, a voice whose familiarity is emblazoned into the subconscious of every Indian moviegoer. The denizens of Jaunpur were curious. They inched closer to the stage to answer an incredible question: What was Amitabh Bachchan, one of India’s biggest superstars, doing on this unremarkable afternoon in their town?

As the sun beat down on him, while he recited iconic dialogues from Bachchan’s movies to regale his audience, Firoz felt a searing pain that ran from his feet to his lower back. The pain was not new to Firoz. Because, when he impersonates Bachchan, his feet are not planted firmly on the ground. To rise up to Bachchan’s six feet and one inch a five feet and eight inch tall Firoz wears an inch-and-a-half of rubber padding under each foot. The padding raises his heels, slants his toes and invariably causes pain. Over time, he has learnt to live with it.

In 30 minutes, by the time Firoz had concluded his act, he was surrounded by more than a thousand people who refused to leave. They wanted to be near him, speak to him, ask for his autograph, touch his feet. By now the pain was heightened, but he also found it was easier to endure.

***

‘Arize’ is the name of a brand of rice seed manufactured by the Bayer Group, a German chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-technology multinational. Besides Firoz they have used popular singers Gurdas Maan and Altaf Raja, and Bhojpuri stars Manoj Tiwari and Ravi Kishan to market their products to the Indian heartland. For Firoz, this is only one of over hundreds of shows he has done, for hundreds of clients.

There are over a dozen Amitabh Bachchan lookalikes in the market, but Firoz has been in it for the long run. He has not only impersonated Bachchan for 16 years, he has done so across a whole spectrum of media— besides live shows there have been over 40 movies, 10 spoof and dance shows on television, 30 ad films and 8 music videos. TV shows such as Koffee with Karan, Boogie Woogie, MTV Fully Faltoo and Ek Do Teen. Music videos such as the one for Adnan Sami’s popular song Lift Kara De where the actor Govinda appeared as himself and Firoz appeared as Bachchan. Firoz has been Bachchan in TV commercials for AXE Deodorant as well as one for the Income Tax Department, asking conscientious Indians to file their returns on time. In Cadbury Dairy Milk’s ‘Pappu Pass Ho Gaya’ ad, Firoz was Bachchan’s body double. He played himself, a Bachchan lookalike, in Chandan Arora’s Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon (2003). In Danny Boyle’s Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008), he played Bachchan.

***

“I am not a ‘Amitabh duplicate’,” says Firoz, leisurely climbing the stairs to reach his apartment, a one-bedroom-hall-kitchen on the third floor of a building in Mira Road, one of Mumbai’s more far-flung suburbs. “There are many lookalikes whose only job is to look like him. I don’t look that much like him. I act him out. You can call me more of a performer.”

That Firoz does not, at first glance, look like Bachchan, is true. He’s wearing a denim-shirt, a little tight around the stomach, and a pair of black cotton trousers with six pockets. But, when you look closely, certain similarities emerge. Deep set eyes, though Bachchan’s are much larger. A prominent nose. A wide forehead. An oval face with a well-defined jawline whose effect, for Firoz, has been diminished to some degree by an emerging double chin. He has a thick head of hair, parted from the left, it curls up along the sides, covering a portion of his ears.

A few minutes later, Firoz sprawls out on a black and red Rexine couch in his living room. The only window in the room is partially veiled by faded brown curtains with white and faded orange polka dots. It faces a five-storied building whose walls are covered with black fungus. Besides the couch, the living room is furnished with two red and black single-seater sofas, two small granite topped side-tables, a tiny closet and another table with a 17 inch TV and a stereo system. On one of the side-tables lie a couple of stray match sticks and a golden packet of chewing tobacco labelled ‘Miraag Tambako’ in Hindi. The other side-table has a laptop and two plastic containers full of medicines. The closet top doubles up as yet another table, displaying various trophies Firoz has received. One small trophy has a circular plaque, broken along its rim, with a picture of Amitabh Bachchan from the film Sarkar (2005). On its base are inscribed the words: “Sattarvein janamdin par sa prem bhent (A gift, with love, on your 70th birthday). Nataani Medical Hall.”

Firoz will turn 45 this year.

He lights a cigarette and does a Shah Rukh Khan impersonation. “Arre yaar kaisi baat karte hain aap, haan (What are you talking about)?” The slightly nasal, hurried voice of the Shah Rukh of the 90s. He cocks his head to one side for effect. During the course of conversation, Firoz breaks off to demonstrate his skills many times. He mimics his effeminate male friend, a street ruffian with a gruff voice, and, of course, Amitabh Bachchan: “Dekhta kya hai be? Ulte haath ka maarunga. Saala samajhta kya hai tu apne aap ko? (What are you looking at? I’ll slap you hard. What do you think of yourself?)” Away from the stage, in the comfort of his living room, when Firoz impersonates Bachchan he does not mouth off the superstar’s famous dialogues— he simply says anything he wants to, the way Bachchan would.

