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California NRI , Dr. Jagmohan Mundhra, filmmaker

 

By Kavita Chhibber

A little Marwari boy in what he called a Marwari ghetto, in a not so affluent section of Kolkata, in a conservative family where films were frowned upon, Jagmohan Mundhra secretly dreamed of becoming a filmmaker when others dreamt of being cricket and film stars.

Mundhra was shy little boy, who had to count pennies to take the tram to the other, affluent side of the city. Yet life came a full circle for Mundhra when he drove through the old, familiar streets of Kolkata, not so long ago, in a car with full police escort, red lights flashing. Mundhra was being welcomed as a top notch filmmaker, some one who had worked long and hard, taking many detours to reach his destination, but as his favorite film actress Nandita Das would say, “Just because you are wandering doesn’t mean that you are lost.”

Jag Mundhra, as he is popularly known, talked about his journey in an exclusive interview with Little India, just as his film "Bawander: the Sandstorm" is raising a storm of critical acclaim worldwide and is being screened at the prestigious Indian Film Festival in Atlanta next month.

So tell me about the early years? You came from a non- filmi family background so why this enchantment with films?
I was brought up by my grandparents because my dad had to move around. The family was very conservative and my grand mother was very strict and we were allowed to see may be a couple of films a year and that too of the Har Har Mahadev variety. When my grandparents moved to Calcutta from Bikaner there is a community called bada bazaar, which is like a marwari ghetto insulated from all the Bengalis, but even as a child I never saw myself as a young Marwari boy but a lot beyond that. In those days, the word global citizen was not there, but inside I felt like one.
I look at my growing years with a lot of affection. When I was 12, I saw the film Kagaz ke Phool. I don’t know what attracted me to the film. When I went to see it, the hall was empty and the manager said it was a flop and he was going to pull it down, after only a week’s run, but I loved that film and the secret desire to be a film director took root.

But you ended up in the prestigious IIT Bombay instead of any film Institute. What did IIT teach you?
Firstly, a lot of preconceived notions started falling apart at IIT. I had studied in a Hindi medium school up to 9th grade and always admired people who spoke English fluently. IIT taught me a lot of humility. In my wing, there were students who were from different states, and as far as English went, this person from Bihar who couldn’t speak English to save his life outshone everyone else with his brilliance. I did well, but realized very early on while in IIT that engineering was not for me. I would be very unhappy if I was to live my life being an engineer, but I stuck it out because I didn’t want to let my parents down. Yet throughout, there was this simmering desire to be a filmmaker and the frustration of not knowing how to go about it as I had no relative or friend even remotely connected with films or the film industry. Yet I was determined not to be trapped by my environment.

But you decided to pursue an MS abroad in engineering. What were you thinking at that point?
I felt I had to rise above my circumstances and then I got a scholarship to a university in Michigan to do MS in electrical engineering, but after one semester, I switched my major to marketing. I realized that this country has given me the opportunity to explore options and that if I set my mind to it, I can do anything. Compared to IIT, everything seemed like a piece of cake and I did well, and along with marketing took many classes in advertising. To me it seemed closest to filmmaking and I realized it was not just my desire to make films, but I also had a natural inclination as the ads I designed won a lot of prizes. I had so many credits in advertising that my advisor suggested I get my Ph.D. in advertising.

And you chose an interesting topic — the marketing of motion pictures!
I wrote a thesis on marketing of motion pictures so that I could come close to the film industry. One of the things I did was a comparative study of marketing practices in Hollywood and Bollywood. Under the guise of doing research, I went to Bombay and was welcomed by people from the industry. But Hollywood has a lot of material and I was provided that, but didn’t get to meet any body. I got my Ph.D., taught for a year and then started looking for a job. I was offered several academic posts and accepted one at California State University, because it brought me closer to Hollywood. I taught there until 1979 and then resigned and decided to become a full time filmmaker.
When I sent my resume to the studios, they would politely say, well you are Indian what can you know about the taste of the American audience and secondly you have never made a movie before in your life, and since you have a Ph.D., join our research department, do audience surveys and forget about being a film maker. Still, there was a film festival and they took me as a consultant to select Indian films.

But then something happened that changed things for you.

