My atrocious behaviour was most evident after I returned from Russia, from where I returned as a pompous, brash and full-of-myself jackanapes. However, my pomposity soon turned to depression as I realized what a misfit I was in Mumbai.
Fish out of water
After my return from Russia I was like a fish out of water in Mumbai. For a long time (to some extent to this day), I was in a state of culture shock. The USSR did that to people, changing them so comprehensively and thoroughly, that they are never the same again. I missed the Russian winter, the Russian countryside and my friends. The pull of Russia was overpowering! I was terribly depressed.
My family members are northerners—frontier people. I had spent most of my time in Kashmir and Sanawar, my school near Simla, and was not too fond of the tropics. I tried to alleviate my depression through the best way taught to me in ‘Rooski-land’—wine, women and song! I hit the bottle with a vengeance, and for a long time, vodka was my constant companion. I spent most of my days with my friends swimming and guzzling lobsters, prawns and other delicacies in a nearby hotel, leading a wanton and wasteful life.
It was then that I made friends with a blue-eyed, blonde Anglo-Saxon woman, a widow, who resembled a Russian woman. This caused quite a scandal in Juhu, but I couldn’t care less! My nefarious lifestyle was not hidden from Dad. He knew very well what was going on. But he did not utter a single word of rebuke nor did he chastise me. Perhaps he sensed my depression and wanted to grant me the freedom to find an outlet and mitigate my apathy and disinterest in life. But all these extra-curricular activities did not help; on the contrary my depression got from bad to worse.
One day Dad decided to visit one of his favourite places on the outskirts of Mumbai—the Kanheri Caves, situated deep in the jungles of the wild life sanctuary called the Borivali National Park (now known as the Sanjay Gandhi National Park). Kanheri Caves constitute an entire township carved into a cliff out of one solid rock.
I was inquisitive about this place, vaguely recalling that the caves housed some of the earliest cave temples in India. So I went along with Dad. It was much later that I realized that the outing had been more or less purposely arranged for my benefit. It was this visit that initiated the process of my pulling me out of my depression.
The caves are truly awe-inspiring. To carve an entire township out of a single perpendicular cliff is no mean feat! It must have taken years of back-breaking labour to achieve this. At the entrance to the largest monument are two fifteen-feet-tall figures of the Bodhisattva. Inside the main hall is a tall stupa as well as very deep tanks carved into the rock to store rain water. The township, as I learnt, flourished somewhere around the second or third century AD, when the caves were Buddhist shrines. This came as a surprise to me. I didn’t know Mumbai was such an ancient city.
Dad showed me the rows of meditation cubicles and also the residential quarters carved out for the monks. The township is almost a mile in length along the wall of a single cliff. After showing me these ancient structures, Dad slipped in a seemingly innocuous remark, ‘There are plenty of things to admire in India. It is such a pity that so few people are aware of their ancient heritage or make an effort to get to know it. If they did, they would love and respect their own country more than the Western models they carry in their hearts and copy blindly!’
The sight of that carved cliff stirred something within me. I loved the onion-shaped domes of Russian churches, but they were nothing compared to these timeless masterpieces in stone dating back to early Christian times or perhaps even earlier.
It was when we were driving back that I ventured to open my heart to Dad.
‘Dad,’ I said to him softly, ‘I have a problem.’
‘A problem?’
‘I am depressed. I feel lonely and lost here. I seem to be floundering in a frightening darkness that I can’t seem to get out of.’
Dad was silent for a while as he looked at the road ahead and negotiated a curve, and then he spoke, his eyes still on the road.
‘I don’t see what your problem is, son. You have all the vodka you need at your disposal. In fact, your consumption of vodka has given a big boost to the Indian alcohol industry! And you have a beautiful, buxom Englishwoman who seems to be very fond of you.’
‘But I am still depressed,’ I muttered, sure that all that awaited me were platitudes or a reprimand. But when Dad spoke, it was neither of the two.