But for the padding in his shoes, Firoz’s metamorphosis into Bachchan is not really an elaborate process. He flares his nostrils, curls his upper lip and modulates his voice. “I just put on a wig, a French beard, do my hair like Amit ji, and that’s it,” he says, looking around for the wig. He relies very little on make-up. “What can you do with make-up? What will happen with powder?”

Finding the wig, he leaves the room to reappear in a few minutes. His hair is parted from the middle now, with a few strands falling on his forehead. He’s wearing sunglasses and a velvet scarf around his neck. A white shirt with blue stripes and an off-white blazer. His black trousers fall perfectly on a pair of boots that have heels that are at least an inch high. These give Firoz a considerably raised appearance. His gaze, barely visible through the sun glasses, is quiet, relaxed, self-assured. He seems to be smiling without actually doing so. He does not look like the actor on the fringes that he is. He seems to have found his highest calling.

In the building opposite, a little girl peers out of the window. She freezes for an instant, then breaks into a giggle and covers her face with a small notebook.

***

Amitabh Bachchan’s family name is actually Srivastava. ‘Bachchan’, which the renowned poet Harivansh Rai—Amitabh Bachchan’s father—chose as his pen name, and which became the family name thereafter, is actually colloquial usage in Uttar Pradesh for the eldest son of a family. Firoz too was the eldest among his three brothers. “All of them would call me Bachchan,” he says. “Aur Bachchan Bhai (What’s up Bachchan?)” was how he was addressed.

Firoz watched his first Amitabh Bachchan movie, Khoon Pasina (1977), in his native town, Budaun, in Uttar Pradesh, at the age of 10. In Budaun, people would collect just to stare at the posters of a Bachchan movie, put up outside theatres, 15 days before its release. Inside, they would hoot every time Bachchan appeared, throw money at the screen, dance on their seats or in the aisles.

It was after Khoon Pasina that Firoz began frequenting the theatres. Soon his friends began to say “The way you are talking right now, you look like Amitabh” or “We can see glimpses of Amitabh in you”. Then, one day, Firoz found himself in front of a mirror, mimicking Bachchan.

But it wasn’t until he was 15 that Firoz imitated Bachchan in front of others. It was when he had just emerged from the theatre after watching Deewaar. He had already begun to style his hair like Bachchan and model his gait and mannerisms on the superstar. He would stop at the paan shop and asked for a paan— not in his own voice, but in Bachchan’s. “A crowd soon gathered around,” says Firoz. “They were probably seeing something like this for the first time.” Since then, Firoz didn’t have to bother paying for paan or cigarettes at that shop. Firoz recalls the shopkeeper saying: “You stand here and do your thing. Seeing you, four to five more people come to my shop.” Soon, he began doing impersonations at other venues in town: a school, his house, his relatives’ weddings. “People would queue up in front of my house to hear dialogues of Amit ji,” he remembers. “I thought, even I am becoming something yaar.”

Determined to become an actor, Firoz decided to head to Bombay. But in a small town like his cinema was not seen as a worthwhile profession. Because cinema was a world which had “a lot of nangapan (nakedness).” “My father had not seen a single movie in his life. In fact, he could never get himself to pronounce Amitabh Bachchan properly,” Firoz says. “The closest he got was, ‘Amita ka Bachchan’.”

So Firoz ran away from home—from Budaun to Bombay—when he was 21. The year was 1990. But he stayed for just about a fortnight before heading back. He ran away to Bombay again after two years. He didn’t stay long then either. Firoz would rather not talk about those days. His younger brother, Parvez, says: “He left for Bombay in anger. Both times he was in Bombay for 15 to 20 days, till he ran out of money.”

Meanwhile, in 1991, actor Vijay Saxena had begun drawing a lot of attention for looking like Amitabh Bachchan after he did the movie Ramgarh Ke Sholay. Saxena followed this up with nine movies in just three years, playing the role of a Bachchan lookalike in most of these. But, in 1994, his career was cut short by a fatal road accident.

Firoz reached Bombay for the third time, on January 1, 1995. “I thought that the first thing I would do after reaching Bombay was meet Amit ji,” he says. “But, after I reached, things turned upside down. Bombay is so huge, I wouldn’t ever know where he was. So I wasn’t able to reach the locations where he was shooting. Instead, I would stand in front of his bungalow and wait to catch a glimpse of him.”

This time Firoz hadn’t come to Bombay alone. Accompanying him was his friend, Laal Shehazwani from Budaun, who had also come to Bombay to become an actor.

This time he stayed. Tired of waiting outside Bachchan’s bungalow he began looking for work instead. He spent months attending auditions, despite being rejected each time, sleeping at the railway stations and being shooed away from there by policemen. Finally, he met a shopkeeper from Budaun, who allowed him to sleep in his shop, in exchange for Firoz helping out with some accounts work.

Then, one evening, Firoz was passing by Kurla when he chanced upon a sign for what seemed to be a show by lookalikes. He went in to watch. One of the organizers announced: “Presenting to you the duplicates of Dharmendra and Anil Kapoor.” Firoz saw an opportunity.

