Ismail Merchant - interview with Indian movie producer Ismail Merchant - The Star is India - Interview

Interview, April, 1994 by Amena Meer

IM: Truly speaking, if people want to put a temple next to a mosque, that's perfectly fine. There's no reason why they should not. If the Congress party had foreseen--and they should have--how volatile the situation of the Babri Masjid is, they wouldn't have allowed it to be reopened. Let it remain as a closed monument. The whole idea that Rajiv Gandhi opened the gates and started this thing is absurd. In India there are monument acts. To pull down a mosque or a temple or any monument is a criminal act; it cannot be. The people who are doing this should not be sentenced and then released with all this publicity and propaganda. Instead of this pussyfooting, tell them: "You are there for the rest of your lives. Suffer, because you've caused suffering for many Hindus and Muslims."

The same thing is happening with Clinton in this country now. Take a strong action, then follow it, whether it is disastrous or not. To not do anything is weak; it makes things worse. Like in Bosnia, for the past year, he's done nothing. How many lives have gone? Thousands of people. Poor people. Children. Everyone.

AM: The film reminded me of my grandmother, so I thought a lot about the women In this film. When Imtiaz Begum [played by Shabana Azmi], Nur's second wife, gives Deven her poetry, he doesn't read it. I would have liked her to be redeemed somehow. Similarly, Deven's wife, Sarla [Neena Gupta], never really becomes a personality. She stays very separate.

IM: Imtiaz Begum is a very strong, ambitious, and forceful character who writes her own poetry. But she's not as good a poet as Nur is. That's why Deven doesn't pay any attention to her. He's totally enamored of Nur and his work. He knows Imtiaz Begum steals Nur's work, and that is totally unforgivable to him.

AM: But why not make her a good poet or a sympathetic person?

IM: I thought she was very sympathetic, particularly when she tells Deven, "You will become a rich man, if only you will give me a chance." The way that scene was done, your heart goes out to Imtiaz. But for me, the story is about Nur and Deven. The rest are all figures on a canvas.

AM: In a way, it's a complicated love story between Nur and his admirer Deven, but what about Deven's wife?

IM: Deven's wife is always nagging him. She never understands his mind or appreciates his creative work, writing and saving Urdu poetry. In contrast to Imtiaz Begum, she is interested in shoes, in domestic life, and in her child. Still, Deven feels compassion for his wife. At night, when he's unsettled and can't sleep, they have a very tender moment together.

AM: Another contrast is between Deven as a young boy, sitting on his father's lap, reciting complicated Urdu poetry, and Deven's own son parroting nursery rhymes.

IM: That speaks volumes about the importance o Urdu poetry for a young Hindu boy, against his son's experience thirty or thirty-five years later. AM: Urdu is a very complicated language. How do you think it fares in translation, especially into English, which is a much more literal language?