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'A movie reflective of Indian realism'
Anoushka Shankar will debut in Pamela Rooks' screen adaptation of playwright Mahesh Dattani's Dance Like A Man
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M D Riti
First, it was a colourful souffle dealing with the issues of homo and hetrosexuality. Now, it is the conflicts faced by male dancers.
Come January 2003, a Mahesh Dattani play will board the sets as a film. The movie version of Dance Like A Man is being made by New Delhi-based filmmaker Pamela Rooks, best remembered for directing the award-winning film Miss Betty's Children, based on her own novel, and Train To Pakistan, based on Khushwant Singh's famous novel.
"I would have loved to play the role of Jairaj, the older male dancer, in the story," confesses Mahesh Dattani with a grin, talking to rediff.com at his studio in Bangalore. "But I know Pamela has someone better in mind!"
Dattani often acts in the stage shows of his plays. Rooks bought the film rights to this one after she saw a show of it directed by Lilette Dubey many years ago in Delhi. Later on, she says that the late Protima Gauri Bedi took her to meet Dattani when she was visiting Bangalore.
"I think this film will have great audience appeal all over the world, because it is so reflective of modern Indian realism," she says. She hopes to complete the film by July 2003 and plans to release it all over the world.
It took Rooks this long to get around to filming the play, although she had first seen it and loved it, long ago. But she is finally all set to do so now, and has cast the dusky, talented and beautiful Shobhana, niece of legendary Tamil stars Padmini and Ragini, as the older female lead. Shobhana now stands out in the minds of national audiences for her sensitive performance as the troubled mother in the Hindi film Mitr.
Meanwhile, Dattani's first play to be filmed, Mango Souffle, based on the play play On A Muggy Night In Mumbai, is scheduled for release on February 14. "Souffle will release in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore," says Dattani. "It has also been selected for several festivals, including some in Australia and San Fransisco."
The almost legendary dance duo of Bangalore, U S Krishna Rao and his wife Chandrabhaga Devi, inspired Dattani to write this play. He used to learn dance from them two decades ago. Chandrabhaga is now no more, but their son and granddaughter, are involved in theatre.
"Between classes, they would tell me about how difficult it was in their times for people to learn dance," reminisces Dattani. "I dont say that my play is a true life version of the trials and tribulations they faced. I would describe it as a piece of fiction, that tries to talk about the difficulties this couple faced in the pursuit of their art. It also focusses on their ideals they lived by."
The original story has just four actors, a dancing duo called Jairaj and Ratna, their daughter, also a dancer, called Lata, and her fiance, Vishwas. At times, in the play, Jairaj also changes into his father Amritlal Parekh. Jairaj is Gujarati, while Ratna is an unspecified Southie. Lata is their only living child, born to them when they were forty years old.
The play shifts between the past, with a young Jairaj and Ratna, and the social and familial conflicts, problems and sorrows they faced in their struggle to live as a dancing couple, and the present. It looks at the dilemma they face when their beloved daughter announces her decision to marry "the son of a Commercial Street mithaiwaala," and goes with them back into their own past, where they finally face some of the ghosts and secrets that they have lived with all along.
It will certainly be hard to take a story with few characters like this and make it into a watchable and interesting film. "I, however, view the stage and cinema as totally different mediums," explains Rooks to rediff.com.
"It is an intimate story and will be treated with the cinematic values it deserves." What she means by this is that the film will have more characters than the play. Some characters just referred to in the play will be fleshed out and made into live characters that appear on screen. Different actors will play each part.
Shobana will play the part of Ratna. Anoushka Shankar, the talented young daughter of Pandit Ravi Shankar, has been cast as Lata. Arif Zakaria will be Jairaj and Samir Soni plays the role of Lata's fiance Vishwas. The play, in fact, opens with a dramatic line of dialogue that says, "So this is where I get killed."
Rooks says she has yet to draw up a budget for the film. However, shooting will start in Bangalore on January 27, 2003, and will continue in a single tight schedule upto February 20. The entire film will be shot in Bangalore. Since the play itself, like Muggy Night, is set entirely in a single location, it will be hard for the director to give it too wide a canvas of locations anyway.
"I really enjoyed working with Pam on the draft of her screenplay," says Dattani, who has co-written the screenplay with Rooks. "Pamela had seen Lilette's production of Dance several years ago and she approached me for the film rights. At the time I was too busy to work on the screenplay with her. So she did the first draft and I worked on it when I had the time later."
"Mahesh has been extremely supportive over this project, and I think he approves my handling of his play," says Rooks. "But it would be best if you asked him what he thinks." Dattani sounds more than just approving. "Pam is a wonderful person to work with," he says. "She has a strong aesthetic sense and the utmost respect for other creative people. It has been fun all the way."
Dattani points out that this play has actually been his most commercially viable. He believes it portends well for the film version. By the time Dance completes its single shooting schedule, Dattani will have a taste of just how commercial audiences take to his subjects as Souffle will just be released.