“If They Can Go To Cannes, Why Can’t They Come To Khajuraho?”

A FLASHBACK ON THE FIRST EVER KHAJURAHO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ONE MAN’S (RAJA BUNDELA) DREAM TURNS INTO AN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Ali Peter John

Some months ago a young, dashing and ambitious adventurer, Raja Bundela best known as a good actor, a film director, the founder of his own production company, Prayaas Productions and a name quite known in the world of politics, especially in Madhya Pradesh, the state from which he hails saw a dream with his eyes wide open. He had left Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh some thirty years ago to make it on a bigger stage as an actor. His dream to be a known actor who could bring roles and characters alive had come true, but his restless spirit to strive beyond the levels of excellence was what made him think of doing something that would be his humble gift to the state his heart still belonged to. Raja day dreamt of having an International festival of films and what was special about his dream was that he aimed to have his dream festival in the midst of the ages-old, controversial and colourful temples of Khajuraho…

Raja was a very practical dreamer, the kind which make things possible with their passion, their perseverance and the power of their will which refuses to surrender under any odds and obstacles. Raja went to work on his dream like a man possessed, he moved every man and woman who he knew could be a part of his dream. He convinced the Government of Madhya Pradesh headed by the young and very dynamic man on the move to change the face of the state he was heading, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan about the need to have the kind of film festival he had in mind. The Chief Minister got his entire team charged about Raja’s dream. Raja had many more steps to take, many more people in places of eminence to convince and he did not rest till he could see his dream taking concrete shape…

The evening of April 25, 2015 will now always be a day described in words of gold for Raja Bundela because on that Saturday evening the dream he had pursued like a passionate lover came true in the very place he wanted to see it happen, at Shilpgram, hardly a kilometre away from the ageless and timeless Khajuraho temples. The Chief Minister, Mr. Chauhan who seemed to be a very busy man which he had to be because he too had so many lakhs of dreams to be fulfilled and was all excited about fulfilling them, was the chief guest on this very auspicious occasion. He was more interested in being the host than being the chief guest, and he personally welcomed all the celebrities from the world of Hindi cinema who had descended from their own heavens to be present at what they all saw as one big step towards many more and bigger steps- names like Ramesh (“Sholay”) Sippy, Manmohan Shetty, Om Puri, Ramesh Taurani, Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi who came with his thirteen year old daughter, Nandita Puri, Anil Chaudhary and his wife Atiya Chaudhary, Pravin Nischol and the women with the power, Deepti Naval and Mita Vashisht…

The Chief Minister talked about all the facilities his Government was willing to offer filmmakers and promised them that they could expect nothing but the best from Madhya Pradesh which he said had all the natural and manmade resources, which had prospective producers, directors and any number of artists and workers who would be willing to do anything to have a proper film industry of its own in Madhya Pradesh. He said there were small and regional films being made in the state in the different languages spoken, but the one common dream everyone had was to have a proper film industry. He proved how serious he was when he met the representatives of the industry at a private meeting soon after the inaugural function and gave them a very patient hearing and made them a solemn promise that he would have many more such meetings and would even visit Mumbai to have a better understanding about how it worked and how his Government could get involved in its making of films which had a class and a touch of quality about them. He was all praise for Raja Bundela who had given all his time to make a film festival possible in Madhya Pradesh, and that too not in major cities like Bhopal and Indore but in a town like Shatakpur where the Khajuraho temples were and the total population was only a mere eighteen thousand people!

