The media coverage of the Gujarat riots or Jessica Lall murder are definitely positive examples. These are the issues they should be dealing with. Issues that deal with survival and life

NDTV and CNN-IBN both set themselves up to be different. You don’t think they’ve accomplished that?

When NDTV started out, it was certainly a channel I respected, and it was trying to do different work. I have high regard for Prannoy and his team. However, over the years and recent months, I find it is slipping very badly and I’m sorry to say that, but the fact of the matter is that it is slipping. CNN-IBN is a new channel which has already started on that footing. So yes, at a certain level they are doing some good journalism, but they are also indulging in stuff that they should not be indulging in. They don’t have the guts to stay away from it altogether. That is disappointing. And I think they should because they will have a lot of viewership. They will not lose it.

What about some of the top journalists themselves? Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi, Shekhar Gupta…

I’m not capable of judging them individually because I haven’t seen enough of their work. These are certainly capable journalists, they have sharp minds and are intelligent people. I’m just not sure that today the environment they are working in — I’m not sure they are strong enough to resist getting corrupted. I’m not saying it personally about any of them, but I’m saying that would be my concern for any journalist and that would be my hope for every journalist. But to analyse their work — if I could have done it I would have, I don’t think I’m capable of it unless I see much more concentrated work of each of them.

Balancing commercial viability with purity is always a tough thing. At Tehelka we struggle with that all the time. I’m sure others do too. How have you worked it out in your own life? What are the markers you follow in the decisions you make? I mean, there is a kind of arthouse film that you won’t make —

Why do you feel that I won’t do an arthouse film? (laughs) Just, I’m asking.

Uuhh… Good question.

I mean Earth, 1947 was one such film, an arthouse film that didn’t even get a mainstream release. So one, it’s not true that I will not do an arthouse film. Also, I don’t like to use the word arthouse because for me all cinema is art —

It’s shorthand for a kind of film —

Well, ok, let’s define it as a film that on the face of it doesn’t have a potential to be a mass hit, and I would like to point out to you that I have done several. That they have gone on to become big mass films is a separate issue. Lagaan is a film that on the face of it nobody wanted to make. It didn’t have the potential on the face to be a big financial success. Rang De Basanti on the face of it was far from a sure financial success. Sarfarosh would be one such film again. But again, I can still pick subjects that are even less likely to appeal to a larger audience so that is not an issue with me. I’ll tell you how I work. For me at this point in time, what is important is that what I’m doing should be creatively exciting for me. Once something appeals to me and I want to be part of it, that’s when I look at the commercial viability and I try and make sure that the film should be made in a budget that makes it commercially viable. If it’s something extremely off beat, I’d try my best to make sure the director makes it in a budget which would allow it to at least recover the money that’s been put in. That’s the way I’ve found my balance. So I don’t pick a film that I think is going to do great business and then try and make it creative. I pick something that I feel is creatively exciting for me. And in that I don’t compromise with what my instincts feel or what my emotions feel. And then once I’ve picked something, then I like to make it work.

Regards the Varanasi blasts, what I’d like to say as a Muslim is that any person claiming to be a Muslim who indulges in killing innocent people is not a Muslim — not a person of faith at all

In media what would be an example of a healthy balance?

See, I have to say when you are dealing with something — there are some areas where I feel while commercial viability is important, it has to definitely take a backseat. And one of them is news reporting — whether on television or print. But to answer your question, I would imagine someone like the BBC — I have no idea what they earn, but they haven’t stopped their news channel. One might disagree with some of their stories but by and large they do good work.

Briefly, to go back to news stories and their trivialisation. Can you recount others –

There are so many. The Hindustan Times twice printed the completely false news that that I was married to Preity Zinta! There were three or four interviews that I had not given that came out in Asian Age! Channel 7 once telecast an interview with me that was not with me at all. This was around the time that the Salman Khan tapes had been made public. Some channel asked me to react. I gave a live byte on air. Suddenly my sister called from Bangalore saying, are you talking to Channel 7 because they have a picture of you doing a telephonic interview but it’s not your voice. I’m your sister, I know. I had done no telephonic interview so there was an interview going on with someone who claimed he was Aamir Khan!

During the Bombay floods, the first time it was pretty bad. But a few days later there was rain again. Now, I live in Bombay, the second time it rained there wasn’t that kind of floods. I drove my car along the highway and I went to various places and in fact Bombay was not locked on that day. But the national news was propagating that it was. And they were showing footage of the earlier flood and not even calling it file footage.

Again, I met this guy at a Rang De party. I had no idea who he was. He said he was from Mumbai Mirror and asked for an interview. I said, I don’t give interviews. To which he said, why? I may have said one or two lines about why I don’t talk to the press. Next you know that had become an exclusive interview in Mumbai Mirror, and I think Delhi Times reproduced it! Another glaring example of the media crossing limits was when Mr Bachchan fell ill. I think it could even have been dangerous as far as his health was concerned. Abhishek was mentioning to me how he had trouble even getting him into the hospital!

