As Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi returns to the turnstiles with a political satire, the director known for his period sagas, talks about the contemporary politics and his ideological concerns
One evening when journalist and writer Ram Kumar Singh came home
Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi offered him wine and being a teetotaller
that he is sat with a glass of juice. But as Singh’s drinking session
went on and on he decided to tell Dwivedi a story that he had written
and was planning to turn into a novel.
“We became
the proverbial Vikram aur Betal! It was about a guy who fixes punctures
and how his life changes when he gets to meet the Prime Minister of the
country. Ten minutes into the story, I asked him to stop
and told him to mail me the entire story and promised him that if I
find it suitable I will turn it into a film,” narrates the master
storyteller. Twenty three drafts later the duo emerged with “Zed Plus”, a
socio-political satire that is going to end the drought in Dwivedi’s career, who is often described as a creative genius who somehow doesn’t make it to the box office.
“My
canvas tends to be huge and we have not reached a stage where a
well-researched script and creative experience is enough to get the
finances. I was working on “The Legend of Kunal” but was again facing
issues with the scale and finance. So I thought am I restricting myself
by waiting for these expensive projects to materialise. Why can’t I take
a contemporary subject and make it on a canvas that I can afford.” With
a friend and wife as co-producers he completed the shoot in 52 days
flat.
From the English title and the Hinglish
dialogues to the setting of a Muslim household, Dwivedi gifted himself a
number of challenges. “But there is a connect with the past,” he avers.
“If ‘Chanakya’ was about the making of a nation, ‘Pinjar’ was about
breaking of the nation, ‘Mohalla Assi’ is about how our centuries old
values changed with advent of liberalisation, ‘Zed Plus’ looks at what
has become of our polity through a satire. “It starts with how a
coalition government is under pressure of its allies and all the
mathematics comes to nought. Around this time the Prime Minister gets a
call that if he goes to a village in Rajasthan and pays a visit to the dargah of
a sufi, his government can be saved. So with no options left, the prime
minister whose government is fighting communalism goes to the shrine
and by chance comes across a puncturewallah, Aslam. Now Aslam says
something to the PM and the meeting between the lowest common
denominator and the top man of the country results in Aslam getting Z
plus security. It changes his life for good and bad.” For a man who
answers the nature’s call in the open, the security cover becomes an
invasion into his privacy.
“Without taking names of
any government schemes eventually the Z plus security becomes a metaphor
for the growing lack of communication between the dispossessed and the
marginalised and those in power. It is happening because our leaders
don’t have their ears to the ground. People might watch it as a comedy
but when they will go homes the layers will unravel in their mind.”
For
a man who devotes years to research, Dwivedi accepts the Muslim
household was a new turf for him. “Thankfully, Ram Kumar comes from
Fatehpur where the story is based. So the mood was there in the writing
itself. I also come from Rajashan and understand the cultural ethos of
the region.”
Talking about the cast which has Adil
Hussain and Mona Singh in the lead, Dwivedi says, “I noticed Adil in
‘Ishqiya’ and felt how he missed my radar. He told me that he approached
me at the time of ‘Pinjar’ but by then I had cast Manoj. I had no
recollection of that meeting. When he read the script he was surprised
that I cast him in a role which requires impeccable comic timing because
none of his film roles had used his talent at comedy. I could sense it
in his performance in ‘English Vinglish’ but there was very little on
the surface. He told me that for six years he earned his livelihood as a
stand up comedian.”
Dwivedi, a doctor by education,
is often seen on the right side of the ideological divide in the realm
of arts. He says some cultural symbols have become associated with a
political party and organisation. “But it doesn’t mean that nobody else
can use them. I have faced unnecessary flak because of this mindset for a
long time. Mahatma Gandhi said that if all the Upanishads and all the
other scriptures happened to be reduced to ashes, and if only the first
verse in the Ishopanishad were left in the memory of the Hindus,
Hinduism would still live for ever. But it didn’t make him a communal
person. Dara Shikoh translated it to Persian because it had value for
humanity. When I made ‘Chanakya’ and showcased saffron flags in it, I
was branded as rightist. I don’t know what other colour I could have
used.”
Similarly, he says when “Pinjar” released some critics called it a rightist view of Partition.
“There
cannot be only view of one of the biggest events that affected a big
chunk of humanity. There was a scene where a RSS worker was depicted as
helping out in a refugee camp. It is a historical fact that the
organisation did contribute during the tragedy. Years later when ‘Bhaag
Milkha Bhaag’ showed a similar scene nobody felt offended. People tend
to forget that ‘Mohalla Assi’, which will soon see the light of the day,
is based on the novel of Kashinath Singh, a known leftist and Ram Kumar
Singh also has leftist leanings. To me the authenticity of the story
and expression is paramount.”
Perhaps his
Sanskrit-ised Hindi creates that impression. “May be. Many years back
during a function former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told me
that once on a visit to England, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi introduced
him to her counterpart Margaret Thatcher as the man who gives excellent
speech in Hindi. Vajpayee said it made him think that if somebody
introduced Thatcher as the lady who is a fine orator in English would it
have made sense. It shows we are conscious and apologetic about our
culture.” Ready to give Narendra Modi a chance, Dwivedi says he is yet
to prove himself on the national stage but what has impressed him is his
courage to talk about the cultural symbols without mincing words. “He
calls Ganga as mother which is true for it is the lifeline to millions
of Indians and is a symbol of our composite culture. Ustad Bismillah
Khan connected with it with as much devotion as a panda in Varanasi.”
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