‘I am the joker villain’

Twenty-five years after the release of his classic comedy, KUNDAN SHAH battles the voice in his head and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro II

Kundan Shah earned his place in Indian cinema history in 1983 with Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. When TEHELKA asked him to revisit that, it seemed to open a sluice gate. “Leave that,” he said, “look at where we are now. The distortion has become the reality. If I were to make a sequel now, who would be my protagonist?” This surreal tableau offers dark insights

A VOICE WHISPERED to me: “Do you know the most important film of this decade was released the same week as Singh is Kiinngg?” I gave a blank look. “Well,” said the voice, “it dealt with the biggest scam India has ever known, probably one of the biggest in the world!” “Are you referring to the Telgi scam?” I asked, “Mudrank, I believe, the film is called. Has it already been released?” “Oh, the media hardly gave it any notice. It released in the most third-rate, wretched cinema-halls and, worse, to empty houses,” the voice continued, with ominous glee, “It deserved the fate it got. Though the film was half-truth, more-fiction, it was unexpectedly close to our reality, and yet the treatment was crude and… let’s say dishonest.” I was perplexed: “Why are you wearing an evil smile then?” The voice grew exasperated: “Isn’t it symptomatic of our times that Siiiinnngh is Kiinnnnnngggg, with its more sick and more ugly content and with even more uneducated and crude minds behind its making, is made with crores and crores of rupees, bought with more crores, and released in farfrom- reality multiplexes and trumpeted all over as a box-office event while, ideally speaking, it should’ve been made in a peanutbudget and released, going by its wretched intentions, in those very same third-rate wretched cinema-halls where the other film was released?” He looked at me triumphantly and his eyes sparkled with a satanic glee. “As for the film Mudrank, it should’ve been made with — well let’s say, more honesty and with a punch… probably as many punches as possible and, ideally speaking, should’ve ended up as a box-office bonanza with the whole nation watching it.”

Naseer and Ravi Baswani

By now I was getting put off by the evil glee in his voice. “You know something? I’ve started hating these words ‘ideally speaking’.” “Well, then,” he replied, “you should have no complaint with whatever, whatever, whatever that happened in the Parliament,” he gave a deep, horrific laugh and added: “Sinngghhh is kkkkkkkkiiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggg! Long Live the Singhs!”

I love mall culture and believe in the ultimate ‘funda’ taught by my management guru: everything is a product, including you. So, though it tried very hard, the voice remained ignored by me for a couple of days till it caught me unawares one evening while I was sipping an espresso in a multinational bistro, busy ogling and titillating myself with… well, you can’t deny the fairer sex is more sexily fairer these days.

He sprawled on a chair opposite me, took a deep sigh and threw a newspaper on the table, declaring in a tragic, Shakespearean voice: “Even God cannot save India.” “I don’t want to hear any more of your rubbish. To hell with you and that Supreme Court judge,” I shouted, getting up and changing my table.

For the next few moments, I deliberately avoided looking at his morbid face, knowing full well that he was staring mockingly at my back. I suddenly turned to him and blurted out angrily: “You’re completely distorted, you know, a big bullshitter.” “Yeah?” He advanced menacingly at me, “If I am a bullshitter, then explain one thing to me — when petrol prices go up internationally, inflation goes up in our country. When petrol prices go down, our inflation still goes up — in double digits. Who’s a bullshitter, eh? I know why that happens but can you tell me why?” “I am not the finance minister. You can go and ask him,” I retorted. “You don’t have to be a finance minister to know the answer,” the voice said. “Just stop blotting out the ugly reality around you. Learn to listen to the voices from the labyrinth.”

Satish Kaushik and Naseer

“You mean yourself, don’t you?” I said. He gave that evil sarcastic laugh. He was again irritating me no end. To bring the matter to a close and get rid of him, I asked: “Enlighten me. Tell me why?”

He leaned forward threateningly, almost face to face, dominating me. “Simple. It’s free for all. You can see its effects wherever you turn. Haven’t the custodians of money — the bank managers themselves — started issuing counterfeit currency? Are the ISI and terrorists the only culprits? Add a few hardcore criminals from our own country. But is that all? Aren’t corporates involved in this too? As I said, it’s free for all.”

“Stop making it sound as if every home in our country has its own printing press. Besides, what happens here, happens everywhere in the world.” Suddenly, he caught me by the collar and hauled me up. His eyes went red, redder than any communist flag I’ve seen. “You intellectual masturbator, do you have any idea how much counterfeit currency is in circulation? Put the same question to our dear PM and see how he trembles with fear. And… since he’s an honest man, and as will happen to any honest man who knows the truth, his pants will be wet.”

I shot back: “Stop your bullshitting and admit you don’t know the figure.” “No one does,” the voice said. “And that’s what is frightening. But let a voice from the labyrinth tell you that it is as much, or may be more than, the total worth of our stockmarket and all the corporate wealth put together. It’s free for all, as I said.”

Extreme and unfounded exaggeration. Surmises, surmises and more surmises. “This proves what an inveterate liar you are.” He made a gesture of extreme exasperation. “Ok, discard all I’ve said. But after 60 years of independence we’ve arrived at such a place that a well-known writer was forced to say, in utter despair and frustration, that all he needs is a machine-gun. If that isn’t a voice speaking from the laby– rinth, what is?” His glee had started irritating me again. “That was just to counter the communal massacre in the land of the prophet of non-violence.” “Yeah?” He came back, gratingly, “Then what about the fact that people will do anything to get political supremacy — even if it means letting the country disintegrate? You’re so cocky, you think we can never disintegrate, right? But as I said, it is free for all.”

Bhakti Barve and Om Puri

Suddenly, it struck me, where this horrible voice was getting its inspiration from. “You imposter! I’ve caught you, at last! You remind me of a joker villain I saw in a recent film who liked to see the world burn. That’s your inspiration, you fool.” He gave a long, prolonged, horrific laugh. Every one in the café got goose pimples hearing it. The sky, too, suddenly grew dark. “Right! Right! Right! You’ve hit the nail on the head. With just one correction: I am that joker villain but not because I want to be one but because I am forced to be. Your times and your progress and your malls and your cinema have left no choice for the voices from the labyrinth. You’re responsible for giving birth to these joker villains, these Hitlers. And frankly, my sympathy is with them. Like that doctor from Bangalore who blew himself up at the Glasgow airport — was he mad or was he, too, a voice from the labyrinth, which, like Dostoevsky’s Kirillov, was declaring his righteousness through his own death? How many wrongs and evils and devils and Satans are we going to label till we see the horrific truth staring us in the face? Yeah, I’m persecuted and I’m evil but please tell me why I’ve reached where I’ve reached? Haven’t you been obsessed with getting an idea for Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro II? Can you put all this in there?”

He shook me and shouted again and again into my ears and threw me with disgust on the ground. “You will never understand that doctor who gave his life in Glasgow!”

There was a brightening and deafening sound of lightning. Suddenly a long crooked streak struck him and he disappeared. The skies cleared once again. Everyone in the café dismissed the whole scene as an extension of their experience in some multiplex. So did I. Now, to write that comedy — part two of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. But I must not listen to these dark, dark voices from the labyrinth. •