An honest director

Deepa Mehta talks about her new film Videsh, domestic abuse, and forthcoming projects.

She must be back in Canada, sitting purposefully morning and night at her desk, scrawling and refining scripts of her forthcoming films. However, when we meet in Delhi, director Deepa Mehta is finally unwinding, even if only for a couple of days, soaking up the pleasure of being in India with her parents.

She’s back from Kolkata, where she had a press briefing for Videsh — Heaven on Earth, Mehta’s latest directorial effort that, having shown at prestigious film festivals all over the world, was released the day before yesterday.

In Kolkata, in fact, along with Siddharth Bindra, director at apparel company Biba, Mehta unveiled a new line of clothing inspired by Videsh. “You just look at Deepa and you know that she enjoys wearing ethnic clothes,” says Bindra, when we chat separately with him.

So it’s not surprising when we see Mehta dressed in a crisp cotton kurta with block-print ambi motif, settling down in her parents’ study to talk to us about her work, films, her schedule and her share of controversies.

She laughs out loud even as I find her looking out of the window in front of her, gazing at a group of sparrows that are twittering delightedly in the green lawns outside.

She pauses for an answer and tells me about an episode that took place at the press conference in Kolkata. “A gentleman got up and asked me, ‘Why do you make such extreme films where women are beaten up?’ I was too shocked for a minute to even respond. See, no one wants awareness, no one wants to accept that domestic violence occurs in most Indian homes,” she reflects, adding, “Chand realises it and then proceeds to help herself.”

Mehta’s protagonist in Videsh is Chand (Preity Zinta) who moves away from India to settle in the USA and is beaten up every night by her husband. She seeks solace in mythology, and eventually starts a journey towards self-awareness.

In Mehta’s own words, Videsh has consumed her like none of her earlier films have. “Don’t get me wrong. Earth, Fire, Water — they’re my films, so I obviously love them. But I think it’s the magic realism in the film and the fact that it studies the mindscape of an abused wife that completely consumed me,” she explains.

Mehta’s kohl-lined eyes widen when she continues with the subject of her latest film. “We don’t even think of such issues whilst we’re involved in our day-to-day affairs.” She’d researched the topic thoroughly and found that women the world over had been victims (for want of a better word) of domestic violence and abuse.

“You see, abuse has no colour, it knows no economics, it has no caste. It’s just awful and it’s all over the world. We are always willing that abuse should end but marriage shouldn’t; there’s always talk about the sanctity of marriage, never about the sanctity of women’s rights,” she says.

It must be added that our talk veers in all directions, and speaking with Mehta is like meeting an old friend who is only too willing to share her thoughts on the times that we are living in, that we witness. “How could women be beaten up in Mangalore?” she questions, sincerely looking for a response. “Women are being beaten up on the streets because it’s still accepted, because, like it or not, people are conditioned that way,” she hisses. “Helen of Troy,” she says, sarcastically, “will always be the cause of a great war. That’s our society for you.”

Mehta’s journey into filmmaking began with a black-and-white documentary that she had done for the department of women and family planning of the government of India. Called Vimla, the documentary showed Mehta following her domestic helper’s 13-year-old daughter, who was married young, got pregnant when she was 15 and died in childbirth. “Her death shook me but I think, like my subsequent work, it made me politically aware too,” she adds.

Coming to India every four or five months, Mehta, as an NRI, finds India complex, even as it exists on different levels. “You have progress here, but you also don’t have clean, drinking water. So, Indians exist at the same time in direct contradiction with each other,” she says.

She was in India at the time of the 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes. “We saw irresponsible politicians, we saw terror tourism, but we also saw the common people come out on the streets demanding change. That fascinated me,” she observes.

As she prepares for her next film — a slice of Canadian history, it’s a story set in 1914, when 397 men, two women and two children came from Punjab and weren’t allowed entry into Canada because it wasn’t for “brown people” — she says it’s ironical that the funding is from Canada while back home she isn’t even allowed to shoot “mindless customs that still exist in the country”. She’s roped in Akshay Kumar for the film, for which she’s confident shooting will start by the end of this year.

In the meantime, she’ll be firming up the script of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. “A story lingers in my mind for a while but I can start writing it and finish it in two-three months.” Scripting consumes her, and she feels that it, even more than direction, affects her, especially since she etches nuances in the characters, making them go through tumultuous journeys.

Once done, she shows the scripts to her 26-year-old daughter Devyani and her brother, photojournalist Dilip Mehta. “I like getting honest feedback on my work and my brother and daughter do just that,” she smiles.

For someone who has watched most “masala” films on her holiday, Mehta raves about Billoo Barber. I tell her, not many people liked the film. She waves her hand carelessly, “See, commercial cinema is sometimes better than art cinema. Why? Because it has no pretensions and is unapologetic and I like that honesty.”

That’s what Mehta’s already scripting. Honesty.