Indian-American filmmaker Simone Ahuja may have shot with Rahul Bose, but she does not have the regular Bollywood dreams. In fact, Bollywood barely interests her.
"I just walked out of Malamaal Weekly the other day. I don't have time to watch films, so when I do watch them, they have got to be really good," she explains. "But this becomes a problem for me. At a film convention, where I interviewed Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini and Rahul, I didn't know some of the other actors present. I remember I walked up to Preity Zinta, and asked her if she was Preity Zinta. She probably didn't like that too much."
But Simone's all-time favourite remains Aparna Sen's Mr & Mrs Iyer. So it's no surprise that the young director has roped in its lead actor Bose to star in her three-minute film on rugby.
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Titled Scrum In The Mud, the film was initially part of Indique, a television series on the untold stories of contemporary India, aired in the United States.
"I'm tired of the way India is portrayed abroad," she explains. "They're generally negative, about shanties and sadhus. Even Bollywood tends to be a caricature of the real. Like Devdas was so grand. That's why I have an aversion to Bollywood. The point of Indique was to show a different side of India."
This is why Simone decided on rugby, instead on the more popular game in India: cricket.
She elaborates, "We wanted to show intensity and athleticism in Indians, which no one shows (in the US). What I made is almost like a music video. At first, I put background music by Metallica. But we couldn't use that! So I got in touch with a Bangladeshi band who play heavy metal music. I thought that was a great combination -- you don't expect to see Indians playing rugby, and hear heavy metal music from a Bangladeshi band. The point really is to smash stereotypes."
Rahul seemed to be an obvious choice, since the actor is passionate about rugby. "I was really intrigued by Rahul when I had interviewed him earlier. He was so articulate. And being a film actor, he would also draw an audience. Besides, he's very interested in the promotion of rugby."
Scrum In The Mud was shot in a day, at the Bombay Gymkhana Club.
Born and brought up in Minneapolis, Ahuja is half Punjabi, half Kashmiri. She has family in Delhi, and visited Mumbai for the first time only two years ago. Since then, she makes regular trips to the city. Before Scrum, Simone did a film on dabbawalas. Her newest film -- now in post-production -- is based on the lost art of billboard painters.
But filmmaking, she admits, is not profitable. And since Ahuja funds her own films (under her production house, Blood Orange) she has to turn to dentistry. Yes, she is also a qualified dentist.
"I still practice as a dentist, but not as much," she says. "It's nice to walk into a world where I know exactly what I'm doing. But at the same time, when you can fund your own films, it gives you a tremendous amount of creative freedom. I don't know how long this will last, but now, I'm thinking sponsors."
She continues, "I was very unhappy when I was working in dentistry full time. I decided I didn't want to work just to get more money or another car Now, that I do it part time, I enjoy it much more. But it's difficult to balance both."