Yes. I saw an old cinema hall, an old couple was trying to sell. I leased and renovated it and after showing some American films initially decided to show Indian films. At that time, Indian movies were being shown only in high school auditoriums in 16 mm format. People would sit on wooden chairs and pay $4-5 to hear the whir of the projector and every time they would stop and change the reel. I saw a business opportunity and converted my 800-seat cinema and looked for films that had a 35 mm print. I found one film called Julie, advertised and ran it. There was a line around the block, and even the media came to cover it.
In its first run it collected $800 and then $5,000 over the weekend. Then suddenly I got a call from Dev Anand from India and he wanted to have the premiere of his movie Des Pardes in my theater. He was followed by Yash Chopra with Kabhie Kabhi and Raj Kapoor with Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Satyajit Ray with Shatranj Ke Khiladi. It became the hot spot where big names from Bollywood introduced their films. I also started a radio program and was one of the co founders of the newspaper India West. Around that time actor, Sanjeev Kumar came for the screening of Pati Patni or Woh, and when I told him of my desire to be a filmmaker and that I was not making headway here he said why don’t you do a film in India? I said but I don’t know anyone there. He said “You know me.” That was very nice of him. He helped me put the team together, he did a press conference and went on radio and said he will be doing a film with me and people heard that and said they would invest in my film. I had $50,000 of my own money ,but managed to raise $250,000 for the film Suraag that starred Shabana Azmi and him.

So what did you think of Bollywood and what did Bollywood think of you? What were the lessons learnt?
When I got there, everybody saw me as one of the rich NRIs who was their meal ticket. Everyone took full advantage of my naivete, and charged me an arm and a leg for everything. I was too overawed and new to the game to realize what was happening. My father passed away around the same time, so it was a somber beginning. Once I went on the sets, I realized how little I knew about film shooting. The books I had read, the courses I had done, meant nothing whatsoever. I would be on the set and people would wait for me to decide where I should put the camera and I would be baffled. Somehow I faked my way through it, but on the editing table I saw an abundance of flaws and felt so ashamed. I actually taught myself filmmaking from editing and after that I have never let anyone else edit my work. Even though I thought the product was mediocre, I was proud that I had completed the project and was now being taken seriously by the Indian film industry, which no longer thought of me as the starry eyed, bushy tailed rich NRI. I think Shabana saw that sincerity and took me to see Vijay Tendulkar’s play Kamla. I immediately bought the copyright of the play. My heart has always belonged to making realistic art cinema but to raise money for that kind of a film, I had to make commercially viable films.

Tell me how Kamala and Bawander came about? The censor board gave you a hard time and one has heard not so complimentary things about the board recently.
Yes, Kamala ran into trouble with the censor board. Individually they all came and said what a brilliant film, but together for some reason they feel they have to be the guardians of morality for India and of anything that may be remotely controversial or dealing with a sensitive issue. I had to take the word “ adivasi” out in Kamala, because they felt it was not a politically correct word while you read about adivasis being bought and sold all the time in print media and TV as well as radio. People are quite well informed and well read in India and aware of everything.

By the time Bawander was made, I was ready to fight and did for a year till I got it passed the way I made it. They said you are showing a pundit being party to rape and it will incense the religious sensibility of people. I said it is a true story and if that is the case then these religious pundits should not be raping women. It cost me Rs 20 lakhs in interest money, but finally the censor board was reprimanded by the Tribunal court and I got the film passed without a single cut.

There was a lot of controversy around Bawander with accusations of exploitation and Bhanwri devi, the woman whose life story it was based on, threatening to sue you.
Sadly, after making this film I learnt the sad lesson that things are not always what they seem to be and became very disillusioned, even though I still believe in the cause and don’t regret making the film. I went to meet Bhanwri bai and she narrated the whole story to me. I gave her Rs 2 lakh for which I have proof. There was an issue of control from the women NGO workers handling her case, and I think they felt that the film would result in undermining their importance and that I would steal their thunder from them. They also thought I will become a multimillionaire by capitalizing on the tragedy. Little do they know that I’m still one and a half crores in the hole. I told them if I had to make money, I would have made a Raveena Tandon-Govinda movie. This is a subject, which touched me deeply when I read about her while in London.
The sad realization was that there is nothing that is based on idealism. Even Bhanwri bai calls me every couple of months in America asking me for more money. They made her tell the media she did not know me until I put a picture of her and me on the net. I told her every body in that village, including the police is saying you are lying and you were not even raped and I stood up and told your story and now because of your denial I have been forced to call you a liar. How ironic can that be, but I do not regret making the film. This film really made me realize my strengths as a filmmaker, and that I really love making films that have a message. I can make other commercial films to pay my bills, but my passion and my heart lies in realistic art and now after doing it for 20 years I have become a master craftsman. Someone can question my artistic integrity, but today no one can question my craftsmanship.

What was the toughest scene in the film?
The rape scene was the most challenging, and I avoided picturising it till the last minute. Firstly coming from the background of having made so many erotic thrillers, which people in India dismiss as soft porn, not even having seen them, not knowing that there is a whole genre of erotic thrillers made by very highly respected directors in Hollywood , I had an image that had followed me to the point that Amir Khan had told Nandita Das what are you doing making a rape film with this guy who makes porn films? She was very hesitant and probably thought of me as a dirty old man who would exploit her, but when she got to know me, she realized I was an educated family man with a 22-year-old daughter. The rape scene was out in the open in the middle of the desert. It was such a challenge to shoot it. We did it in three parts and Nandita was very touchy and understandably so because even though it was acting it is a very humiliating experience and affected her deeply. We were trying so hard to keep the sets closed, but there were so many sand dunes and the villager would sneak in and hide behind them to see what was going on. It was tough but Nandita’s performance was outstanding.
The film is not just about the rape of a woman by high caste Brahmins and its repercussions, it was a multi-layered film about man-woman relationships. There is the one between Rahul Khanna and his English girlfriend. It’s very matter of fact — you work together, sleep together, share the money you earn together and then go your own way; there is no deep commitment. The second one is between the social worker and her educated professor husband who deep down still cannot accept the fact about the equality of the sexes and the importance of what she is doing and that he should still come first. So the marriage comes apart. And then there is this village couple Sanwri Devi and her husband, who had a child marriage and are illiterate and yet in spite of the entire trauma they went through they stuck together. In a short amount of time I had quite an amazing story to tell so I made it multi layered instead of just about the rape.

So what have been the repercussions of the movie? I hear Bhanwri Devi is still awaiting justice after so many years.

The legal system is very slow, but right after the film was released Ashok Gehlot the chief minister of Rajasthan called me and said “Aapke bawandar ne bada bawander machaya hai.” He gave Rs 50,000 and land for Bhanwri Devi and also money for her son’s education, Bhanwri Bai had indicated she wanted to start afresh somewhere else, but the last time I saw her she was digging a well right there in her own village. It’s amazing! On one side, I gave her money to buy land but she didn’t use the money to move. But the point is it’s not just the story of Bhanwri Bai, but the story of the courage of a woman who was wronged. It could be any woman, but I have to look at the affirmation that a woman chose to fight, no matter what the odds. It’s not a movie about rape, but the empowerment of a woman. This character could be fictitious and yet the story would have had the same powerful message.

Let’s talk about your getting into the Hollywood scene after the early pigeon holing. You actually carved quite a reputation as a director of “erotic thrillers”! Your strict grandmother must be quite scandalized!

She is still alive by the way! Well After Kamala I lost a lot of money and both my wife and I went back to work to support ourselves and that time suddenly I realized that the video market was emerging in 1986 and a lot of small time producers were getting ready to make films with a half a million dollar budget in the genre of horror and erotic thrillers. The Blockbuster video chains were opening up and needed products and the studios had a large window of one year before the movie releases would come to the video stores. The B and C grade movie market was opening up. I quickly wrote a couple of stories and sent them to a company and told them I would only give them the story if I was allowed to direct them. Fortunately, it worked out. Later I ran into Ashok Amritraj in a restaurant, who was just starting out having released one film and had enough contacts because of his tennis and was friends with Roger Corman who was known as the king of B movies. I had a script called “Jigsaw” for which I had some money and it did very well. Night Eyes, which Ashok produced, made $30 million on a $750,000 investment. I soon became typecast as a director with an eye for eroticism.

Hollywood is weird. I did a movie called Improper Conduct about sexual harassment. It was very well received and got great reviews, but it seems that Hollywood thinks that if a guy can make a film for a million dollars just give him only a million. It’s hard to get through to big actors, because you have to go through their agents who will not even give them the script if they don’t make money from it. Ashok has broken into the big league, but here everything is dictated by the actor If tomorrow Tom Cruise told Ashok he wants to do a film with me Ashok will call. When Shekhar Kapoor was hot after Elizabeth, they were having meetings with him. The moment his film flopped, he was called a difficult director to work with! It’s the same in Bollywood too — tomorrow Shahrukh Khan’s masseuse can become a director if Shahrukh agrees to act in his film. So it’s not what you know it’s whom you know!

So what’s next and when you look back what is it that you are most proud of?

Well after the acclaim that Bawander got, I am getting calls from top-notch Bollywood actresses like Raveena, Tabu, and Karisma. I have spoken to Karisma for a movie called Bardasht and she wants to do it and Zee TV wants to produce it. It is a very bold theme, but before that I am planning a light film, a satire.
What I feel very proud of is the fact that when I look at the films I have made, I realize that Kamala is good only because of its literary contents and its actors, not because of the director, but today I know that as a technician I have come a long way and in Bawander my contribution has been tremendous.