He went backstage and told the organizer, Shakdeev (Firoz only remembers his first name) that he could “impersonate Amit ji really well”. Shakdeev was not entirely convinced. Firoz wasn’t very tall. He didn’t really look like Bachchan either. Firoz pleaded with him to let him demonstrate on stage “just for a minute”.

He stayed on for more. During those crucial few minutes Firoz stole the show. The audience burst out into applause. “I was better received than all the lookalikes who had performed before me.” After the show Shakdeev said to Firoz that he would get a suit made— just for him. Just like the one Amitabh wore then. “Also,” said Shakdeev. “I will get you high-heeled shoes.” And so it was settled. He was paid Rs 300 for every show.

But it was a year after this, in 1997, that he got his first real break. Actor and director Sachin Pilgaonkar cast him in a countdown-comedy show called Rin Ek Do Teen, which he had auditioned for. The show spoofed Bachchan’s biggest hits. The names of the films were tweaked for each episode. Muqaddar ka Sikandar became ‘Muqaddar ka Kalandar’, Deewaar became ‘The War’, Sholay became ‘Go-lay’. Firoz shot 52 episodes. He soon began getting calls for live shows outside Mumbai. Not for Rs. 300, but “30 times that amount”. He wasn’t going back to Budaun.

“In those days I used to feel like a superstar,” says Firoz. “Sets were being readied for me; cameras were being readied for me.”

He adds: “And all the films were being made for Firoz.” On the heels of Ek Do Teen, came a plethora of B-grade movies like Phool aur Aag (1999), Duplicate Sholay (a spoof on Sholay, 2002), Gangobai (2002), and Kabhi Kranti Kabhie Jung (2004), in most of which Firoz played a Bachchan lookalike.

Even among the overkill of Bachchan lookalikes today, Firoz holds sway. This is made evident in an episode of the TV show Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega, judged by Farah Khan and Anu Malik. There are two Bachchan lookalikes, a ‘younger’ Amitabh Bachchan played by Firoz, and an ‘older’ Bachchan played by an actor named Rajkumar Bakhtiani. In the brief trying-hard-to-be-funny-but-tepid conversation that ensues, it’s clear who has more finesse. Rajkumar’s voice lacks the ring of the famous Bachchan baritone. It is overly solemn at times, and his portrayal of Bachchan’s mannerisms are simply not remarkable. Firoz, on the other hand, not only sounds eerily like Bachchan, he also seems to have seamlessly imbibed into his act Bachchan’s pauses, his gaze, the way the actor’s voice trails off after a robust dialogue, even his comic timing.

***

Firoz finally met Bachchan in 1999, on the sets of Kohram (released in August, the same year), 22 years after he first saw him on screen. Bachchan on screen had left him awestruck but standing before the man himself Firoz was overwhelmed by nervousness and joy. His hands trembled as he shook hands with the star. “I was scared and kept thinking about how he would react, what he would say,” he says. He had been imitating Bachchan effortlessly for 17 years, but in front of him, “I was trying to do something else, yet something else was happening.” At the end of the whole episode, Firoz felt “as if I was flying”.

Any lookalike’s career trajectory depends on the trajectory of the person he is imitating. His career runs parallel to that of the object of his impersonation. From 1995 to 1999, Bachchan himself seemed to be going through an identity crisis of sorts. He had returned to the movie business at the age of 53 and found he could no longer be the ‘angry young man’ that had made him India’s biggest star. This realization had been preceded by a spate of embarrassing, mediocre films such as Mrityudaata (1997) and Lal Badshaah (1999). Bachchan’s fortunes finally turned with Kaun Banega Crorepati (also called KBC, the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire) that established him as what is possibly the nation’s first older star icon. He cemented this with a role in Mohabbatein (2000) directed by Aditya Chopra who had cast him not as a ‘character actor’ (which in those days still meant that he would merely play out a stereotype on screen, for roughly one-twentieth of the film’s running time) but in a well-etched pivotal part that had almost as much screen-time as the film’s lead actor Shah Rukh Khan.

Bachchan was not the only one to benefit from this turning point. “KBC benefitted me too,” says Firoz. “When I did MTV Fully Faltoo; there used to be episodes spoofing Kaun Banega Crorepati called ‘Kaise Banoonga Crorepati (How Will I Become A Millionaire) ’,” says Firoz.

Being associated with a big name in the incestuous Mumbai film industry provides a unique advantage to any aspiring actor. Firoz had no godfather but being associated with the biggest name of them all, however obliquely, helped. “He got in pretty easily with the help of Amitabh,” says Rana, Firoz’s wife. “He would have had to struggle a lot as Firoz.”

Says Firoz’s competitor Rajkumar: “Due to Bachchan Saab I’m able to make a living. His level of success affects that of us lookalikes.” He had given up on acting for nearly a decade before KBC signalled his return. “It’s quite clear that had there been no KBC, I wouldn’t have made a comeback either.”

***

Yet today, 16 years after his first big break with Ek Do Teen, Firoz can’t help but wonder if it would have been better if he had struggled, as Firoz.

“My initial interest was to do roles of different types,” he says. “That did not happen. Amit ji was so famous that once they got to know about this talent of mine, this is all they wanted me to do. But I have so many talents they are not even aware of. They don’t want to see those.”