‘I know how you feel, Parikshat. I was in similar shape when I landed in Bombay after the Partition. I had no work. I had no money. I didn’t know whether I’d be accepted as an actor in the film industry or not. I was nostalgic about that part of Punjab, which had suddenly become a foreign country for me. I missed Pindi and Lahore with an ache. I didn’t like this city at all. I didn’t like the climate, I didn’t like the food and I didn’t like the crowds. I felt like a fish out of water, just as you are feeling now. Russia is beautiful, no doubt. And you must be missing that Russian girl I met with you when I visited Moscow to attend the November parade. Pretty girl! I could see that you both were very fond of each another. I forget her name . . .’
‘Galya! Short for Galina.’
‘Yes, Galya! I can understand how you must miss her. But that is life, son. Change is the law of the universe. The best panacea for depression, to my mind, is work. Get down to something. When I was depressed I started a new theatre group, the Juhu Art Theatre, I read books, went around studios meeting people, watching other actors at work, exercising and planning. Always be planning something. Get busy. You are writing the script of Pavitra Paapi. (He was referring to a script I had recently undertaken to write at his instigation.) Give it all you’ve got. But I know you are going through a tough time. I understand.’
His love, his leniency, his understanding, propelled me to at least attempt to focus on the script. As I look back, I think of many other instances, when Dad attempted to direct me along a productive course without seeming to do so.
Temper tantrum
College life in Russia had had structure, but now, like any other fresh university graduate, I felt lost. Lacking direction, but not hungry enough to seek a job or keep myself occupied with some productive activity, I tended to be short on the fuse, unpredictable and irascible. Little things irritated me and I over-reacted to them.
I was with my friend Ahmed one day, discussing something, sitting on the front seat in Dad’s car, a British-made Standard Vanguard, which I had borrowed for the morning. We were parked behind a row of cars in the colony where Ahmed lived in. Our discussion turned into a minor argument. Instead of sorting things out rationally, I flew into a rage, started the car, put it into first gear and rammed the car parked in front of us at full speed. Not satisfied by banging it just once, I rammed it again and again till its posterior looked as though it had been struck by an artillery shell. Ahmed was appalled. He looked thunderstruck as he came out of the car to look at the damage I had done.
‘Much damage?’ I asked him as he surveyed the scene.
Ahmed looked at me disparagingly and shook his head at my inane question.
‘It’s not the damage that you have caused to the other car that I am worried about, my friend. Come and look at what you have done to your own car!’ he replied.
I came out and went to survey the ill-effects of my temper. The other car’s exhaust pipe had been torn off and its boot was badly dented. The tail lights were smashed. But the damage to Dad’s car had to be seen to be believed! The headlights were gone, the radiator had been shattered and even the bumper had been badly dented and had fallen off.
Before the owner of the other car saw my handiwork, Ahmed thought it would be wise to continue our argument some other time. Both of us quietly went in our own respective directions. I made a beeline for home. When I reached home, the car’s radiator was spewing steam like a geyser. The driver came running out. His eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he saw its condition. I gave him a withering look, daring him to say anything,
and ran up to my room and locked myself in. My temper had subsided; instead I was petrified at what I had done. I was sure I was in for a dressing down in the evening at the dinner table. So I decided to think up an excuse.
Everyone was seated at the table, with Dad, as usual at the head of it. I tiptoed in and sat down as far from him as I could. I gulped my food quickly, not daring to look up and catch his eye. Finally, I broke the silence, ‘Sorry Dad, there was a minor accident today. You see, in Russia people drive on the right side of the road and here it is the other way around. And people drive so rashly here! I got confused and ran into a BEST bus and the car got slightly scratched.’
Neither Mummy nor Dad said anything for some time. Finally, Dad spoke, ‘Yes, I know. The owner of the BEST bus happens to be a friend of mine and lives in the same colony as Ahmed. He rang me up and told me that his BEST bus had also been scratched a little! I must say Russia toughens people up! You are tough, Parikshat. Once I rammed into a BEST bus at full speed in Mahim during the monsoon season because my brakes failed. My car wasn’t half as badly damaged as it is today. I don’t know what you rammed into. You are tough, son, very tough!’
