How Balki helped Amitabh Bachchan lose 'Amitabh Bachchan'

Q: Is there a different sensibility that you bring when you were working in the Hindi film industry which people around you noticed because of where you come from, because of your background?

A: There is not a different sensibility. It is just a sensibility every writer who is a director brings to this while shooting because when you write your own films you know exactly what you are directing because you know the person who is in the character, you know the changes that you can make on the spot because you are not out of line with the character. You know the spots that are connecting that is one thing.

The second thing is I think it is communication. You can see a logical jump when you are hearing a dialog, when you are shooting a scene like most human beings information is like information dissemination it is like logarithm. There must not be one step missed otherwise people will not get the joke or people will not get the relationship. There must be that one step that is filled in.

So it is that discipline. When you are cracking a lateral commercial it is a very simple logic to it, the logic can't be missed. So we do have a slightly clearer idea of communication. Are you communicating what you really want to communicate to that person that is all? I am sure a lot of Bollywood directors have it. But coming from advertising I see that as one of the things that we have.

Q: Let us talk about your first film Cheeni Kam. There is enough distance between that film and now to really look at it objectively because I think as soon as after you did it you reacted quite badly to the negative reactions to the film if I can put it like that?

A: No. I did not react.

Q: You took out an ad where you called each and every film reviewer?

A: If reviewers can criticize my film, I can also criticize the reviewers review.  

Q: Do you have enough distance now?

A: I do not have any distance. I like it as much as I ever liked it. I like the script. I did exactly what I wanted to do and if I were to do Cheeni Kum again, I will not change the frame. In that particular film I will do exactly the same.

Q: You are not just being defined because of it was a hit?

A: I did it exactly the way I wanted to do and it became a hit only because a lot of  people did like it.

Q: If I tell you that when I saw the film it was absolutely refreshing to begin with? First of all the story premise the fact that you managed to make us look at Amitabh Bachchan as a desirable sexy man after he went into the KBC persona and the older statesman kind of mode. The woman, the relationship and all that worked and yet it was almost like you began fresh, great idea, refreshing take on things very contemporary very well told story and then you decided that okay I am Hindi film makers do let us get filmy - did you?

A: No. I did not think of it at all.

Q: Did you make compromises because you were making a Hindi film for a Hindi film audience?

A: Nothing. I wrote it exactly like that. I wrote what came from my heart and I was making Hindi films right from the beginning. I could not make the first half Hindi film because I did not know how to or I do not know the language of that part of Hindi cinema.

In this when a father objects to it that is one language I know very well and I wanted to see Amitabh Bachchan. The first film I wrote very clearly as a tribute to all the things I want to see in Amitabh Bachchan. I wanted to say something about his voice, I wanted to see him run, I wanted to do this stuff.

I put down all the points of Amitabh Bachchan and wrote the script. I said it would be entertaining because I would like to see Amitabh Bachchan like this. I did not give a damn whether it is going to be filmy or non filmy, refreshing or non refreshing. I do not even know that.

I just wrote it the way it came to me and whenever it comes to you in one particular flow that is the way the film should be. If I hadn't done it and suddenly noticed I was doing contemporary, I should be contemporary in the second half, I would have lost my soul. I have to follow my thought process.

Q: Can you afford to follow your thought process when you work on such big projects where the public liking it or not decides whether you get another project which is as big or are you beyond that now?

A: No. I completely believe in following your own things because I like being a good advertising person or a good filmmaker. A good filmmaker is one who does something from his heart and people like it. People happen to like it, people happening to like it is not design that is a default. That is why a good filmmaker or a good advertising person has a lot of luck.

Q: It is not about making something that will work for other people it is about what people work for you?

A: People want to see something refreshing. People have to be entertained. My gut feel is a good advertising person or a good filmmaker is somebody who has the innate pulse because he is a normal person and he is like anybody else in the audience so he likes it most people will like it. It is not like self indulgence. I am not a self indulgent person.

To me as an advertising person I am a representative of millions. Therefore as a filmmaker also I should be a representative of the millions because I am a normal person and normal people watch films or ads. That is how it is. You just happen to be one of the lucky few who happen to reflect the choices of a lot of people.

Q: How would you react if I said that I have a theory which says that every first time film maker especially if they have written the film has large touches, large autobiographical touches and dashes over the film story? I do not mean the plot, I do not mean that you met your wife like that I am saying large touches of your reality.