He adds: “I am fully confident that even in front of Amit ji, I can act as Firoz. I would have no hesitation, no fear.”

So there are two Firozes. One, who is grateful for the breaks he has got, and one who rues each of them.

In an attempt to reconcile the two, he defends his impersonations: “Even if I enact Amitabh, I do it in my own style, which allows me to show so many things that Amit ji might not have done. I mix my comedy and Amit ji’s comedy.”

Also, he says: “Acting as oneself, which so many Indian actors do, is the easiest thing in the world. But being someone else is so much more difficult. Remembering his dialogues, his expressions, how he walks, carrying all those things within you… That’s a double pressure. I don’t have to do all of this while acting as myself, or even while building a character from scratch.” He adds: “You see some artists in a serial, but then you don’t know where they have disappeared. They just come and go. At least I am not like them.” This is his strongest argument so far.

Firoz’s friend, Laal Shehazwani, who had come from Budaun to Bombay with him to become an actor, has long since gone back. He tried his luck as an Akshay Kumar lookalike but gave up on his acting aspirations and left the city in four years. Now he runs a property trading business in Budaun. “A duplicate can only work as a duplicate. They will not be able to do their own acting,” says Laal. “Firoz’s identity in Bombay is as an Amitabh duplicate. He doesn’t have an identity of his own.”

Even as Amitabh Bachchan managed to reinvent himself, to become more than Bachchan, with his comeback in a series of powerful but understated character parts in the 2000s, Firoz has not been able to exorcise himself of Bachchan.

Firoz admits that, of the 40 odd films he did, those that didn’t cast him as a Bachchan lookalike had him play roles that were just as stereotypical, the most common one being that of a dacoit. (In fact, wherever Firoz has not played Bachchan, he has gotten a negative part. He puts this down to his voice which he feels “is very impactful in negative roles”.) “There was nothing to do in these movies,” he says. He was new to the industry when he signed on this spate of tacky films, made by likes of directors such as Kanti Shah (the king of the Indian B movie industry). “There was a lack of respect. I couldn’t make sense of the story. They did not do things in an ‘artistic’ fashion.”

Then, suddenly, there is an outburst: “If people ask me, ‘What did you do of your own?’ I would tell them, ‘I would tell you what I can do once you put me in front of the camera.’ Give me a chance at least.”

As you spend time with Firoz, you realize suddenly why he doesn’t need to mouth dialogues from Bachchan’s films to sound like the star did in the eighties. Firoz has played Bachchan for so long, he has become ‘Bachchanesque’. In the usual course of his life he sounds like the angry young man Bachchan isn’t any more. Like an actor stuck in the middle of a biopic that was canned.

He claims he still did these films because: “I did not want to sit idle. Those movies helped me take care of my family.”

When he was finally offered a ‘good role’, a film with Rajpal Yadav (a noted character actor) with a good six to seven minute part that required him to act not impersonate, he had to pass it up. “I couldn’t do the movie because I was stuck in a live show on the date.” A live show impersonating Bachchan.

***

Occasionally Firoz has managed to step out of the mould. He acted in 10 episodes of a Star TV serial Saath Nibhaana Saathiya, where he played a feudal lord, and around 40 episodes of NDTV Imagine’s Rehna Hai Teri Palkon Ki Chhaon Mein, where, again, he played a troublemaker.

Komal Kumar, a Kannada actor and producer, had cast Firoz as a Bachchan lookalike for the Kannada movie Radhana Ganda, released this year. After the shoot, Firoz said to Komal: “Bhaisahab (Brother), without Amitabh Bachchan ji also, I can act.”

“I could see that he was very spontaneous and quick,” says Komal. So, in his film Nandeesha, released in December last year, Komal cast Firoz as ‘J. K.’, a villain in his own right, who has 25 to 30 minutes of screentime. “I am planning to cast him in another movie too,” Komal says. “I will be giving him a Hindi lecturer’s character. When Firoz was acting as J. K., not in a single frame was he seen as Bachchan. He was a different Firoz.” If this role of a lecturer, his first non-negative role, works out, it may be a new beginning.

***

Firoz’s 8 year old son, Faiz, is sitting just a few feet from us, in the living room, watching Transformers on TV. When he was younger he had mistaken Firoz for Amitabh Bachchan. He had seen his father in one of his performances, and Bachchan on TV, and had been unable to tell the difference. “When he grew older, one day, he said to me: ‘But papa, this is not you’. I made him understand that I do mimicry, that this is also one kind of a work.”

Firoz wants a movie to be made on his life— “Showcasing both my lives, as Amitabh and as Firoz. You know, those ‘different’ kind of movies? I want to tell them— this is my height. I want to tell them how I become Amitabh, how I wear those high heeled shoes. How it pains. How, when my show gets over, I go back to my room and put my feet in hot water. I want everyone to know who lookalikes are actually. They think all lookalikes are the same.” Firoz feels there is only one person in India who can make such a movie: “Aamir Khan. Only if someone like him makes that movie, will it have the necessary impact.”

