Imtiaz Ali at Hindu College: Each time I come here, I stumble upon myself again

Imtiaz Ali tries to visit his alma mater Hindu College as often as he can, as he believes it has shaped him into the person he is today. “This is a favour only to myself. It’s not about the past, because Hindu College is not the past for me. I feel that I have a present connection with it and I revive it when I come here. I stumble upon myself when I come here,” said the writer-director, while attending the college’s literary festival, organised by the English department and literary society Scribe, on Monday.He also spoke about the infamous Hindu-St Stephen’s rivalry, how DU has been the genesis of several of his films and more.
‘I'm just a middle-class Jamshedpur guy, who’s appalled at his ordinariness’
Imtiaz said that when he was younger, he often worried about not having experienced something tragic enough to mold him into an artiste, much like the character of Jordan from his film Rockstar. “There is this little voiceover of Jordan when he is walking out of his home in one scene, and he says, ‘Tragedy ki zaroorat hoti hai, main adopted bhi nahi hoon’. It is an irresponsible line but all of you are adults. He also says, ‘Mujhe kisi ne bachpan mein abuse bhi nahi kiya toh main artiste kaise banunga?’ Of course, it was funny and written in a slightly irreverent manner, but I was also stressed about that. There is nothing exceptional that has happened
in my life. I am a middle-class, Jamshedpur guy. The only different thing I did was to I give up Engineering and come to Hindu College,” quipped Imtiaz.
He continued, “Even now, when I am actually with myself, I am appalled at my own ordinariness. Sometimes I think it’s a very good
thing, because it makes me relate to everybody, but sometimes, I feel I wish I could think of myself as a ‘great guy’, somebody who is substantial. You know, how we look at some people with awe. But now I am old enough to know that this is how it is going to be for the rest of my life and it’s fine. As its result, some work will come up and, in my case, it will be more movies.”

‘The lingo in my films is a bit like DU’
Ask any alumnus or alumna about the St. Stephen’s and Hindu College rivalry and they will all have some stories to share. Imtiaz is no different. “My roommate used to be one of the debaters at the Mukarji Memorial Debate, and all of us used to go. Whether we won
or lost, the earthen flower pots in St Stephen’s that were at the gate till the auditorium would always be broken. If we won, then fewer would be broken, if we lost, then all were broken. The rivalry was intense but we all had friends in Stephen’s, and we’d secretly eat at their cafeteria.”

Sharing all fun experiences from his college life that he has incorporated in his movies, Imtiaz said, “I have spoken about a particular event that has led to the genesis of Love Aaj Kal. There was a friend of mine, a year senior, who was breaking up with his girlfriend. Both of them invited a group of people to a restaurant in Kamla Nagar to celebrate their breakup party. I also remember what I had – the all American Banana Split, because it was the most expensive thing on the menu. I remember it because, I think, it was such a nice way of breaking up. There are many things from my experiences in Delhi, DU, Hindu College and my hostel, that I’ve reflected and represented in my movies. I stayed in Delhi only when I was in Hindu. I don’t have any other residence here, so in a very strange way, if you look at all the movies that I have set in Delhi, they are coming from the point of view of DU. The various people I met over here, and the houses of my day scholar friends that I went to, became the genesis of so many movies. The lingo in my films is a bit like DU. I feel that this has been a prominent period in my life that has influenced me greatly.”