We’ve been talking about the trivialisation and debasement of news. Can you talk of some good stories you’ve noticed, or again, stories that should be done and are not being done?

The media coverage of the Gujarat riots or Jessica Lall would definitely be positive examples. These are certainly the issues they should be dealing with. If there’s something like a scam or where thousands of people have been killed, where there is genocide, at that time the state may, or people in power may want to censor or curb what the press is showing and at that time it is again the responsibility of the press to show what is the truth and expose the people in power. Now that is something you should be intrusive in, please be intrusive in that. You are dealing with human lives and important issues that are about survival or that strongly deal with the quality of life we are leading.

But very often the media fails to be intrusive or take the lead in the stories where it should do so. Take the Varanasi blasts for instance. Here, I want to speak at two levels. Being a Muslim, it is very sad that people — I’m not quite sure, has it been established who’s done it?

'I watch Doordarshan for news now. You have background scores now in news channels to emphasise or create the mood or emotion behind a flood or earthquake. They have background music for Chrissakes! It’s shocking. Next you’ll have dialogue writers and sfx! '

There’s some new Islamic terrorist group...

What I’d like to say as a Muslim here is that any person claiming to be a Muslim who indulges in killing innocent people, in my opinion, is not a Muslim — is not a person of faith at all. This is true of a person of a different religion, be it Hindu or Christian or Sikh or Jew. If you kill innocent people, you are not a person of faith, not a person of god, certainly not a religious person. I do not think the mainstream and all of us should recognise that person as a Muslim, Hindu or Christian. We should recognise him simply as a criminal and his religion thereafter should be completely unimportant one way or the other. He should be treated as a criminal not only by the authorities but even by the public. Things like this only serve to propagate a lack of trust and ill feelings towards another community whichever that community maybe. An act by one Hindu or Muslim or Christian should not be read as what the community feels.

Having said that, I would also like to say that we really should find out who is behind it. And I find it a little surprising that irrespective of which blast it is or of what magnitude, I realise that somehow authorities very conveniently find one or two people within two hours or within one or two days of the incident and kill that person in a shootout or something like that. What I want to know is why can’t they do that before. Is it so easy to find a criminal? If it is so easy, why can’t we nab them before the act? And in this, I want to comment on the role of the media, where they conveniently take it on face value and say that phalana dhimka from phalana dhimka group has in fact done this. We know that somebody has been killed. We can see a dead body there, but we don’t know who that person is. Nobody knows who actually planted a bomb in the temple. Today it’s a temple, tomorrow it could be a mosque, day after a church or market place. The job of the authorities is to find out who’s behind it and the job of the press I feel is to investigate whether the authorities are telling the truth.

In fact, even the story we are discussing just now should be what all channels and papers are also discussing. What is happening to the media? It’s a matter of national concern.

This thing about making money out of celebrities. For people who occupy a large space in mass psychology, isn’t there inevitably a money spinoff when the media comes in contact with them? Is there a kind of symbiotic relationship there?

I know what you are saying. But first of all I would like to do a lot of things that is not for money, where I’m not charging money to give interviews or to interact with people. Secondly, I certainly don’t want to make my personal affair, like a marriage, into a money-making moment. So while, yes, a celebrity and media can create situations which are beneficial to both, it should be a situation where they both agree it is beneficial to both, but every situation cannot be made that. Number two, it should not certainly interfere with the right of a journalist or newspaper to report honestly. Your relationship with a celebrity cannot be such that you cannot report honestly — if he’s doing something absurd or wrong that you should report, but you are making money out of him so you don’t report it. You can’t get into that. So there has to be a certain distance maintained. I think everything should be taken on a one-on-one. If there is a particular event or interview you are doing which both parties feel is mutually beneficial, they can do it, but it cannot be the rule and it cannot be what happens every time.

To go back to where we began, you said the press went at Mangal Pandey with a vengeance. But surely it has been much kinder to Rang De?

You know after my experience with Mangal Pandey, I mentioned my concerns to the director and producer of Rang De, Rakeysh Mehra, saying if I’m not mistaken this is probably something that will repeat itself. There were signs of it before the film released but I believe Rakeysh and the producer Ronnie went out of their way to allay that. But the much more important point I want to make is again the kind of disproportionate interest and intense speculation that surrounded the film’s progress through the Censor Board. This is not headline news! The media went completely berserk though the Censor Board was merely following guidelines. This is the first time I’m speaking about it and I want to put it on record that our experience of the Defence Minister, Chiefs of Staff and other officials was very positive. They were extremely mature in not intruding or curbing our creative freedom in any way. So all the media speculation about them was just absurd, completely unwarranted.