***

He shows me a photograph of himself as the feudal lord he plays in Saath Nibhaana Saathiya. He is wearing a pathani and has a moustache that is twirled at the ends.

“As ‘J. K.’ in Nandeesha, my face looks like a dog.” Firoz has stood up all of a sudden, his back straight as a rod. His eyes glare at the wall in front of him. “Randhir Singh Chaudhary bolte hain mereko (They call me Randhir Singh Chaudhary),” he says, in a threatening voice.“Is poore ilaake ke andar kisi mein utni himmat nahin ki Randhir Singh ki taraf ankh utha kar bhi baat kar sake (There is no one in this area who has enough courage to look Randhir Singh in the eye).”

He laughs menacingly. He turns towards me, vigorously running his hands through his hair. “If I do my hair like this,” he asks. “Will anyone say I look like Amitabh?”

The story of Bombay Talkies that spawned India’s first ‘star’ Ashok Kumar and film families that hold sway over the industry till this date.

Khandwa, early 1930s

Kumudlal Ganguly was a misfit, a square peg in a round hole. Born in a family where every male member was either a practicing lawyer or harbouring dreams of becoming one, he was not really interested in the trade. At the insistence of his father, Kumudlal went to Calcutta to study law at the city’s prestigious Presidency College. Once there, he went straight to the principal of the college and, with the straight-shooting demeanour that would remain with him all his life, told him that he didn’t find the prospect of the legal profession very alluring, but wanted to become a director of films instead. The principal, a Mr. Ramanand Chatterjee, advised Kumudlal to attend the morning classes between 7 to 8 am, which would allow him the rest of the day to indulge his fantasies.

Kumudlal’s sister Sati Devi was married to Sashadhar Mukherjee, an M.Sc graduate who had moved to Bombay in search of work, and had begun work as a sound designer in films. When he heard of Kumudlal’s interest in cinema, Sashadhar called his young brother-in-law to Bombay. Kumudlal was then introduced to Himanshu Rai, the founder of Bombay Talkies.

***

Bombay Talkies was India’s first ‘corporatized’ film company, the first film company to be listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Also, the launching pad for most of Hindi cinema’s biggest stars. The company firmly established Mumbai (then Bombay) as the nerve-centre of the Hindi film industry. But the events that led to its inception were set in motion across Calcutta, England, and Germany.

Though things really began in London, sometime in the 1920s.

In the beginning there was the trinity.

There are three people who are responsible, primarily, for the birth of Bombay Talkies. The first is Himanshu Rai who was born in an illustrious Bengali family in 1892. After graduating from Calcutta University, Rai was shipped off to England to practice law. Once in London, he became a participant in the theatre scene and worked in Chu Chin Chow, Oscar Asche’s landmark musical.

The second is Niranjan Pal who was the progeny of Bipin Chandra Pal— a renowned nationalist and one of the famous trio of freedom fighters colloquially referred to as ‘Lal-Bal-Pal’ (besides Pal, the trio comprised Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak). Niranjan, like his father, was a radical from the word go. Bubbling with nationalist fervour, he was known to have once jumped a Scotsman and made off with his gun. It was to evade the consequences of this that Pal was sent to London. Soon, he found himself writing for the stage, and attained much success with plays such as The Goddess.

The third name is that of Devika Rani, the original diva of Hindi Cinema. Rani was a grandniece of the great poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore. Born in 1908 at Waltair (now Visakhapatnam, in Andhra Pradesh) to Col. M. N. Choudheri, Devika Rani Choudheri travelled to England for higher education, a norm among the Indian intelligentsia at the time. At the tender age of 16, she was awarded scholarships at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Royal Academy of Music, both in London.

***

Niranjan Pal continued his winning streak with a number of plays at London’s West End. The stage brought him in contact with Himanshu Rai, who was already toying with the idea of making films. They decided to collaborate on an adaptation of Sir Edwin Arnold’s epic poem ‘The Light of Asia’. It was the 1920s. German cinema was making great strides, with expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu breaking new ground. Rai arrived in Munich to scout filmmakers at the Emelka Film Company. The 48 year-old Franz Osten came forward. In what was to be a historic decision, Franz Osten not only helmed The Light of Asia/ Prem Sanyas (1925), but ended up directing more than a dozen Indian films over the next fifteen years. Rai himself played the lead in Prem Sanyas, as Prince Siddhartha, or Gautama Buddha. Pal wrote out the scenes for the film.

How Devika Rani came to meet Himanshu Rai is an unresolved mystery. Some say they met a few years after Prem Sanyas while others believe they not only met earlier, but it was actually Devika who designed costumes for Prem Sanyas. By the time she was 20, she had already been in touch with Marlene Dietrich, assisted the great Fritz Lang, and begun professional work in textile design. By some accounts, Devika was staying as a house-guest of Niranjan Pal and his family.Legend has it that Rai was introduced to her at a party. One may imagine that Rai would have been taken in by Devika Rani’s enormous reservoir of talent, as much as by her beauty. He offered her a job designing costumes for his films.

In three years, there was a forgettable film called Shiraz (1928), followed by the classic A Throw of Dice/ Prapancha Pash (1929). The latter, a lavishly mounted Mahabharata re-telling, remains one of the few by Osten and Rai that survives in its entirety, and has seen a revival on the film festival circuit in the past few years. By the time the film was complete, Rai and Devika got married— a relationship that was to be inordinately tumultuous in the years to come.

With the advent of the ‘talkies’, or the sound films, the movie business in Germany was in a state of flux. Rai returned to London, his young bride in tow. In 1933, the duo co-starred in Karma, a bilingual— their first talkie. Today the film is mostly remembered for a passionate kiss they shared on-screen. But back then this first Indian talkie to have English dialogues was met with great excitement by the British press. Leading periodicals of the time acknowledged Devika Rani’s star aura and grace, and praised her impeccable accent.  The London Star said: “You will never hear a lovelier voice or diction, or see a lovelier face.”

By now, both of them had acquired a rich and varied experience in filmmaking. Soon they set sail for India. Whenever Rai had come to India, the state of the film trade in the country had disconcerted him. He longed to implement what he had learnt in Britain and Germany, and set up a major studio that would churn out film after glorious film, making India a force to reckon with in the international arena. In 1934, Bombay Talkies was born.

Parsi businessman Sir F. E. Dinshaw’s summer mansion in Malad was transformed into a studio for this purpose. Bombay Talkies was incorporated as a public limited company and listed on the BSE. On its board, Himanshu Rai assembled the crème de la crème of Bombay’s business class then: besides Dinshaw, there was  Sir Chunilal Mehta, Sir Chimanlal Setalvad, Sir Phiroze Sethna, Sir Cowasjee Jehangir and Sir Richard Temple. Rajnarayan Dube, the construction magnate, emerged as the chief financier and, in time, the truest mentor of Bombay Talkies. The German director Franz Osten and his team of technicians—cinematographer Josef Wirsching, set designer Karl Von Spreti, sound recordist Len Hartley, lab technician Wilhelm Zolle—joined in on this ambitious enterprise. In a way, Bombay Talkies laid the foundations for international collaboration in Hindi films— crossovers in the truest sense, long before the term came into being. The studio attracted talent in droves from every corner of India: Filmmakers like Najam Naqvi, N.R. Acharya, Sashadhar Mukherjee, M. I. Gharamse, Savak Wacha and R. D. Mathur, actors like Ramshakal Sarikhe, Kishore Sahu, Snehprabha Pradhan and Renuka Devi and writers like Saadat Hasan Manto and Khwaja Ahmed Abbas.

Star ‘Dom’

Let us return now to Kumudlal Ganguly. He joined Bombay Talkies as a technician. It was the early 1930s. He was busy learning the craft of filmmaking. Kumudlal apprenticed in almost every department— sound, editing, music, cinematography, and he was curious about everything. The veteran cinematographer Josef Wirsching, however, took great umbrage to Kumudlal tinkering with his camera. He insisted that he be moved to another department.

Bombay Talkies’ first major picture, Jawani Ki Hawa (1935) was a crime thriller featuring Devika Rani playing the lead opposite the young Najmul Hasan, who was debuting with that film. The film instigated furious protests by the Parsi community of Bombay, who objected to the inclusion of two Parsi women in the film (acting in the movies was looked down upon in those times, and so the community wanted no part of it). But the din died down soon after, and the film did well.

After Jawani Ki Hawa, another movie called Jeevan Naiya with the same lead pair was being shot, when a curious incident occurred, that was to seal the fate of Bombay Talkies, and lead to far-reaching changes in the Indian film industry.

During the shoot Devika Rani eloped with Najmul Hasan. All hell broke loose at Bombay Talkies. The future of the film, and Himanshu Rai’s marriage, was at stake. Sashadhar Mukherjee, disturbed at his mentor’s predicament, swung into action. He convinced Devika Rani to return, sans Najmul. How he managed to do this, what he said to her, remains unknown till this date. Though he forgave his wife, Rai was livid at Hasan, expectedly, and resolved to never work with him again. So, at the end of it all, they were left without a lead actor for the film.

Kumudlal, still in his 20s then, had a great singing voice, besides good looks. Mukherjee suggested him as a replacement. Kumudlal was reluctant to act initially, but he agreed to give it a try just once, and then get back to his job as a technician. A hurried screen test was done. Josef Wirsching was happy with the outcome though director Franz Osten wasn’t. But Rai persisted, and soon Kumudlal was the hero of Jeevan Naiya.

But there was another problem. With a name like ‘Kumudlal Ganguly’ for the lead the film’s prospects at the box office would be abysmally low. A screen-name was sought. Kumudlal Ganguly was rechristened with the name that we know him by. Jeevan Naiya, starring ‘Ashok Kumar’, was released in 1936 and India’s first real star, a man who can be said to have paved the way for the emergence of the ‘star system’ in Hindi cinema, was born.

Ashok Kumar’s first truly successful film, Achhut Kanya (1936), was made and released in the same year as Jeevan Naiya. The tale of a Brahmin boy (Kumar) falling for an ‘untouchable’ girl (Devika) was based on a short story by Niranjan Pal. The film was a runaway success and the song Main Ban Ki Chidiya, sung by Kumar himself, was on everyone’s lips. The lead pair of Ashok Kumar and Devika Rani went on to become a sure-fire formula for success. They featured in one film after another: Janam Bhoomi (1936), Izzat (1937), Prem Kahani (1937), Savitri (1937)… The reluctant hero became a sensation.

Ashok Kumar can be said to be the first true ‘star’ in Hindi films for many reasons. But the one that comes to mind first and foremost is that, realizing his marketability, he became the first actor in India who began to charge rates that were beyond the salaries offered by the studios. As acclaimed writer and close friend Saadat Hasan Manto (who also worked for Bombay Talkies) wrote in his literary sketch of Kumar, (published in an anthology of his writings called Stars from Another Sky):

When he moved from the laboratory to acting, his monthly salary was fixed at seventy-five rupees, a sum he accepted happily. In those days, for a single person living in a far-flung village, which Malad was, it was a lot of money. When his salary was doubled, he was even happier. Not long after, when it was raised to two hundred and fifty rupees, he was very nervous. Recalling that occasion, he said to me, “My God… it was a strange feeling. When I took the money from the studio cashier, my hand was trembling. I did not know where I was going to keep it. I had a place, a tiny house with one bed, two or three chairs, and the jungle outside. What would I do if thieves paid me a visit at night? What if they came to know that I had two hundred and fifty rupees? I felt lost… I have always been terrified of thefts and robberies, so I finally hid the money under my mattress. That night I had horrible dreams, so next morning I took the money to the post office and deposited it there.”

While Ashok was telling me this story, outside, a filmmaker from Calcutta was waiting to see him. The contract was ready but Ashok did not sign it because while he was offering eighty thousand rupees, Ashok was insisting on one lakh. And to think that only some years earlier he had been at a loss to know what to do with two hundred and fifty rupees!

House of Cards

In 1936, the year of Kumar’s acting debut, Niranjan Pal and Himanshu Rai had a major falling out. Pal had written some articles for a magazine named Filmland, which were scathing in their criticism of the use of foreign technicians in Indian films. Some of them specifically cited the example of Franz Osten. Rai was furious and forbade Pal from expressing such controversial opinions in print. Niranjan Pal walked out of Bombay Talkies, never to look back again.

Pal was replaced by Saradindu Bandyopadhyay, a Bengali writer famous for having created the fictional detective Byomkesh Bakshi (popularized nationally after he was played by Rajit Kapur on Doordarshan in a series directed by Basu Chatterjee in the 1990s). Within two years of Bandyopadhyay’s joining, three films were released by Bombay Talkies: Nirmala (1938), Vachan (1938) and Durga (1939). Vachan was the debut of comedian Rajendra Nath, whose portrayal of the character of ‘Popatlal’, later in the day, would become so famous that the name of the character would become synonymous with his own.

Meanwhile, Franz Osten had joined the Nazi Party and, with the onset of the Second World War, the Indian government came down heavily on Osten and his team. With their arrest several Bombay Talkies productions were interrupted. Some of them, like Kangan (1939), were completed in a hurry. But even most of these flopped miserably. Rai began to show symptoms of an impending mental breakdown. The situation worsened and finally he had to be admitted to a hospital. As Rai’s team met him at the hospital for his approval of a script, he grabbed the sheets of paper and garbled something unintelligibly. A few minutes after this Himanshu Rai—the founder of the most prolific studio Hindi cinema had ever seen—was dead. It was May 16, 1940.

Devika Rani stepped in as her husband’s successor. She divided Bombay Talkies into two production units, headed by Amiya Chakravarty and Sashadhar Mukherjee respectively. A young Raj Kapoor had joined as assistant to director Kidar Sharma and Amiya Chakravarty. Doubling up as the clapper-boy, even sweeping floors, Raj Kapoor learned filmmaking on the job. The fact that his father Prithviraj was a renowned actor of the era made little difference. During the making of Vish Kanya (1943), the future showman was busy fixing his hair in the mirror as he always did, before hammering the clap. But this time, the director Kidar Sharma was in a hurry as it was a sunset scene and it was almost dark. Raj took his own time and in a fit of rage, Sharma landed a resounding slap on the boy’s cheek. Sharma admittedly felt sorry later on, and perhaps this, as well as his talent and enthusiasm, had something to do with Kapoor’s first break as a hero with Neel Kamal, directed by Sharma, four years later.

Meanwhile, Yusuf Khan, Kapoor’s childhood friend from his early years in Peshawar, was making a living working at the Army Canteen in Pune. Devika Rani spotted him while on a trip to Pune, and enquired whether he’d like to act. Yusuf curtly refused. He had been made to believe that acting wasn’t an honourable profession. Devika Rani persisted. Finally, Yusuf relented and it was decided that he’d star in Jwar Bhata (1944), to be directed by Amiya Chakravarty. Eminent novelist and screenwriter Bhagwati Charan Verma decided on a screen name for him— ‘Dilip Kumar’.