Shamefaced, I hung my head, wishing he had yelled at me so that I could have justified my actions, but this mode of censure left no room for self-defense. I realized that if Dad had to reprimand someone, he didn’t do it directly. He put on velvet gloves before he delivered the upper cut. One didn’t feel the blow at the time but later it hurt like hell.
Within a day or two the car was back from the garage, looking as good as new, and the incident was never brought up again.
At this time Dad decided I needed something different, something more meaningful to occupy me, so he asked me to play the central character in a film on the life of the Kashmiri poet Ghulam Mohammed Mahjoor.
Shayar-e-Kashmir
After Mahjoor Saheb passed away, Dad felt it was his bounden duty to pay homage to his name and memory by making a film on his life in both Kashmiri and Hindi. He suggested this to the then Chief Minister and the latter agreed with alacrity, and even sanctioned funds for the project. Dad did not want it to be a run-of-the-mill commercial Hindi film and requested his friend Prabhat Mukerjee in Calcutta to direct the film. Prabhat Mukerjee agreed and spent a long time researching and writing the script.
Although it was a role tailor-made for Dad, he thought it appropriate to involve me in this project as the leading man in the film, seeing that I was wasting my time on wine, women and song and going astray in a big way.
I was wary of taking on this gargantuan task. I was to play Mahjoor Saheb from his young days right through his old age. I was ill-prepared for the job. But the director had decided that I was just the right person to play it (I’m sure at Dad’s behest). I was reluctant, but after much cajoling, I agreed. I would do full justice to the role. It was a decision Prabhat-da would probably rue till his dying day, as would Dad, whose patience I tested to the limit.
The director had no idea what he was getting himself into. I was a hard-drinking, obstinate and foul-mouthed Russian bear at that time! Hardly had the project started when someone in the unit told me, ‘Mahjoor Saheb was not all that great. He was a small-time poet and a flirt, yet people make so much of him. His poetry is quite mediocre. So, have a good time! Eat, drink and have fun while you are in Kashmir.’ This sounded like blasphemy to me. I had been told stories about Mahjoor Saheb’s greatness since childhood and he was a hero to me.
I was so angry that I demanded to see the script. The director, a gentle, affable and good- natured man of repute (he had several good Bengali films to his credit) was dumbfounded when I trashed his script. He got the first of many jolts with this display of my outright audacity. He had done months of research before writing the script. But I considered myself infallible, an authority on scriptwriting and a Mr Know-all. Six years of living under communist rule had turned me into a self-opinionated prig.
I made such a ruckus about the script that the project, for a while, seemed to be on the verge of being shelved. I rewrote an entirely new script in four or five days and presented it to the director. Smug and confident, I informed him that with my new version he was on solid ground and he should now discard the old one. The tone of my voice was ominous. Prabhat-da stared at me as though he was looking at an oncoming tsunami. This was the first time an actor had trashed his script and arbitrarily rewritten it without notifying him or discussing it with him. Looking at me as though I was a dangerous predator best kept at bay, he said meekly, ‘OK, I will go through it.’
He locked himself in his room to read the new script and when he came out a few hours later, he looked even more flabbergasted than before. He said that he couldn’t make head or tail of the Marxist angle I had added to the story. He consulted Dad. I don’t know what transpired between the two of them, but yet again, Dad said nothing to me. Later, I was told that he had asked the director to replace me with another actor if he so wished, though he did try to mitigate my offense by explaining that I was still suffering from culture shock and would get used to the Indian way of film-making once I faced the camera and the project got going.
But it was too late to replace me; this would delay the project further. A large film unit had been brought all the way from Calcutta. So the director opted to retain me, quite sure that he could handle a newcomer, although from Russia, who barely spoke Hindustani; someone who was well acquainted with Kashmir, but completely unfamiliar with the traditions of Indian cinema. He was sure he could break the wild horse that he was dealing with. But he was sadly mistaken.
