)
Imagine having brun maska, Irani chai topped off with mawa cake, while discussing films with the best in the industry. Ritesh Batra, director of the critically acclaimed The Lunchbox, is doing that just. Batra moderated the first session of Poetic License, an ongoing series of talks, a little over a month ago at Koolar Cafe in Matunga.
Bringing two of Mumbai's greatest legacies together - its old Irani cafes and its love for the movies - Batra hopes to form a new kind of cultural community. Incidentally, Batra's first short film, Cafe Regular, Cairo, was shot in a cafe. Parts of The Lunchbox too were shot at Koolar Cafe, so it was only fitting that Batra spoke about its scriptwriting process at the session. "It was around that time that I realised that Bastani cafe shut down, and Merwan cafe was also on the verge of closing down. I had decided then that I would come back and engage with these spaces again," says Batra, who grew up in Mumbai and harbours an intense fascination for these institutions.
Batra has been rounding up his friends in the film industry to talk about various aspects of film making with young and aspiring cinephiles. "The idea is to reinvent these cafes as cultural spaces to meet and exchange ideas," he says. The second edition at Kyani's cafe on Marine Lines, which had actor Radhika Apte (Badlapur, Hunterrr) and director Sharat Katariya (Dum Laga Ke Haisha) talking about their acting and writing processes, saw a spike in attendance, so much so that requests from cafe owners started flowing into Batra's inbox. "In the beginning, I just had this vague idea to start a community of film-lovers, but no clue about where we would do it and who we'd speak to. But things have started falling into place," says Batra. He also requests the visitors at these events, which are free for all, to order food or drinks worth at least Rs 50 and also to visit these cafes again.
Siwani Devkota, 25, an aspiring actor who attended the session at Excelsior cafe on March 27, describes it as a "very vintage experience." Having never stepped into an Irani cafe before, she was pleasantly surprised to find food that was both tasty and inexpensive, and an environment that was as warm as it was informative. This particular session was taken by casting directors Atul Mongia (Queen, Lootera) and Seher Latif (The Lunchbox, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) who talked about the process of casting with many young actors and film enthusiasts in attendance. They answered questions on how to land auditions, what rejections mean and how to work on them, as well as how to build networks in the industry. "I had felt that in Bollywood, there isn't a platform for sharing resources and information. So this has become a way to create a community of sorts," says Batra who is currently working on his next film.
The latest session was held yesterday at B Merwan cafe on Grand Road East, which is owned by director Farah Khan's uncle. The cafe was originally started by Khan's maternal grandfather who was Parsi and has stayed in their family for over a hundred years. Khan and actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui participated in an informal interactive session with the visitors, and spoke about their own journeys in Bollywood. "I've already told my uncle to keep five dozen mawa cakes ready. They used to be my favourite," Khan told Business Standard before heading off to the event. "During my childhood, we'd visit this cafe a lot. Later, when I was studying at St Xavier's College, we used to go to Kyani's all the time. Irani cafes are an important legacy of old Bombay and I think this is a great initiative to remind people about them," said Khan. Bomi Irani, her uncle who has been running the place for 55 years, has high hopes that this initiative will "bring the much needed attention to the dying Irani cafes". There used to be an Irani cafe at every corner of the city at one time, but now there are only 16-17 cafes that remain functional.
Batra plans to host a talk once every fortnight and to evolve the nature of the workshops to encompass every aspect of filmmaking. If all goes according to plan, he'd like to venture beyond films as well and speak to designers and publishers, among other top professionals. The dates and venues of these sessions are tweeted by Batra a few days in advance from his Twitter handle @riteshbatra. "These cafes are an inherent part of the city - they are like a time capsule," he says." I want my daughter to be able to walk into one of them when she grows up. If we don't connect the past to the future, we will lose the past."
