I spy, with my little eye...

Ever since I moved to Bombay I keep complaining that I never spot any of the stars who are supposed to be all over the city. Not for me casually running into film stars at Joggers' Park or walking past them in the market. I've had people visit for a week and meet Dimple Kapadia at the airport. Someone else saw Hema Malini. Someone else was late boarding a flight and was put on the last small van to the aircraft with...Shahrukh Khan. And I saw...you know, that guy who dumps his father at 2nd Innings House in Lage Raho Munnabhai...and then doesn't regret it till Munna hangs him by the ankles from his office window....yeah, that guy. Sheesh!!

So many months of whining later, I feel like I totally got my due when I had, 2 tables away from me, Helen and Salim Khan. As I was leaving, I smiled at her. And she half-smiled back. The vamp Helen. The sizzling siren. The one who writhes around Amitabh in Don, and who's always Chin chin choo to me. And with her, Salim Khan, half of the Sholay magic story.

I'll stop complaining now. Besides, Karishma Kapoor walked into Costa Coffee that day and stood around for ages. And I was totally cool about it. I think I'm finally a Mumbaikar now.

Bollywood Backstage

This was published in today's Business Standard. The slightly longer version appears below.

The mirror betrays its age. Faint brown veins spider against the glass, lending one’s reflection a sinister appearance. The bulb-holders around the mirror are missing several bulbs, giving it a gap-toothed appearance. I imagine all bulbs in place, lighting up as the late Nargis preens at this mirror, pinning up her hair stylishly to one side, framing that sharp profile in readiness for her next scene. Down these corridors, with the unpleasantly green paint now peeling off in patches, down these worn stairs, the wood now concave where most feet have stepped, she would have gracefully gone, into the spotlight and into cinematic history.

Once the fiefdom of the man who gave India classic cinema like Andaz (1949), Aan (1951), and of course the internationally acclaimed Mother India (1957), Mehboob Studios is today a historic, verdant alcove eclipsed by the shops around it. Well actually, at 4 acres of prime property in Mumbai’s Bandra suburb, it’s a bit more than an alcove. And with the who’s who of Bollywood zipping up and down its bumpy driveway in their hot wheels, it’s the hub of much that’s going on in the Hindi film industry. As I enter, a silver Mercedes rolled in, which may or may not be carrying Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan behind its tinted glass.

With so much glamour breathing through its walls, I expect a building that lived up to the gloss of Bollywood. Something shiny and well maintained. But I am met with a solid, school-building-like structure, mundane windows stained with bird-droppings, a simple entrance, and a wood-paneled notice board (announcing, among other things, a salary hike back in 2008, for head carpenters to now receive Rs 902 as wages, up from the previous Rs 801) much like we had in college. The digital clock looks out of place above it, like the afterthought it probably is.

A huge hall, known as “stage” or “floor” by those in the trade, is bare save two large, ancient pedestal fans. One cools down a laborer, whose yellowing vest sticks to his skin as he takes a break from sorting the planks that will form a set for the next shoot. I park myself in front of the other as I look around. This one, stage no. 3, is the largest, at 122 by 115 feet, and a ceiling 55 feet off the ground. I crane my neck to peer to the top. Makeshift corridors fashioned from wooden planks form the grid from which lighting will be set up and adjusted. The language here is unique, I’ve heard. On an earlier visit, I was laughingly told by film-maker Anuradha Tandon, ‘You know, “Baby ka mundi kaatke upar latka de,” which suggests beheading a child and hanging it from the ceiling, actually means taking a small spotlight (baby), covering it up to minimize the light it throws, and suspending it from above!

Padmashree Mehboob Khan’s velvet-upholstered office too is untouched. The walls contain awards and commendations, including the Nomination Certificate for Mother India at the Oscars. A framed letter dated 30^th October 1952, from Cecil B. deMille, President of the Paramount Pictures Corporation, compliments Khan on Aan and says it reveals the “tremendous potential of Indian motion pictures for securing world markets.” Prophetic words.

Up on the second floor of the office building, large offices contain the skeletal 18–20 staff members of the Studios. Cardboard file covers try their best to contain bulging sheafs of papers, with labels like “TDS Challans & Certificates”. Piled to the ceiling are bundles of scripts, posters, trade magazines and paperwork. Plastic cans teeter all the way to the top, each containing negatives for memorable names like Anmol Ghadi, Najma, Anokhi Ada and others. The can colors, once bright, are now fading, just like the studio itself. “Can you ever locate anything?” I ask, taken aback at the carelessness with which these are kept. Rajendra, the Bookings Manager, shrugs and says casually “Haan, mil jata hai.” He tentatively picks up a bundle of magazines, seemingly for the first time, and disinterestedly remarks, “These are all old trade magazines, you know, that keep coming.” Huge, handmade posters of the same movies lie folded in half, yellowing along the crease. What about Mumbai’s humidity and natural wear and tear for these papers? He shrugs again. Later, in the study of Iqbal Khan, Managing Director of Mehboob Studios and son of the late Mehboob Khan, I ask the same question and am shown a pink stationery file of clippings from UK newspapers of the 1950s reporting the release and success of Aan in London. “These are fine,” he insists, “and so are the others.” Unconvinced, I let it go.

Obviously, the past is on its own here. It is the present that matters. With 80 percent bookings, the studio is in demand, though it’s not all Bollywood. “Ads make up three-sevenths of our revenue,” cites Khan. And suddenly he turns the tables on me, asking, “What percentage is that?” Stumped, I grope in my head, dividing 3 by 7, that’s errr, ummm, “42 percent,” he says complacently. “In fact, the music recording studio is now just another stage, where we shoot commercials. We couldn’t afford to modernize the equipment; the Klang Bauer machine was outdated. So, rather than spending 5-8 crores upgrading our studio, we have just stopped music recordings here. Producers can rent the room for their ad-film shoots.” That hall where orchestras lovingly recorded memorable music, most often composed by the lively Laxmikant-Pyarelal, that would have India swaying on its feet is now the mute set for here-today-gone-tomorrow commercials.

But Iqbal Khan has had to be practical to keep the studio going. When his sons inherited the studio after Mehboob Khan’s death in 1964, they also inherited a 5-lakh mortgage on the property, a debt of 28 lakhs, and a court battle with their stepmother. Renting out studio space was the only option. In those days of desperation, truant producers who tried to get away without paying rent found that their film’s negatives were held ransom by Khan till they coughed up the money due to him. “My father built this up from nothing,” Khan confesses, “with Aan, he captured world attention. Though Awaaz and Paisa hi Paisa failed, he made up for it with Mother India but then he destroyed it all with Son of India.” Mehboob Khan had been a stubborn director and producer, and built Mehboob Studios in his own name to serve as the staging ground for his cinematic vision. His legacy survives, some of it half-built, including a brick structure he began constructing for a “must-have” helicopter shot. He died before that, and no one saw any point completing the building. Doesn’t Khan want to construct something else to utilize the space? “No,” the old gentleman responds firmly. “I don’t need the space, so why spend money on it?”

Asked about improvements and renovations, he is non-committal. I suspect there isn’t much on the cards unless it is deemed essential. And indeed, why should they bother? Mehboob Studios is doing fine. Though small-budget producers prefer low-cost shoots elsewhere and the Chopras and Johars wing away to foreign lands, a steady stream of producers films here. For the forthcoming Hrithik and Aishwarya-starrer Guzarish, producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali booked one floor for seven months straight. At rental rates of roughly Rs 65,000 per shift of nine hours, this was a welcome booking. Iqbal Khan invests in no marketing, promotion or publicity. He prefers to let word-of-mouth guide producers to his gates. A new source of revenue has emerged - renting out the studio as a venue for exhibitions and events. Iqbal Khan is pleased as it takes care of overheads worth nearly 5 lakhs per month. “We make profits,” he states modestly.

If the clients are happy, I can hardly complain. In its out-of-shape realness, Mehboob Studios carries on. The Bookings Manager is endlessly on the phone, talking business, as he shows me around. Perhaps these barely-maintained surroundings – masked, wrapped and decorated to create glitzy images that hold millions spellbound – actually help keep the stars grounded, right here on earth with the rest of us.

Reliving 20 months in 3 days

So I'm going back for a weekend. Will things look the same, I wonder?

So much has changed in Dubai. Someone else must be enjoying the view from our 31st-floor apartment. There must be new restaurants open on The JBR Walk, which we treated as our backyard. More routes will be operational on the Metro. The Burj Dubai we craned up at is now open, and called Burj Khalifa. The company I worked for has collapsed, gone the same way as many small companies in the recession-hit Emirate. The team has scattered.

Yet, some things will be the same. It will be soothing to rediscover that comfortable nook on Gauri's sofa, and to park ourselves on the carpet as we dig into tempting snacks placed on Aditi di's centre-table. Will Irish Village still have the smiling, plump waitress with the cute accent?Possibly the guy who weighed in my vegetables at Al Maya will still be there. Zarine, who blow-dried my hair on occasion and spent 2 years convincing me to cut my hair will still be there, saving up for her kids in Pakistan. Ita will still be working at Pelle Capelli, dreaming of her next trip home to Bali.

Strangely, while I am so sentimental about the past, it's mostly just a nostalgic sweetness rather than a yearning to go back. I am happy to keep it that way. So while Dubai was great, Bombay (part II) has been perfection too. And the last 6 months have flown. So much so that it feels too soon to revisit Dubai. But before my visa gets cancelled, I want to go, put my feet up with friends, laugh, stroll around familiar spaces, and maybe visit some new ones. More updates when I return.

Battle Scar

He's a sinewy, macho dude. V-shaped body. Heavy-duty sneakers. Gelled-back hair. A powerful neck emerges out of a form-hugging T-shirt. A gold chain nestles near the collar, revealing that his name starts with 'U'. Stands straight. Like he's always on stand-by to spring into action. Speaks little. Effortlessly lifts weights as he trains out-of-shape gym-goers to sculpt their muscles. Secretly smirks when I collapse under heavy weights.

He spoke about his recent accident. A long story involving him, a motorbike, and some sort of obstacle. The bike fell. So did he. He was hurt. But he made it.

In response to widened eyes and a little sympathy, he pulled his tight T-shirt sleeve over a bicep bulge to reveal his wound. There it was. All one square centimetre of it. Covered with a slim band-aid.

Sweet Impulse

Picking your way through the traffic-ridden streets of Bandra around 7 pm on a weekday evening is an exercise in attempted suicide. So when you have traversed a particularly crowded bit of pavement, logic dictates that you carry on.

But, sometimes, when the feet have moved on, the nostrils stay behind, drawing the body back, telling the mind in a hot, sweet, sticky whisper....'jalebis'.

You peer at the kadhai where he's frying them - the oil so hot it ripples like water, and golden circles form like magic as he spins, rotates and dances his hand high above. All is lost. Especially self-control.

And, armed with a packet that has the sweetness oozing out of every pore, clutched on with slightly sticky fingers...you make your way home and blog about it.

But of course, you eat the entire packet first.

Shortcut Surprise

I was headed home, cutting through a lane off Linking Road after buying a gift for some friends. And I stumbled across a book sale. I have written about me and book fairs before, but it was a pleasurable enough surprise to warrant a blog post.

The books (many of them second-hand) were arranged on long tables, and these occupied a long driveway of some sort of a school building. As I browsed through the rows of books, the school bell tolled the end of the day, and an army of extremely noisy, hyperactive children came rushing past, playing catch in the aisles and switching rows by ducking under the rickety tables. One minute a mischievous face peeped past a dusty stack of Archie comics, the other minute it was popping up near Deepak Chopra's tomes of self-knowledge. A terror of a man hollered at them till they all cleared out and I was left to look around in peace.

While I love books, I usually prefer to buy books I have already read that I love and want to own. I don't often buy books on the chance that I'll like them. (A recent exception - and a gamble that paid off - was Aseem Kaul's Etudes.)

Searching through books on sale is always such a thrill. They're not really arranged according to a system or a logic. If you're lucky you'll find all books by one author in one place. The excitement lies in running your eyes randomly over piles and thinking - the next book I spot will be something I've been looking for in a long time - and when it is, well, I wouldn't exchange that feeling for much! It's like striking gold!

Since I didn't have too much cash (they don't accept cards), I narrowed my "chosen" pile down to a copy of The Kite Runner (the pirated version was for 195 and the genuine one for 200! - I checked carefully and then bought the original) and, a childhood favorite - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - the version with the crazy illustrations by Quentin Blake (who's done all of Roald Dahl's books). Yay. I walked away with the two books clutched in my hand, my fingertips a bit grimy after picking up and putting down so many old books, and the bargain-seeker in me very satisfied.

For those of you in Bandra, drop in at the sale. It's on till mid-March, and the hall is in the lane that connects Linking Road and Waterfield Road, opposite Amarsons.

Who Decides What's Right?

Published on Sunday, 14 February 2010 in the newspaper Business Standard.

Born as a rebellion against indirect censorship of documentary cinema, today Vikalp is a platform for free speech and creative expression

“Censorship is neither possible nor desirable,” asserts Dr Jayasankar, Professor, Centre for Media and Cultural Studies at Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Social Sciences and a founder-member of Vikalp. He cites the famous example of the blank editorial in the Indian Express during the Emergency as the perfect act of silent defiance. “Who decides what’s right? It’s the idea of a less powerful ‘other’, one that cannot handle the truth, that is problematic,” he explains.

It was precisely to give this “less powerful ‘other’” the freedom to choose what it watched, that Vikalp was born. The Campaign Against Censorship – a group of Indian film-makers committed to freedom of expression, reacted strongly when the Censor Board inserted a certification clause just for Indian entries in 2004’s Mumbai International Film Festival. Angry protests forced the authorities to withdraw the clause, but the censorship remained – film-makers soon realized that the selection committee rejected the politically sensitive, controversial films anyway, despite the fact that many of these had travelled to foreign festivals and won awards and appreciation. Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution (dealing with Gujarat’s communal massacres after Godhra in 2002), Sanjay Kak’s Words on Water (which explores the struggle over the Narmada dam), and Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar’s Naata (about two men working for conflict resolution in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum) were among the rejected films.

A constructive protest

Vikalp: Films for Freedom, began as a six-day festival that screened the rejected films and some more, as film-makers withdrew even their selected entries from MIFF, preferring to screen them at Vikalp instead. “We received a lot of threats to stop us from screening the films,” recalls Dr Anjali Monteiro, another founder-member. She continues, “What was interesting was that even some of the MIFF jury members came to watch the movies we were screening!”

“Vikalp means ‘an alternative’,” says Anand Patwardhan, renowned documentary film-maker (Bombay our City, Father, Son and Holy War, Prisoners of Conscience, Ram ke Naam) who suggested the name. Screening all the rejected films just across the road from MIFF, Vikalp truly became an alternative space for those six days. Today, six years later, what is the organization doing?

“It is not an organization; it is a movement,” clarifies Patwardhan. This loose-knit collective, functioning over e-mails and Yahoogroups has given audiences access to documentary films in India. The movies screened may or may not be controversial. The last year saw screenings of, among others, Lightning Testimonies, Amar Kanwar’s film capturing women’s narratives of sexual violence; The Other Song, Saba Dewan’s exploration of the world of the tawaif; Kora Rajee directed by Biju Toppo of Jharkhand looked at issues of adivasi labourers and displacement; Kurush Canteenwalla’s Goa Goa Gone portrays the impact of mining – Goa’s second-largest industry – on the lives of people. Suma Josson touches on the issue of farmer suicides in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region in I Want My Father Back. Vikalp has also brought to the screen foreign documentary films, such as Iranian film-maker Nahid Sarvestani’s The Queen and I, an autobiographical account of Nahid’s interactions with the wife of the Shah of Iran.

Encouraging debate

Today one can easily disseminate films over the web – so is Vikalp’s role really crucial anymore? Attend a screening and you would know it is. Vikalp’s USP lies in the opportunity and space it creates for discussion. The film-maker is almost always present, encouraging and answering questions after the screening. The latest session (in January) screened Anand Patwardhan’s Prisoners of Conscience, in which political prisoners of the Emergency narrate their experiences. “Unfortunately, these things still happen,” says the film-maker, which means that an entirely new generation could relate to a film made over three decades ago, resulting in a heated post-screening discussion.

Victoire Guena, Cultural Coordinator at Alliance Francaise, Mumbai, where most screenings take place, says that the 72-seater hall is usually packed for Vikalp screenings, with people spilling over on to the carpets as well. “We welcome people to Alliance to view these movies and are happy to provide a space for this freedom of expression,” says Guena. What does this mean? That there are more people walking the streets of India whose minds have been opened to things they may not have seen and views they may not have heard.

Jayasankar puts it succinctly: “We are all taught to read and write. But we need to be taught to read images.” How true. As we interrogate, as we learn to apply ourselves and infer truths from the images we see on the screen, we are the more powerful “others”, not the “volatile” communities reacting to speeches and books and films on their face value, but digging deeper and making informed decisions. That is the only way to take a stand. After all, that’s how it all began.

Vikalp organises screenings of documentary films across Mumbai. Entry is always free. The next screenings are:

• Death, Life Etc. on Wednesday 17th Feb 2010 at Alliance Francaise at 6.30 pm
• Doon School Chronicles on Monday 22nd Feb 2010 at Prithvi House at 7 pm

To know more about Vikalp, join the Facebook group Vikalp@Prithvi, or follow the local newspaper and Time Out magazine.

New look

Makeovers don't come easy to me. My friends have been trying to convince me to get a certain haircut since 1996. It took me three years to muster up the courage to get my second ear-piercing done.

No wonder then, that this blog with the banner (see below) had looked the same for over 2 years now.

But when you've just shifted countries and set up home all over again, it hits you that change can be good too. And that things can always look better. So here's my new virtual home - how do you like it?

And below is my new home - (and my mother) - caught in a lamp-lit moment.

So now you know what it looks like where I live...at home and in cyberspace. Should I get the haircut too?

Real Life

A peaceful day. Tranquil, easygoing, slow, relaxed. Beautiful weather. Seaside at sunset. Brisk walking. Bumping into friends. Strolling home. Music of choice. A bright kitchen. A successful attempt at a made-up recipe. A good dinner.

And then to switch on the TV and hear about Pune. This is our life. Reminds me of the soap bubbles children were blowing by the sea this evening.

In Her Own Image

A good friend helped with some valuable contacts, and I got a chance to interview Shabana Azmi after watching her perform her latest play, Broken Images. Business Standard published it last Sunday. I'm pasting the piece here as well. But first, some things I wanted to say but didn't add to what I submitted for publication.

First things first, I should never have tried to interview her immediately after the performance. Reasons:

• She was swamped by well-wishers right after. I flattened myself against a pillar as Dia Mirza, Mandira Bedi, Prem Chopra, Divya Dutta and other familiar faces rushed to congratulate her.
• Watching her enact her role to near perfection was intimidating, and I felt that all my questions (if I remembered them) would sound silly and completely not worth her time.
• My mind wandered during the play because I kept thinking I'd forget my questions.
• She eventually said she didn't have time for the interview. Would I mail her the questions instead?