The first day of the festival saw the renowned filmmaker Ramesh Sippy receiving the Festival’s first Lifetime Achievement Award. Sippy, best known as the maker of “Sholay” but who had also made films like “Andaaz”, ‘Seeta Aur Geeta”, ‘Shakti” and “Shaan” and a major TV serial like “Buniyaad” was acclaimed by the Chief Minister for his outstanding contribution to Indian cinema. Sippy on his part said that he would like to shoot films in Madhya Pradesh provided he had a suitable subject. Sippy was not present at the closing ceremony of the festival, he would have been elated to see thousands of people thronging the open air auditorium when they realized that “Sholay” was being screened after the formal function was over…

The following day saw the well-known producer and entrepreneur Manmohan Shetty being conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the hands of a senior minister of the State, Gopal Bhargav. Shetty has been a pioneer of what is popularly known as the parallel or New Wave film movement in India. He is the man responsible for encouraging filmmakers like Prakash Jha, Govind Nihlani, Ketan Mehta, Jahnu Barua and many more. Shetty was also the first to build a multiplex in India (It has become so much a part of the growth of cinema and its popularity today). He was also the owner of a major lab called Adlab. He has now taken a break since the last four years and is completely involved in his major amusement park called “Imagica”, a world of wonders built on sprawling acres about a hundred kilometres away from Mumbai…

The three- day festival saw a number of panel discussions in which some of the leading names of the industry from Mumbai participated. The one major discussion was when two of the women delegates, Deepti Naval and Mita Vashisht raised the issue of women still being treated as “second class”, a class which they said they and all women working in the industry were being treated as in both real life and reel life. The subject led to a heated discussion but the two women were not satisfied with the outcome of the discussion which continued to be a part of all talk, even at the first and only cocktail party hosted by the festival directorate the same evening. The discussions also revolved around subjects like whether films could change society or not and Ramesh Sippy had the last word when he said, “filmmaking is a business. It involves crores of Rupees and is basically the business of entertainment. There are many other sources of enlightening and educating people, cinema is entertainment and must be treated only as a source of entertainment with some thin line of a message put in without making it sound like a message or an attempt to change the face of society.”

Ramesh Taurani, the prominent producer and the head of Tips Industries, one of the leading music companies said that melody was a very important part of music, it always was and will always be…

The two men who were the most talked about during the festival were Raja Bundela, of course and Prakash Jha. Jha holds the unique record of shooting six of his major films in different parts of Madhya Pradesh, especially the city of Bhopal. He said he loved shooting in the state because of the facilities provided by the state, the locations and specially the co-operation of the people who were entirely unlike the people in any other place where he had shot. Some of the films Jha has shot in Bhopal are “Rajneeti”, “Aarakshan”, “Satyagrah”, “Chakravyuh” and is all set to shoot his new film “Gangajal 2” again in Bhopal. He like all the others from Mumbai, were impressed by the scenes, the environment, the falls and above all the temples of Khajuraho and had made up their minds that they would shoot in these places whenever they had scripts which demanded them…

It was the Minister, Gopal Bhargav who hit the nail where it should really have. He has been a Minister thrice, but is basically a film exhibitor. He said that his theatres once screened the films of makers like J. Om Prakash, Prakash Mehra, B.R Chopra, Yash Chopra and Ramanand Sagar which ran for years, but now no film runs for more than a week. He said the satellite market has taken films to every home and have left all the theatres and multiplexes empty, almost facing the threat of extinction. The only hope, Bhargav said was in making good films which would bring back the audience. He came out with one more truth when he said that most Indian emotions and Indian life itself takes so much from Hindi cinema that it is difficult to imagine life without Hindi cinema…

The colours of the festival grew more and more festive with every day. There were more guests from Mumbai like Vikas Mohan, producer and editor- publisher of “Super Cinema”, unanimous accepted as the only genuine magazine about the business of entertainment, the veteran actor Tom Alter. There were many more expected but they couldn’t make it because of the cancellation of more than thirty flights due to the tragic earthquake in Nepal. There was disappointment, but the festival was so rich in the traditional folk music and dance presented by some of the most prominent cultural groups of Madhya Pradesh. In fact, the festival only got more exciting because of the unbelievable and almost inhuman energy of the men old and young and the beautiful young women put into their performances. A very senior tourist who came to the festival every evening told this writer that he and his wife had been to several countries and watched all kinds of performances but “nothing like these boys and girls who seem to have come from some other planet, all I can say is, Oh my gosh!”

