Manmohan Desai's Enchantment of the Mind

by Connie Haham

  I’ve been working on the script of Mard for the last one year. Four more days and I’ll be absolutely through with it. I’ve been revising it again and again; changing it again and again. You have to think all the time in terms of box office. I can’t make these art films. They put me to sleep. I would like to beat the box office collections of my films. I’m not interested in any other films. I’m competing against myself. Now to beat Coolie I have a problem. My budgets are high. The prices at which I sell a film are higher than anybody else’s in India. So I have to give them [the distributors] that worth. They distribute one of my films on my faith. They pay me whatever I want because they know the money’s going to go in the film. They say, ‘He’ll do his best to make a good successful box office film.’ So I owe it to them. Hence, I will think of more items, better items; items with emotion linked together should run. So I’ve got to compete with myself now because, to be very frank, I’ve got l2 jubilees in a row. ‘How long’ is the question. Some day the law of averages will catch up with me. Before that, I want to make as many as I can.

  Later he reiterated:

  I would like to go as the champion box office maker of all times… . Awards? You take them when you’re going downhill. Not now. When you’re zooming up, you don’t need awards. It’s the people, people whose love is ultimately going to matter.

  Continuing on the subject of money, he explained his point of view:

  I would like to have lots and lots and lots of money because I know when I had no money what it was like. In l962 and l963 when my son was young, my wife was down with pleurisy. I was making Bluff Master. I had no other assignment. I swear upon God, I didn’t have money to treat her. I remember how I scrounged for money, how Mr. Shammi Kapoor who is now my son’s father-in-law—we have been friends since then—came to know of my plight. He gave me Rs. 2000, and I felt very embarrassed. I paid him back within 25 days. I didn’t want to take it. He put it in my pocket, you know. He’s the only hero (leading man) who I’ve been obliged to. At that time, I had no money to treat her for pleurisy. So I’ve seen what it is not to have money. I value it. That’s why I don’t play cards, gamble or go to the races. I know what it is not to have it. I want to have so much money that finally when I kick the bucket, my son doesn’t have to stretch his hands to anybody for help. I’ve seen those days and I don’t intend to forget them. And in our film trade it’s up and down. There are no pensions. We live from day to day. In our good period we have to make tons of money and we should be able to save money for a rainy day because the rainy day is bound to come to practically everybody in the film industry sooner or later.

  If my son squanders the money I’ve made, that’s his stupidity and bad luck. Money can’t give you happiness, but money can bring you everything else, everything but happiness. Without money you can’t do anything in this world. Suppose I fall sick and need to go abroad for treatment. I can’t get treatment here, so that is why I want money. I need money. You go in a crowd of 200 people. Without money nobody speaks to you; with money you’re a big man.

  Coupled with Manmohan Desai’s belief in the power of money and his desire to make as much of it as possible was a recurring concern for the simple folk who made up the bulk of his viewing public.

  I don’t make my films for critics. I make them for those people who are willing to stand hours in the sun and rain to buy a ticket. If they are unhappy with my film, I am unhappy too, and I would like to apologize to them.

  Manmohan Desai was constantly planning new films, some of which were actually made. At one point he wanted to make a multilingual film called Junction Rani in six languages. Love Birds was another idea that Desai referred to as ‘a beautiful satire.’ He also had a dream of shooting abroad:

  The film I have in mind—an English language film—would be a love story with one Indian hero. The rest would be foreigners. I’m bloody sure it would be a tremendous success. We know more about emotions than they do. It would click internationally.

  If I’m destined, maybe somebody will come knock on my door and say, ‘We want you to direct a film abroad.’

  in the eyes of others

  Let us now shift our point of view and look at Manmohan Desai not through his eyes but rather through the eyes of some of those who knew him, who worked with him or who simply expressed an opinion concerning his films.