I was not used to the milieu in the Indian film industry and was a misfit for a long time. My pomposity did not end with the script. With a holier-than-thou attitude now that my version of the script had been accepted, I proceeded to create a ruckus about the placement of the camera. I didn’t agree with the camera angles; I complained about the make-up; the glued-on beard irritated the hell out of me, making me feel as though ants were crawling on my skin, and I tore it off a couple of times, to the utter horror of the make-up man.
The coup de grâce, however, was when I started re-writing the dialogues written by a consummate and well-known writer, Pran Kishore, whose latest book had just been published by the Penguin press. With a limited knowledge of Urdu, this was pretty audacious even for me!
All in all, I made a thorough jackass of myself. The poor director was soon tearing out his hair, and before the fortnight was out, the man was a mental wreck. Dad was completely baffled by my obnoxious behaviour. The entire Bengali unit did not know what had hit them. For me, it was a great experience as, oblivious to the daily drama I was creating, I continued to throw around my weight, enjoying every moment I spent in my beloved valley. But now, I am thoroughly ashamed of how I behaved in those days.
There was yet another problem. A horse had been acquired for the shooting. I would ride regularly with the Institute riding team in Moscow, but the horses there were strong, well-fed and large. Here, the horse I was given was a skinny animal, actually a tonga-horse used to pull a carriage that was the usual means of transport in Srinagar. But unaware of this, I decided to take him for a test ride.
The horse looked startled when I mounted him. I had put on my riding spurs—the ones I used in Moscow for show jumping—and spurred him on. The spurs were something new for the horse. He bucked a few times and then took off at supersonic speed, slicing through the wind as if the devil himself had mounted him.
By the time I returned to where the unit was waiting for me, the animal was sweating as though he had been in a sauna, his head sagging and his tongue lolling out. He was breathing raucously as though something had got stuck in his throat. The owner was sitting on his haunches, his head clasped in his hands. ‘Saheb,’ he muttered, almost in tears, ‘this is not a race horse. It is only my tonga-horse. He is my bread and butter, and I look after him like my own child! And you have been pushing him on with your steel spurs. Look at my poor Badshah—he i
s not only a physical but a mental wreck. Please have pity on Badshah and me! The shooting has not even begun. I don’t know what shape my Badshah will be in by the time the shooing ends.’
‘He is not required just for today’s shooting, sir,’ said the sad-looking director. ‘The horse is now in continuity and we will have to use him for a full twenty days. So please, Parikshat-ji, please forget the Russian horses and have mercy on this poor creature!’
I apologized profusely to the owner of the horse as I dismounted, and patted its dripping neck, I pulled out some jaggery that I always carried in my pocket when I went riding and fed Badshah Salamat. It was the ‘done’ thing in our riding club in Moscow. Badshah Salamat gave me a baleful look as he ate the jaggery and moved as far away from me as possible.
As the shooting progressed, the director’s hair became more and more dishevelled and visibly thinner and he looked more and more pessimistic. The German company OR-WO had given us the raw stock of the film we were using free of cost. But there was a limited amount. And raw stock was very expensive those days. A shot seldom went beyond one ‘take’ and a ‘retake’ for safety. We were supposed to take one shot in Hindi and one in Kashmiri. However, the only languages I was fluent in were Russian, Punjabi and English, in that order. As a child, I did speak some Kashmiri, but that was many years ago and was rusty now.
As a result, there were many retakes and the film’s budget shot up by leaps and bounds. Accommodating the unit in Srinagar was expensive. So the venue was shifted to a studio in Calcutta, another city which came as a great shock to me. A stagnant city ravaged by Marxist movements, like that of the Naxalites, it was wrapped in a cocoon of sweltering heat and abject poverty. I felt alienated from my surroundings. Calcutta was a poor substitute for Kashmir and a stark contrast to the greenery and tranquillity of the valley. However, just when I thought I had reached the end of my tether, Dad arrived; he had an important role in the film too. He seemed well aware of the problems I had created for the director and the unit.
The Non-Conformist Page 20