A: My wife is not 30 years younger to me. What is autobiographical in that film and every film that is something that's part of you. Most characters are parts of you. One is I believe Amitabh Bachchan is like that in a lot of ways. That is my perception so that is part of me.

Second is that is the way I would like to kind of romance. I would like to meet a girl who can take a dig at me and who I can kind of chat with quite sarcastically. That is the way I would like to be. So rather than what you are it is what you would like to be.

You write a lot of things what you would like to be more than what you are. A filmmaker's work is not autobiographical, it is auto fantasical. It is what that you want to be. There are a lot of ways that you are not also sometimes, it is what come out of your writing. My wife tells me a lot to stop being that chewing gum character stop being that stuff.

Q: Amitabh Bachchan was Balki's imagination of Amitabh Bachchan and also of himself - am I right if I say that?

A: Of course it is.

Q: What is your trip?

A: I'd like to do some things. When it is extremely serious I would like to play it very small. When there is something very small I would like to play it extremely serious. It is a technique that I believe in life actually.

Besides my wife there are not many interesting things that's autobiographical. I am a very normal, boring guy. So, a lot of my thoughts and a lot of my stuff is what is keeping me interested in me as a person, forget anybody else.

I am absolutely plain old boring and my wife will tell you a lot about it. The whole stuff if you could only be 10% of your character you would be such a great guy.

Q: You are running an agency and you are the national creative director, Chief creator officer, Chairman of Lowe- is it possible and if I was a creative director in Bangalore Lowe would I be able to say okay I am making my feature film but I am also here for these bands - does it work like that in the practical world?

A: If you pull it off it works but you can't pull it off it does not work.

Q: Is it easy to pull it off?

A: It is tough to pull it off, it is just kills you. During the time in Cheeni Kum I managed it slightly better because I shot in a very short period of time, 7 days, 8 days I was on office between those time most of the time and we were almost seamless. But in this film it has taken a lot more out of me because I have had to be away for 15 days, 20 days at a stretch because of the kind of techniques involved. I know the stress that I have gone through in kind of doing this film as far as advertising industry is concerned, clients have been extremely kind. We had to delay certain things which I am personally involved in.

Q: But nobody feels short shifted, the clients, agency, film producer does any anybody feel - who feels the most neglected you think over your two film experiences? Which relationship have you had to work harder on let us say?

A: There is a big difference between the first time I did and the second time I did. I have got a fabulous team who is doing a lot of wonderful things to there is a lot less things that a relationship handling that I had to do. The clients are pretty well satisfied with a lot of people. I had to get involved. I feel sometime that I am letting down a few people in terms of clients who value my inputs who I feel like I am letting this down, I feel very guilty and try to make up for it which really screws my schedule ahead of a lot in doing things. But I always believe that if I have short changed one of the two it would be my people more than anything else. I am not there to help them when they need me most that is where I feel really guilty. That is where I think if I short change anybody I have short changed some of my advertising people who are looking to for my inputs. Therefore I think I have short changed in a bit of a creative directors role. I have tried to make up in terms of writing just because of few scripts on the shoot here and there and I have done a lot of those but in terms of creative direction or being the chairman of the agency be there for people who need me all the time that is when I have short changed. 

Q: I was going through some old interviews of yours and this is something that you said somewhere I am not a very deep guy who can think of great angs, it is very difficult for me even when I think of peripheral emotions that itself becomes very deep for me? What do you see or think is the film makers' role because sometime film maker especially who come from advertising is it about the story telling, is the joy in the story telling or is the joy about the story really?    

A: The joy for the writers is the story. When you write the story you have finished all of that but in film making it is the way you tell a story. It is whether your story is being told. To answer your first part of it, yes I am a very shallow guy and I do not have any depth in me and I do not have any angs or deep intense experiences in my life which I can borrow an say other thing. I have not suffered at all. I have had a very normal thing. I have had enough food in my life. I have not got to beg and not struggle.

Q: How did great work come out of you if you have not done your time with any of this?

A: Great work comes out when my stomach is full number one. When I am well fed and I have a wonderful person to be with and have zero angs. I like it that way. I like to be normal. Normal is being happy there is no need to be unhappy to do great work. I like to image sadness which does not exits in me. If it existed in me I won't be able to imagine. I will imagine happiness. So I like to do both ways. There are times when I get depressed and I write something happy when I am happy and times when I am very happy time to write something really depressing so it is trip which be one you are not always.