I write this post this morning because while a lot of people supported the fact that Mahatma Gandhi should not be crassly commercialised - many others feel otherwise. Sanjeev says its better than the Mahatma being on a Condom advert, Vivek says Gandhi is all ready on our currency and Shiv says why worry about this when right wing fundamentalists are running amok.

I think its important that one reacts to something like this because  the system (this includes political parties) is banking on people’s apathy and fatalism to get their way. It starts with lulling millions in to thinking that money is everything and happiness is a new car or an automatic washing machine. Then every month the bar is raised, and you can never reach the goal but you can aspire for it. And in aspiring for it, you will work day and night (without thought) for the very thing that you actually helped make. You make for them and then you buy from them - and while doing that you become numb! Apathetic. And a huge marketing machinery will convince you that this is indeed LIFE.

Ok so these are the times we live in, and perhaps we cant do much about it but if one cant do anything else - one can at least feel incensed and angry. And react….instead of looking away and thinking “things could be much worse”. Don’t lets trade our spleens for material goods - it’s a cheap and bad trade off.

Every day as I drive past the Marriot hotel in Mumbai, I have to look at a huge hoarding of Mahatma Gandhi endorsing a pen! And every time I see it, it triggers of a train of thought, but I usually pull it’s chain and tell myself “come-on Madhureeta, this is the 21st century, relax….get with it” etc. But much as I try - it’s not working.

I really wonder, why Mont Blanc would choose Mahatma Gandhi when they can get virtually every other person on the planet to endorse their pens? It’s by far the most insensitive use of a dead person’s name. After all he is one of the few people who actually stood up against marauding, commerce driven corporations and empires. And it was he who recognized the direct co relation between exploitation of people and resources and making money for a few. And subsequently it was he who turned it on its head - India actually got its freedom because Mahatma Gandhi lead a movement against these people.

And today, in an absurd situation, in a state where farmers are dying of starvation, sex ratios are falling etc, guess where Mahatma Gandhi is? They’ve strung him right up there with the guys who are cornering resources without even a second thought! In his death, he’s being forced to stand with the very people he resisted.

Tell you one thing, write it with a Mont Blanc pen, if Mahatma Gandhi was alive, he would have sat right down in front of the hoarding and starved himself till they took the damn thing off!

Every now and then, life has this full circle feeling. A film I made two years ago is now screening once again because it s linked to a book on Sita that is being released. I am so looking forward to once again being at the Habitat Centre with a documentary - it’s like being in my comfort zone.

Laying Janaki To Rest is a documentary about the Sita myth and how it is intrinsically  intertwined with the way women see themselves and are seen by men in India. I made the film because I really related to the premise that the Sita myth has really effected the self image of women in India.

The book that is being released is called “In Search oF Sita” and it has a chapter with an interview with me and my experiences with making the film (amongst many other lovely essays and interviews)

As I read the interview and see the film, I see how much I have moved personally. I guess two years in Bombay and making the feature film have changed me. I till think that Sita is relevant but for me personally - I can’t identify with her pain anymore. Somehow the urge to make another feature film and to tell the many stories that are bubbling in my brain  have overtaken any thoughts of being seen as a woman struggling with her status as a single mother and single woman. I now enjoy the fact that I am alone and feel quite unbridled and free.

All the same, I can’t wait to see all those I know and enjoy being with…and seeing and hearing Sita again.

Day before yesterday I spent all day at a newspaper office. This is for my next film - “Kajarya” . One of the lead protaganists is a newspaper reporter and a large part of the film is shot in a newspaper office. It’s from my documentary days that to know something you have to at least semi experience it.

Well all i can say is that it was great fun and so much insight. Newspaper reporters, editors and people on the desk and their life dilemmas, their work pressures and method of working. Best of all the terminology - “spike” a report, or the rookie reporter is a “cub”, it’s going to be all over my film!

Next up, I’m going to a jail and a hangman’s chamber. Can’t find anyone who can take me there though. Hopefully this week.

The past one and a half years has seen a number of films release that are trying to break the mould - or are at least seemingly doing that. Of course on close inspection, many of them are indianised versions of Tarantino, Kusturica, Danny Boyle and some south American and even Chinese films. But that aside - one of the most important component of creating a new wave in cinema is to involve the audience and for audiences to feel the movement forward.

But consistently, filmmakers have to deal with a media that is totally bought. Supliments like the Bombay times are actually advertising pages. And so are so many other parts of newspapers.  For most people, what they read in newspapers is “news”. And so audiences fill halls based on these reports and reviews and they return unsatisfied and cheated. 

If this goes on, the audiences will lose faith in the rating system and will start relying on their own judgement, which is - big stars, good songs and the rest be damned.

It is therefore in the favour of those who believe in new cinema and who want to see genuinely good films, to stop supporting this - bought media space trend.  If audiences and filmmakers can actually get a genuine rating for a film, it will help both sides. 

The audiences will come to theatres with more enthusiasm and filmmakers will no longer be able to get away with making mediocre films just because they know the marketing muscle will push the film through.

I think we should all boycot the bought media spaces. Dont read the suppliments, dont pose for their photos, - do a gandhigiri on them.

Yesterday a friend of mine dropped by for tea, it started with just that then it went in to a long winded conversation which ended post dinner.

We exchanged news and talked about our experiences in the city and then I said the thing that would take about three hours to get around.

I just said - that as filmmakers we live a strange paradigm where we are supposed to have an almost extra sensory sensitivity that helps us tell our stories with some insight. But post making them, we are expected to suddenly grow rhinoceros hides and become immune to all comment and outcomes. And so what does one do.

His answer was - “you know you need a shrink”.  And because I must have looked shocked, he tempered it and said - “Everyone does - everyone needs a shrink”.  I really laughed but I was intrigued.

I guess we all have the self image of being super normal,  and me especially, I feel like I am the most normal, balanced individual I know, so I asked him why he thought I needed a shrink.

Well he seems to think that I create conflicts, paradigms, arguments to and for and then set about solving them. And for solving these imaginary issues,I should hire a shrink. He said it laughing and I am sure it was half jest but we argued all the same and laughed some more.

But it got me thinking, perhaps it isn’t as convoluted and hard as we make it. May be it’s just something more simple than it seems.  If we locked the door on all the mountains of paradigms would we go forward with more clarity or would it make us more stupid?

Hmmmmm…..

Happiness has zero reason. And thats why its so damned precious. Happiness is her own mistress, she will enter and exit as and when she wants and I reckon she’ll stay longer if you dont try to hold on to her or give her any reasons.

Take my situation for one - I mean I’ve had times when things were near perfect and I was so deeeeeeeeeply, wretchedly unhappy. And now- I have a hundred reasons to worry and fret, over and only about a ten to be really happy, and so there’s no logic to why I feel so so so so so happy. I know this state, and usually it comes and goes. This time however, I’m not waiting on it - I’m just enjoying it.

 Today I was walking by a DVD rack in a store and I saw my film. All this time, I used to look away because I so hated the design and how little the cover represented the film.  But today, I was really happy to see that it’s still alive! And so I bought a copy for a giggle - it made me happy to think that  I am actually buying a copy of something I made.

So to all those reading this - i want to pass on my smiles. I want to tell you, that no matter what happens, no one can take you away from you. And that should make you fearless and ready to take life and kiss it slow and easy and feel it unfurl itself for you in all its splendour.

Oh and thanks so much Amit for loving my film - its so reassuring!

Here I am in hot Ludhiana. On a film that my company is line producing. I was so looking forward to it because I thought this would be a great opportunity to work with an international crew and some new people. Instead its turned out be a somewhat lukewarm experience (a euphemisim to say the least). So now I have sort of  resigned myself to the situation and spend most of my time sitting back and watching.

Looking at all the confusion here, the level of total involvement, the amount of emotional turmoil - i find myself asking, why would one do this? Why do so many people agonise  over something that people watch over popcorn and more often than not forget? Every friday the halls are full of films, people warch some and forget most. 

I think it’s because we have a false sense of our immortality. We have the feeling that we are creating something forever. And then there are some of us  who just love the magic of translating pieces of paper in to a huge audio visual treat. But with time I’m beginning to see that one has to do this with some degree of distance or it can devour you.

Also, producers and financiers take undue advantage of the fact that people who make films -  love doing it for the sake of it. And so they are constantly in danger of being exploited. Therefore keeping that distance keeps the perspective.

And so here I am, for the first time in my life, able to step back and watch. It’s a strange new but nice feeling. Its comfy.

So here I am back in Mumbai. This time it’s a short spell and so I’m quite enjoying it. Mumbai and my experiences with the city are so terribly intense that beyond a point i start wanting to get out and go for a holiday. I think it has to do with the fact that in Mumbai all the people I know are from or related to the film industry. Actors, directors, musicians and so on. This means that there is no down time. Conversation, more often than not, centers around what’s going on in the film industry. Beyond a point it can become quite an exercise in navel gazing and hair splitting. Before I moved here, I used to love the intensity of being surrounded by film. Now it just seems too much.  And I’m left wanting to flee.

And so I am really excited about the fact that my company (Ekaa Films Pvt Ltd) is line producing a foreign feature film, besides the fact that I get to be on a set and not direct, I’m looking forward to being with a new set of people in a village near Ludhiana, on location.  The added advantage is that my next film is set in a village, and so I get to sit around in village and watch it and draw some visual references and other impressions.  Can’t wait to be on a set again and be near nature again!

In an ideal world, one should work eight months of the year and holiday for four months. Just live life on a holiday!

I am back in Delhi after the recce for a film that we (My company) are line producing. We travelled to Ludhiana and it was hot as hell, dusty as can be and there were hot winds blowing. I should have been cowering and complaining but my heart was celebrating. This is my element. It’s where I belong.  I think two years of the somewhat sanitised sets of Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye has me craving to go back to the documentary setting that I know. While working on documentary one lives with heat, cold and winds - its physical deprivation that feeds the soul.

 I can’t wait to start on my film. “Kajarya”. This time I’m going down and dirty. Gritty and real. But I have to hold my horses and wait till all deals are signed and in place and we can actually start pre-production.

Back in Delhi, it’s so hot, but i must be feeling really happy because the heat feels like deep heat that warms my insides.