The festival was an unforgettable experience for this writer. He was honoured by the festival directorate and on the closing day, two of his books, “Witnessing Wonders” (Films) and “Zindagi Tukdo Mein” (Hindi translation of my autobiography, “Life- Bits and Pieces” were released before a huge public gathering for the first time). It was difficult to believe that I was being followed by groups of people and being interviewed by both the print and electronic media. Aisa kabhi khwab mein bhi nahi socha tha, lekin agar Raja Bundela ka khwaab poora ho sakta hai toh mera undekhaa hua khwaab bhi poora ho sakta hai…

The first –time Khajuraho International Film Festival saw fifty-four films from different countries and were screened at the four major hotels in Shatarpur, Taj Chandela, Radisson, Usha Chandela and one more hotel. Raja was very happy with the response and was positive that it was the beginning of a festival which God-willing would be bigger and better than many other festivals…

The atmosphere was so cordial that it was so refreshing to see renowned figures like Ramesh Sippy, Manmohan Shetty, Prakash Jha, Govind Nihalani, Pravin Nischol, Deepti Naval, Sushmita Mukherjee (Raja Bundela’s talented wife) and Mita Vashisht walking around the Khajuraho temples like collegians dressed in their casual best and entirely oblivious of all their challenges and responsibilities waiting for them in Mumbai. They were all “maha-impressed” with the sculptures and carvings which have always been described as erotic, but the way the learned guide who has been taking people from around the world on a guided travel through the various temples, Diwender Singh, best known all over Khajuraho as “Mamaji” described every temple down to the most minute details made them feel as if they were living at a time more than thirteen hundred and five hundred years ago…

The people of Shatakpur who seem to have been cut off from the other world and who don’t even have a single theatre or any other mode of entertainment except their own local music and dances suddenly saw a new world opening out for them. It was like a heaven-sent gift to them of which they made the best during the three days Raja Bundela’s dream came true not only for him but all the leaders and mostly for these eighteen thousand people who are so peace-loving that the policemen with a chief who looks more formidable and real than “Singham” seem redundant and out of place. The young men and women all have aspirations to be a part of the illusory world of films, and if the promises made by the Chief Minister and his ministers are kept and if the celebrities from Mumbai are as serious as Prakash Jha is about shooting in Madhya Pradesh, they may see many more film festivals in Khajuraho and they may also have a film city, a film school and maybe even their own Chitranagari one day, some day, soon…

BOX ITEM

WHEN PRAKASH JHA RODE A BULLOCK CART!

The festival was to be declared open at seven pm. The atmosphere outside the Taj Chandela was as festive as it is supposed to be during the hundreds and thousands of festivals it is used to all through the year. There was a crowd dressed in their most colourful clothes, but to add to all the colour were a number of bullock carts all decorated with even the bulls all dressed up. They were the common mode of transport in the area for years. Today, they were supposed to transports the celebrities from Mumbai from the Taj Chandela to the venue of the Khajuraho International Film Festival…

The bullock carts started moving with four “passengers” in each cart driven by an elderly man with a turban. Prakash Jha was in a bullock cart in which he had Deepti Naval, Mita Vashisht and Atiya Chaudhary as his “co-passengers”. After a few minutes Jha seemed to be getting restless with the pace of the bullock carts. Jha dressed in jeans, a colourful shirt and extremely colourful shoes (what a change from the Jha who once had a long and unkempt beard, wore faded jeans and a khadi kurta and had chappals on his feet!) took hold of the reins of the bullock cart and drove it with all the enthusiasm right up to the venue, and people lining both sides of the streets kept waving out to him and even trying to touch him or shake hands with him. It is one ride Jha who is one of the most promising and powerful filmmakers today will always remember and so will his four women “passengers”. At some stages it seemed like the bullocks were getting restless and raring to go, but Jha proved to be a director under all circumstances and could bring them under his control…

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Tags: Bollywood, Bollywood News, Bollywood Updates, Television, Telly News, Khajuraho, RAJA BUNDELA, KHAJURAHO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL