It was conceptualised as a Parinda moment when Vidhu Vinod Chopra got the Best Film trophy for his much-cheered 12th Fail at the Critics’ Choice Awards, held in Mumbai on the 12th. If Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff were to go up and give Vidhu the award, it would recreate a moment from 1989, when the three had collaborated on one of the first underworld dramas of Hindi cinema. After a few days of “I’ll let you know”, Anil Kapoor said he’d do it but Jackie had a shoot lined up. However, to ensure that he too was rooting for VVC, Jackie made his trademark gesture — he sent a lovely flowering plant to my house and requested me to have it sent up on stage for Vidhu. The plant, like it had a story of its own to tell, disappeared from the most prominent table in the hall, turned up near the stage, vanished again, and finally did get presented as an unexpected finale, much to Vidhu’s surprise. So, memories of Parinda were revived in a different way.
On a more serious note, with the Lok Sabha elections just around the corner, the entertainment industry is animated. Months ago, I’d spent an evening backstage with the cast and main crew of Rocket Boys and knew that perceived Right-wing speakers like Anand Ranganathan are waved away disdainfully by them and that creative producer Nikkhil Advani and director Abhay Pannu had purposefully created the fictitious character of a victimised Muslim scientist only as their statement against “the prevailing atmosphere”.
It is no surprise therefore that Jim Sarbh (who played Dr Homi Bhabha with much savoir faire) has been reading out the points he has put together on his phone against the current dispensation while making his stand clear against the CAA.
At the awards night, the writer- director of Joram, another acclaimed Manoj Bajpayee film, warned at the outset of his acceptance speech that he wasn’t going to edit what he had to say, and he said it all with great passion. Starting off with a statement on the plight of displaced Adivasis, Devashish Makhija proceeded to amplify it with “in the name of development”, took a swipe at the politics of development and ended with, the elections are near, vote wisely. He couldn’t have sent out a more crystal-clear message.
If that voice is making itself heard on every available platform, films like Article 370 are also making their political stance clear. That’s how it’s going to be in an election year.
While on messages, here is an instance of how disinformation gets disseminated. On the chartered flight to Ahmedabad for the mid-air release of the trailer of Yodha, Karan Johar had amusedly asked me why I was wearing a mask. “Because the person next to me is coughing,” I replied. “Oh, my throat has also been acting up since morning,” he said. Then, at the big-screen trailer release, his voice packed up completely. When someone from the audience asked him, “Going to Jamnagar from here?” he whispered hoarsely that he’d head back to Mumbai and go to Jamnagar only the next day for the glitzy pre-wedding Ambani celebration.
Basing their knowledge on that one reply, many dispensed information on the filmmaker’s presence in Jamnagar; social media had visuals too. Some showed him dancing with Ranbir Kapoor (an old video), others showed him in the same outfit he’d worn the day before on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad flight (something clothes-conscious Karan wouldn’t do even on his death bed). A few argued that “we should know” because they’d been privy to what he had said in Ahmedabad, not updating themselves that on returning to Mumbai, he had tested positive for Covid. Karan couldn’t go to Jamnagar or party for the next six days.
“Aren’t you guys lucky that I didn’t give Covid to Sidharth Malhotra or any of you?” Karan later wisecracked. True. But meanwhile, his Jamnagar jamboree was just another day of disinformation.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author