  In the fall of 1985, Shashi Kapoor, who acted in Aa Gale Lag Jaa and in Suhaag, offered some interesting observations about the director and related some of his experiences on set with Manmohan Desai:

  He’s a samdhi, a relative by marriage. My niece (Shammi Kapoor’s daughter) is married to Manmohan Desai’s son. And he is a friend.

  Manmohan Desai was accepted immediately as a director. He just started directing and he knew how to at a very young age, like my brother (Raj Kapoor). He is involved with the audience’s point of view, not with a literary or aesthetic point of view. He leaves behind logic, sensibility and, to a certain extent, art quality. I believe that cinema is basically for entertainment. It is not something to be exhibited somewhere. Now, sometimes Manmohan may violate the public’s sensibilities—I don’t agree with illogic and such. But they work.

  He is ruthless in trying to get what he wants. For instance, he is the only director who dared to tell off Salim and Javed. When he didn’t like parts of their script, he changed the script. He also had some British stunt directors working for him. He wouldn’t take any rubbish from them, got angry and sent them home.

  I appreciate his clarity, his vision, even if I don’t agree with him at certain points. He orchestrates a whole film his own way. His contribution to a film is l00%.

  He has a childlike spirit, and he is a bit voyeuristic. He likes to watch a fight, for instance, not to fight himself, just to watch, a quality that is probably commendable in a film director. I attribute his success to this madness of his, this obsession almost to the point of madness.

  He likes his artistes to take risks. I have done the most dangerous stunts in my long career of forty years and 250 films while working with him. In Aa Gale Lag Jaa in the final fight there is a fire. I was on skates and there was to be a fight with a knife. At first he wanted me to use a real knife. I said no, and he called me a ‘scaredy’. But I was on skates, and we could have lost our balance. So I threw the knife at him. He ducked, and then he started yelling and cursing, ‘You could have killed me!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s just what I mean. That’s why I don’t want to use a real knife.’

  Then in that same sequence, there was a shot where I was supposed to hit the window. Manmohan Desai wanted me to do it myself without a double. I said no, absolutely not. And the double who did that shot for me got a big slash on his head as he went through the window. He needed sixty stitches. I said, ‘You see, that’s the stunt you wanted me to do!’

  In Suhaag he wanted a real shot without doubles of the motorbike and the helicopter. Amitabh and I arrive on a motorbike and we have to grab a rope ladder that is hanging down. We were in Singapore. It wasn’t possible to get permission from the government at that time to use a helicopter. It was during the Janata government. He finally convinced me to do the shot myself, but I said, ‘Just one take!’ Well, we caught the rope and got off the ground. I was okay at first, and then my hands started getting sweaty, and I almost let go. We were about l00 feet off the ground, and we had to be at a certain angle for the shot, so we couldn’t come down immediately. I thought I was going to die for sure. When I got down, I told him I was never going to do another action shot, and I was never going to do another film for him. I told my wife that night that she was lucky to have me alive. But he has a childlike excitement. He’s a crazy man.

  I think Aa Gale Lag Jaa was his best film, not because I was in it, but it’s just his best.

  I think he’s scared now. He says he wants to be in the background now, to let his son take over. He doesn’t want to compete with his son. He will be just a reference. But I don’t t
hink that’s it. I think he just can’t see himself flopping after so much success. So he gives the credit for directing to someone else.

  His working style has changed somewhat recently. He uses the video now to prepare scenes. Everything is pre-rehearsed. He uses his assistants to go over scenes, checks them with the video and then has the actors do the shots just as they were planned. I don’t like that. I don’t think there is enough contribution from actors when he works that way.

  Amitabh Bachchan, speaking in January l984, had these comments to make about the filmmaker:

  He is a very committed director. He has a tremendous planning sense. He knows exactly what he wants months before he’s actually in front of the sets. He has done his homework right up to the last detail, including sometimes weather problems, problems of the artistes arriving late on the sets and what he would do if such a probability were to arise. I mean, it’s amazing the amount of detail he goes into, and sometimes I’ve noticed that as a result of his work on so-called immaterial details we have been able to carry out a schedule because, in fact, we did face those problems.

  There’s very little that the artistes can invent at that time because he doesn’t leave room for invention. He’s done it all himself. And then when he is describing a particular sequence, for example, you may tend to laugh at it, you know, on hearing it for the first time. You may be very hesitant to do it when you’re asked to. But when the results come, you stop arguing with him. I argued with him the first day that I worked, the first day of Parvarish’s shooting. He wanted me to do something in a particular way and I disagreed with him, but he insisted, and since it was my first day, I didn’t want to get into any hassle with the director. Finally, I agreed. After that, I stopped arguing. I don’t ever question what he asks me to do. I may feel silly; I may feel a little awkward at times doing things that he wants me to do. But I realize that if he wants me to do it, he’s probably gone into it himself very deeply and has thought about the overall impact it’s going to have. And I’ve never really argued with him. Instead, I’ve tried to help him by putting in as much of myself as I can into an awkward situation. And we’ve come out in the green so far. We haven’t misfired. It’s his conviction that pushes you into doing things like that.

  I find now that with his technique the more serious-minded people are standing back and laughing at it all. But sometimes when you stand back and laugh at something you are actually enjoying it. You may not be ridiculing it; you’re actually enjoying it. You may be seeing something stupid on the screen, but in fact you like it. So what has happened is you’ve got the intelligent viewer sitting in the hall, laughing at the stupidity of it and enjoying it and you have the masses, the uneducated masses who are there enjoying the stupidity, not knowing that it’s stupidity, but actually believing it, and it’s first degree. That’s the only explainable reason for the tremendous success that his films enjoy.

  Shyam Benegal, New Cinema director who has gained recognition worldwide, was generous in his praise of Manmohan Desai:

  I enjoy Manmohan Desai’s films. I would never miss one. Manmohan Desai is definitely the best of the big mainstream directors. Amar Akbar Anthony is my favourite.

  I respect Manmohan Desai for his honesty, for never having claimed to be anything but an entertainer. In this respect, he is a success. Manmohan Desai’s films are great fun. He has taken a stereotype and changed it into an archetype. He has created a new mythology. It’s very clever, too, the way he can use the same material over and over again, refining it each time.

  I think Manmohan Desai is totally uninterested in social messages; everything happens by miracle on screen. People leave the cinema without taking any messages, but they have been entertained.

  Director Mahesh Bhatt called Amar Akbar Anthony a landmark film and Desai one of the ‘blithe spirits of cinema—a superb artist.’4

  Director Mrinal Sen, whose l969 Bhuvan Shome is considered by many to have been the starting point of the new cinema movement, gave a veiled compliment to Manmohan Desai when he said, ‘I enjoy Coolie. I don’t react to it.’

  Firoze Rangoonwala, film historian, said, ‘The power of Manmohan Desai’s cinema lies in its capacity to build myths. The popular song ‘Govinda aala re’ in Bluff Master is a ritual folk song in Maharashtra, but it was changed in the film by music directors Kalyanji Anandji, under the instruction of Desai. Since then the song is sung in Maharashtra the way it was sung in the film.’5

  Closer to home, and still in a positive vein, Ekram Kashmiri, Manmohan Desai’s production manager, had this to say of Manmohan Desai, ‘He loves the poor. He wants to see them come up.’

  Manmohan Desai, of course, had many detractors; he was the bête noire of some. New Wave director M.S. Sathyu, who caught the attention of the Indian and foreign critics alike with his Garam Hawa (l974), voiced his criticism in these terms:

  If Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra make their kind of film, they only want to make more and more money… . Desai’s films are devoid of any kind of sensibility. As he himself admits, there’s no logic in his films. He just plays with the weaknesses of people.6

  Film critic Chidananda Das Gupta likewise took a harsh stance:

  To me they (Desai’s films) are not fun. I am perhaps overly concerned with questions of value in a country divided between tradition and modernity where new cultural orientations are of immense importance if we are not to end up being brutal and mindlessly hedonist under the impact of mass production and runaway consumerism… . I don’t want India to get to the point where whatever sells most becomes thereby holy.

  The language used by Filmfare readers to describe Desai’s films is worth noting. Because of his box-office success, Desai served as something of a lightning rod for Hindi popular cinema as a whole. Many berated his films in such terms as ‘stale brew.’ Desh Premee was accused of being ‘packed with crass inanities.’ Or again, ‘Desai and his tribe churn out cheap and senseless entertainers.’

  the director’s directors

  Let us turn once again to Manmohan Desai, this time as he expressed his tastes as a spectator. Learning what Desai liked was not difficult, for if Desai was often intransigent in his condemnation of those whose style he loathed, he was equally enthusiastic in his praise of those whose work he appreciated.

  He showed humility before past masters:

  Watching Mother India, I said to myself, ‘What are you doing making films?’ Mehboob Khan was a genius. He was an illiterate man from a village. For many years he couldn’t read or write English. He couldn’t even sign his name. Andaz and Mother India: they’re landmarks. I consider Mehboob Khan, Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and Guru Dutt are in a different league altogether.

  V. Shantaram is a brilliant craftsman, the best technician we’ve got. See Do Ankhen Barah Haath. He’s a brilliant editor, has good photography, but the performances of his artistes are very stilted. That’s why I say he is a craftsman more than a director.

  I consider one Marathi actor Dada Khondke another genius. He has got seven Golden Jubilees lined up in a row, super hits from Marathi cinema. He is an ugly man who has become a household name in Maharashtra. He’s a producer, a director, an actor, everything. He’s my friend, and I’m his friend. He’s just made a Hindi film [in January l984]—Mere Beech Mein. He made it a little vulgar. Every dialogue has a double meaning. But whatever it is, I’ve seen his work. I’m a fan of his. I think there are two geniuses we have here, Raj Kapoor and Dada Khondke. This ugly man became a superstar. As a village bumpkin I think he’s the world’s number one actor. He wears short pants, big and baggy—and shirts—big and baggy. What a natural! I don’t know much of the Marathi language—though I was married to a Maharashtrian—but when I see his films I think he knows the right emotions, the right comedy, the right drama, the right music. He used to say, ‘I’ll make a Hindi film if Manmohan Desai directs for me.’ When he was awarded a silver disc for his film music, the third Marathi film to have a silver disc, he said, ‘I’ll take
it only if Manmohan Desai presents it to me on the stage.’ I arranged to attend. I presented it and I touched his feet and said, ‘Dada Khondke is a genius.’

  Desai reserved his greatest praise for Raj Kapoor:

  There are two schools of cinema in India, Raj Kapoor’s and Guru Dutt’s. Guru Dutt got a trolley and moved around a singing person. Raj Kapoor has built scenes around songs. I follow Raj Kapoor.

  He spoke of directors abroad whose work he appreciated:

  There are so many—Wilder, of course. I consider Billy Wilder my god for scripting. I would like to touch his feet… .

  And Spielberg—E.T.! What emotions this man has taught us in one sweep! What a friendship angle between an ugly looking character and children! And that film depicts that human beings are villains. They make you hate the villain in the second half… . Like a human being he had a heart in him. All he wants to do is go home. What sentiments! What a friendship angle he brought! The scene on the table: his [Elliot’s] heart beats along with E.T.’s.

  There’s a fine Italian director whom I like the best in action filmmaking: Sergio Leone—A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad and the Ugly… . I think he made the best Westerns of them all. Each one was a gem by itself—brilliant camera work and brilliant editing.

  Because of the frequent strong stances he took against Indian art cinema, Manmohan Desai was regularly questioned and questioned again on the subject. Actually, his views were not invariably negative as was clear when when he spoke to Nikhil Lakshman of The Illustrated Weekly Of India. 7

  I saw only one film, Garam Hawa (by M.S. Sathyu). I was thrilled by it. It was brilliant. It moved me. I was not bored to death.