So I did, and in my naivete I actually took down her email address and asked, "You will reply, won't you?" Maybe that's what did it. Because between 10.30 pm when I mailed her my questions, and 8 am the next day, she'd sent in her answers, typing on her Blackberry. Read on below to know how I put them all together.

An actor of her caliber can’t be confined to one role. And Broken Images doesn’t try. In less than an hour of stage time, Shabana Azmi bewilders and stuns with many shades to her stage persona: good, bad, shrewd, cunning, lying, vulnerable, pitiable, helpless and neglected. It’s only a human urge, when watching a story unfold, to find one person on whom to pin our sympathies. While I’m still trying to decide who I should feel for in this play, Shabana says, “The best feedback I got for this role was that the audience can’t make up their minds who the victim is and who the victimizer. I am pleased with that because Girish (Karnad) has built in enough ambiguity to make it a shifting equation.” Ah. So we are not meant to decide. I may as well just go with the flow as I watch acting so spontaneous it seems effortless and natural.

But this spontaneity didn’t come easy. Shabana, who has also acted in international productions at London’s National Theatre and the Singapore Repertory Theatre, observes, “The rehearsal period abroad is from 9 am to 5pm daily. So you get a lot of time to explore, to add and to reject. Here, we rehearsed off and on for about three months, just about two hours in the evenings because we are involved in professions other than theatre. It’s a huge pity that you cannot make a living from theatre in India.”

Arundhati Nag, Padma Shri recipient for 2010, played the protagonist in the Kannada and Hindi versions of the play. Shabana admits that watching her made it easier to play the Image in one single take. The unusual thing in the execution of Broken Images is the presence of the “Image”, a recorded version of herself seen on a large TV screen on stage, opposite which Shabana acts. Usually actors watch their recorded performances to rate their performances by their own, exacting standards. So was it not hard, not to mention distracting, to act with and react to herself? Here, she acknowledges that her sister-in-law, Tanvi Azmi was invaluable. “A very fine actor, Tanvi played both parts during my rehearsals, so that when I actually had to act ‘opposite’ myself, I knew what to expect. And frankly, I find the Image completely different from anything I have done so far, so she surprised even me!” All that preparation paid off, and the shoot, for which they had budgeted two days, was done in a single take of 44 minutes! “Had I gone wrong in the 43^rd minute, we’d have had to do the whole take again,” Shabana points out. Not the sort of tension many would handle with such élan.

But then, Azmi thrives on this very tension. Theatre is about being ready for the unexpected as there isn’t the luxury of a retake, “so the odds against you are higher,” she says simply. “But once you are out there, it is direct contact between you and the audience; you need to strike a very fine balance so you can play with the audience without playing to the gallery.” Of course, being in front of a camera is no easier, she observes, “where the close-up shot can betray fake emotion to even the least discerning viewer. So I think for an actor it’s enriching to work in both mediums.”

Since she has mentioned these mediums, I draw Shabana away from the play in question, asking about cinema and theatre in the larger context. The Padma Shri awards have just been announced; there are 20 awardees in the Arts category for 2010 while just 10 years back there were only seven awardees. Does this indicate a growing recognition of the arts’ contribution towards change in society? Shabana agrees, “About time, don’t you think? All art has the possibility of creating a climate of sensitivity in which it is possible for change to occur.”

If art can do all this, I am further tempted to ask my next question: there has been a burst of interest in Islam in the last decade and everyone wants to understand and depict their perception of Islam – its followers, its philosophy and its misuse by extremists. Can Indian film and theatre really contribute towards this understanding? “There have been attempts by film, though theatre, I am not so sure,” she muses. “To handle a subject as complex as this you need an in-depth understanding of the issue. It works in Khuda Kay Liye, which was technically weak but well written. Firaaq was a sensitive film that managed to stir you without manipulating you. But if the film just uses the issue as a peg on which to hang a routine story, it ends up doing more damage than good.”

