Director Sudhir Mishra on the man who made his Hazaaron Khwaishein possible
Pritish Nandy
“You seem stressed”, a voice next to me half-whispered into my ear. I must’ve been crying or something. I was very stressed. I turned around and through my tears, I saw a blurred face of a man, who I recognised to be Pritish Nandy.
ADVERTISEMENT
We were on a flight to Delhi, and the funding for my film had just fallen through. That film was Twist With Destiny, which would later be known as Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. The guy, who was funding me, told me to f*** off, because it was too obtuse, too unlike anything else, too political, and not political enough, where the main girl character was a kind of a sl**.
“Who’s going to sympathise with a bitch like that,” Money Man had said. I turned to look at Pritish again, and trying to get a hold of myself, I told him I was trying to make a film. And now that Money Man had said no, I’ll be unable to make it.
He looked at me, and smiled. Of course, I knew Pritish: the publisher and editor of the Times of India group, and that he had taken over the Illustrated Weekly magazine from the hands of Khushwant Singh!
KK Menon and Chitrangda Singh in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
He had done a lot of famous interviews with Mr Patnaik, the chief minister of Orissa, at the time. The interviews had almost toppled his ministry! I knew that the Delhi circles were quite upset with him. I knew that he didn’t give a damn.
I also knew that he had taken over the Sunday Observer magazine and then left it again! Rumours were that he had started a production company, but there were too many rumours in Mumbai, and we seldom took everything seriously.
I must’ve stared at him blankly, because I didn’t know how to reply when he suddenly asked me what the film was about. Anyway, I was going to spend two hours with the man [on the flight], and he had bothered to ask. My gut instinct told me that he’d get the film, creatively.
I sort of gave him a 15-minute narration. There was a long pause, and he told me “Come to my office tomorrow. I’ll give you the money.” That’s exactly how Hazaaron began.
Pritish Nandy
We met the next day, I signed the contract in a couple of days. He never asked me what the cast was. I showed him pictures of the people I was casting. 40 per cent of the money was supposed to come from France, in kind. This came to us in the form of the DoP, the editor, and the sound designer.
Everyone else from India was new. The actors Shiny Ahuja, Chitrangda Singh were absolutely fresh faces and while KK had done some work, it was still initial days for him. Shantanu Moitra was the music director nobody knew at the time. Swanand Kirkire happened to be my associate director and he would go on to write the songs. He was also the main casting director.
Pritish never said much. He never talked about the film, but talked around it. He was very respectful to us as filmmakers, and very generously tried to tell us things around the subject-matter of the film—in the hope that some things would land, be understood and therefore, become part of the film.
In those conversations, I understood how deeply he knew about those times. There was also a lament inside him for what was changing. There was this Radical Kolkata interacting with the Cosmopolitan Kolkata. The Radical Kolkata was also the product of the Cosmopolitan Kolkata, and the various fissures tearing apart Bengal then.
Pritish Nandy was a product of the Kolkata of that time, and he carried that with him wherever he went. Sometimes, I think, you could feel the loss in his poems, although he never directly talked about them.
Another great thing about Pritish was that he never imposed his power as producer. When he didn’t like something, he never issued instructions. Instead, he gave you many options, of which you could take one, or many. There was never any insistence from his side. But the depth and force of his arguments were so great
that you often incorporated his understanding of things into your film.
One day he called me and said, “Your film is about my time, but then it should also be about any time.” For him, the ’60s were also visible in the ’70s; and so was a yearning for the future.
“So, your film should indicate the time period subtly, but not constantly thrust it in the audience’s face. Everyone should not have sideburns. Not everyone should wear a bell bottom, and so on.”
I thought it was a sharp observation and something that I implemented. As a result, Hazaaron became about the people, and the Emergency became its backdrop, and therefore, now it’s not only about the young people of that time, but about the young people and their passions in any time period.
Another sharp memory. I was going to the shoot one day, and he called me and said, “You know, Sudhir. Your title ‘Twist with Destiny’ doesn’t do justice to the film. So, change it, but please don’t give me an English one. It’s an Indian film. Give me a title, which doesn’t just appeal to the anglicised set, but to everyone.”
Five minutes later, I asked him if we can call it ‘Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi’. He immediately said yes, and put the phone down.
When Hazaaron didn’t release for a long time I was quite upset and he said to me, “I let you make the film you wanted to, right?” Now, let me put it in front of the audience in a way that the audience deserves, and he did.
Hazaaron, in some strange way, in the way he marketed it [though not everyone agreed] became a silent, cult hit, and that has a lot to do with Pritish.
Then we made Chameli. During that time, I met his two lovely, young daughters. He said, “I used to hate them, when they were children. But when they grew up to be bright, intelligent children, I fell in love with them.” You wouldn’t think so, when you met a man like Pritish. But he really adored his children.
I often met him later… We were going to do another film, but it didn’t work out. He called me, and we met again. He asked me for a sequel to Hazaaron. It’s one of my regrets that I couldn’t come up with a worthy sequel for Hazaaron.
We were supposed to meet this month and over a cup of tea, talk about life and cinema. That too is one regret.
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