They came, they saw, they glittered.

Ashok Kumar had garnered unprecedented popularity with hits like Bandhan (1940), Jhoola (1941) and Naya Sansar (1941). His pairing with Leela Chitnis or Devika Rani always worked. But Kismet (1943), directed by Gyan Mukherjee, was the film that consolidated Ashok Kumar’s position as the most valued star of the era. It ran for three years, a record unbroken for thirty years, till Sholay arrived on the scene.

During this time, a major rift emerged at Bombay Talkies, between Devika Rani on one side and Sashadhar Mukherjee and Ashok Kumar on the other. Mukherjee, Kumar and some other key personnel quit Bombay Talkies and laid the foundation for a new studio. They named it ‘Filmistan’. With their departure, Bombay Talkies plunged into darkness. Films of this period from Bombay Talkies, such as Char Ankhen (1944), Jwar Bhata and Pratima (1945), were all expensive flops. The proverbial last nail in the coffin was dealt by Devika Rani herself, who chose to turn her back to the movies by marrying Svetoslav Roerich, an acclaimed Russian painter, and settling down amidst the idylls of Himachal (they later moved to a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Bangalore). Bombay Talkies, much like a tattered currency note, changed hands a number of times during the next three years. Ashok Kumar, producer Savak Vacha and cinematographer Josef Wirsching each returned to their home turf and, during these brief periods, Bombay Talkies witnessed flashes of its lost glory: Milan (1946), Nateeja (1947), Majboor (1948) and Ziddi (1948).

The casting of Ziddi’s protagonist makes for an interesting story. During an elaborate meeting on the film’s casting, Ashok Kumar stepped outside for a smoke and noticed a youngster waiting, distress wrought on his face. When he enquired, the boy said that his name was Dharam Dev Pishorimal Anand, and that he wanted to become an actor. His first film Hum Ek Hain (1946) had tanked, and he was hoping for a better launch with Bombay Talkies. Kumar decided on the young man as Ziddi’s hero, despite objections by other members of his team. The film went on to be a huge hit, and two new stars were born: Dev Anand and Kishore Kumar, who had debuted in playback singing with Ziddi.

Another playback singer was waiting in the wings at the time. A young Lata Mangeshkar was chosen by Ashok Kumar to sing for Mahal (1949), a thriller directed by Kamal Amrohi. India’s first gothic horror film, Mahal became an overnight phenomenon, and made stars of two young women: Lata Mangeshkar (her song Aayega Aanewaala is still as popular as it was over half a century ago), and Madhubala, the leading lady. Ashok Kumar’s next film Sangram (1950) helmed by Gyan Mukherjee, featured the actor in his most striking negative role, and launched the actress Nalini Jaywant.

Then, Ashok Kumar and his entourage left Bombay Talkies for a second time. This dealt a severe blow, one the studio never quite recovered from. The next few films from the company—Mashaal (1950), Maa (1952) and Tamasha (1952)—sank without a trace. In those gloomy days, another filmmaker, who was to become a giant of Indian cinema, had been brought in to save the ship. Bimal Roy had only directed Bengali films till then, and he visited Bombay with the intent of doing just one film, Maa, and returning to Calcutta. He stayed back, however, and created history later with Do Bigha Zameen (1953), but his initial films for Bombay Talkies didn’t work. Some of the stars came forward to work for free for the studio, as their tribute to an institution that had launched them. But it was time to draw the curtains. In 1954, two decades since its inception, Bombay Talkies shut down for good.

Mumbai, 2013

In the following years, Ashok Kumar scaled new heights of popularity, and later moved on to character roles. Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand went on to become the first big ‘star-triumvirate’ of Hindi cinema in the 1950s. Filmistan produced many a successful film and bred talents like Nasir Hussain— who went on to be a successful producer himself, and happened to have a nephew named Aamir Khan. One of his films, Yaadon Ki Baarat (1973), in which he cast this nephew as a child actor, was written by two young writers called Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim’s most lasting contribution to Hindi cinema, other than the legendary scripts he wrote, is in the form of his son, Salman Khan who, along with Aamir and Shah Rukh, makes up the big star-triumvirate of today.

Sashadhar Mukherjee, after a glorious career producing gems like Munimji (1955), Tumsa Nahi Dekha (1957) and Paying Guest (1957), and setting up his own production house called Filmalaya, also became the patriarch of an illustrious film family of stalwarts, such as filmmakers Subodh and Shomu Mukherjee, actors Joy and Deb Mukherji and the actress Tanuja (Shomu’s wife). The next generation of the family has added one filmmaker—Ayan Mukerji, who directed Wake Up Sid and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani—and three actresses—Kajol, Sharbani and Rani Mukerji—to our cinemascape. Of them, Kajol and Rani Mukerji are the most well known. The latter’s last film was one of an anthology shot by some of today’s most acclaimed filmmakers. It was put together to commemorate a centenary of Indian cinema. It was named, appropriately, Bombay Talkies.

Also read: The Man who Missed the Train. On Najmul Hasan, whose tryst with Devika Rani nearly destroyed India’s most famous film studio.