Given that Shabana is one of those who firmly believe in doing good, she has worked to help slum dwellers over the last 25 years. As leader of the Nivara Hakk movement, Shabana ensured that 12,000 homes were built, free of cost for slum-dwellers evicted from Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park. This, the single-largest rehabilitation project in Asia, is a matter of pride for Shabana. “But it is not even a drop in the ocean in the larger scheme of things,” she confesses, realist to the core. It helped to be an MP in the Rajya Sabha (1993–2007), so that she could influence policy for the powerless, but she continues her work even now. “My father said to me, ‘When you are working for change you should build into that expectation that it may not occur within your lifetime. But if you carry on regardless, one day the change will come.’ And that is my mantra for life.”

THE REVIEW:

BROKEN IMAGES

Written by Girish Karnad

Directed by Alyque Padamsee

Produced by Raell Padamsee

Cast: Shabana Azmi

Running time approximately 55 minutes

The play opens with Manjula Sharma, a college teacher and extraordinarily successful first-time English novelist, seated in a television studio and telling us about the storm her success has generated. Coolly, she refutes allegations of being a money-grabbing, opportunistic writer who betrayed her first language, Hindi, to write in English. The tension between the glamour of English literature and the step-sisterly treatment of Hindi language novelists is finely nuanced and brought forth by a now defensive, now offensive Manjula, as she flaunts the huge publishing advance and the unexpected fame she has received. Inordinately pleased for having smoothly hit out at her critics on television, Manjula prepares to leave the studio. That is when the live TV screen flickers to life again, an Image of Manjula staring out from it as it engages the author in conversation. Thus begins a riveting dialogue, eliciting truths as it goes along, that eventually strips Manjula down to a reality she has always known and denied.

The confessions the Image extracts from Manjula through simple but incisive questions reveal much about the complexities of human relationships, the love-hate bond between siblings, the significance of intellectual companionship in a marriage, and the irreversible consequences of a lie told so often, it becomes the truth, even to the one who utters it. When we create an Image of ourselves for the outside world, we run the risk of the Image dominating over our sense of self, and that is what Broken Images brings out – not in a soft and subtle way but with the brutality of a reflection that tells the truth and will not be silenced.

Along on stage throughout, Shabana Azmi is not so much an actor as she is Manjula herself: Torn, self-interrogating, and devastated as she gives voice to the truth she has subconsciously been aware of all along. More than watching a performance the audience witnesses the many protective layers around a celebrity peel away till she stands exposed, for our pity and our judgment.

The TV screen on stage has its own significance. To quote Girish Karnad, the playwright, “New technologies whisper to us in shimmering figures, seduce us with moving lines, colors and luminosities. Softwares speaking through microprocessors mould our tastes, question our judgments, persuade us to take their messages as our own, so that simulation furnishes us with copies more real than normal reality.” And so this play turns reality on its head, blurring the line between good and bad, selfish and selfless, lies and truth, and the self and the other, making it all seem one. The play is, in director Alyque Padamsee’s words, “A masterpiece about self-delusion and phantom images.”

For fans of Shabana Azmi the stage actor, don’t watch this play expecting anything like Tumhari Amrita or Kaifi aur Main. But do watch it if you want to witness an engrossing performance about the darkness within us all as the dark of the theatre surrounds you.

Upcoming shows of Broken Images:

MUMBAI

• Sunday, 7 February, Sophia Bhabha Auditorium, Mumbai
• Saturday , 20 February, Sophia Bhabha Auditorium, Mumbai
• Sunday, 28 February, Sophia Bhabha Auditorium, Mumbai

HYDERABAD

• Thursday, 11 February, Hyderabad International Convention Centre