Don't look for a lottery in each film: Palekar

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: Amol Palekar likes to get his maths right before giving an interview. Only, his calculations don’t tally with those of most others. “If I invest one rupee, I must get back one rupee and 10 paise, along with a few paise worth of acclaim,’’ he says. “If I can get that, I’d say that my film is a success, whatever the trade guys may feel.’’<br /><br />Obviously, he has spent a lot of time calculating the cost of acclaim, because he adds, “What price tag would tradesmen put on the honour of being named one of the top 10 film-makers in the world by <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Time</span> magazine? <br /><br />Ninety-five per cent of mainstream Bollywood films flop, so why do we still use their numbers to assess success and failure? Surely, it isn’t necessary to look for a lottery in each film.’’ The maths comes in response to a question about his motivations for making brilliant but niche films that fail to bring in sizable audiences.<br /><br />“Those who use Rs 50-crore budgets have to worry about audience numbers,’’ he says. “My small budgets exclude me from the numbers game.’’ Palekar’s next tiny budget film is the second of his trilogy of films on individual sexuality. The first, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Daayra</span> , was a Hindi film that dealt with male sexuality. This film, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Anahat</span>, is in Marathi and talks about female sexuality. <br /><br />Adapted from Surendra Verma’s play, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Surya Ki Antim Kiran Se Surya Ki Pehli Kiran Tak</span>, it tells the story of a 10<span style="" vertical-align:="" super="">th</span> century queen and her impotent husband. Palekar hasn’t yet decided if the last film of the trilogy after <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Anahat</span> will be in Hindi or Marathi, only that it will continue the theme of the individual’s sexuality <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">vis-à-vis</span> society.<br /><br />Can films of different languages constitute a trilogy? “Yes, the language hardly matters,’’ he replies. “I have a cast of Sonali Bendre, Deepti Naval and Anant Nag, so I could have made the film in Hindi. But this is a subject where I can express myself best in Marathi.’’<br /><br />The main challenge in making <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Anahat</span> lay in recreating a resplendent 10th-century palace within a budget “that is peanuts compared even to Mira Nair’s budgets’’. “Ironically, I did it with the help of Nittin Desai, the same set designer who spent crores of rupees creating the grandeur of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Devdas</span>,’’ says Palekar with a smile. “We got special permission from the Archaeological Survey of India to shoot at Hampi.<br /><br />And since we were duty bound not to spoil this heritage site, the sets were created without using a single nail or paint or even rangoli. We only used flowers and cloth—it was more about creativity than money.’’ In this battle between creativity and money, Palekar believes that he has found allies in young crossover film-makers. “These youngsters seem to be conscious about the wastage of money, and also have their sights set differently,’’ he says. <br /><br />“In them, I see the re-emergence of the parallel cinema movement. And I think it will work better this time round than it did in the ’70s.’’ <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Anahat</span> has been shot in Hampi in a record 18 days. A couple of scripts for future films are already being written. The series of awards displayed along the steps winding up from the drawing room at his house in Pune has already snaked up to the landing above.<br /><br />Where does he go from here? “I hope I can cover one more flight of steps, again without making compromises,’’ he replies. “Luckily Bollywood has never really accepted me into its fold, so I’m free of its terms and numbers.’’ However, the ghost of Palekar’s acting career has never quite left him.<br /><br />As if to balance his filmmaking, where it often takes him years to get funding for each film, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Kairee</span> took a record 18 years to get off the ground), acting offers come far more smoothly.<br /><br />He receives at least three a month. Ram Gopal Verma recently spent a whole day trying to convince him to act in his next film. Is there a chance of Amol Palekar doing his once famous common man act on screen again? “Absolutely not,’’ says Palekar, the filmmaker, shocked at the very idea.</div> </div>