Reel life gets a real twist in Bollywood

Directors are making their movies look real by drawing inspiration from their own pasts, writes Vajir Singh.

Mahesh Bhatt isn’t Bollywood’s only “wound seller” (as he calls himself). Delving into one’s past is common for our filmmakers, though unlike Mahesh, most directors avoid selling their ‘wounded pasts’ blatantly.

With reference to the conflict between Shah Rukh Khan and his screen father in Devdas, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali had previously acknowledged that he had borrowed those instances from his own childhood.

There are quite a few others doing the same, like the director of Rang De Basanti, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, whose next film is titled Delhi 6. “Delhi 6 is the postal pin code for the place where I spent my childhood. I have all my relatives, friends and memories in Chandni Chowk. I always knew I had to make this film,” he says.

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Rakeysh plans to revisit his childhood spent in the old Delhi area in the film though he refuses to term it ‘autobiographical.’ Farhan Akhtar too borrowed chunks from the camaraderie he shared with his college buddies for his blockbuster

Dil Chahta Hai.

“Reel life is nothing but the extension of real life. So, it is essential to take inputs from whatever happens in your life. It makes your work easy as a filmmaker. Since you know the pros and cons of any event from your own experience, you can treat it with justice,” he says.

Debutant director Dibakar Banerjee too delved into his own past for Khosla Ka Ghosla. Dibakar, who grew up in Delhi, says, “The film reflects several situations and characters I have confronted in Delhi. I believe a good film comes out of a subject that the filmmaker knows well and I knew Delhi as I have stayed there.”

Scriptwriter Sanjay Masoom feels that unless one has experienced things in life, one cannot imagine. “The basic concept of a movie may be a writer’s imagination. But he has to narrate it in such a way that the audience can relate to it,” he says.