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The Amol Palekar that most of us know from his films, is a mild-mannered, shy, bumbling man who doesn’t have the confidence to pursue the girl he likes. Someone who evokes enough empathy for others to step up and help him navigate his way around the many obstacles in his life. The Amol Palekar in his autobiography is a different man. A solitary crusader, a person with a strong sense of right and wrong and an ability and perseverance to fight for what’s right. This is the Amol Palekar from his plays and his characters in the dozen or so Marathi movies that he has directed. It is, therefore, quite a revelation to learn that, as Socrates would have said, we know as much about Amol Palekar as we don’t.
Amol Palekar chooses a non-linear narrative form in the book to introduce the unfamiliar readers to his body of work in theatre and his initiatives in activism interspersing them with the familiar stories of his Hindi films.
He debuted as a character in the early ‘70s in a Marathi film called Shantata Court chalooaahe (Quiet please, the court is in progress) which may be the sort of film he wants to be remembered more for -- fighting a social cause (female infanticide in this case) that he believes is right. However, his popular imagery was established by the reluctant success of his next, a commercial Hindi film called Rajnigandha.
Middle Cinema
With that film and others to follow, Amol had found a sweet spot in the industry with his films by directors Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee, placed squarely in between the high adrenalin, dopamine films of Amitabh Bachchan and the stark realistic films of Govind Nihalani and Shyam Benegal. This gave rise to a new genre called Middle cinema.
He recounts actor Shashi Kapoor telling him to sign up for 10 films at the same time, stating the harsh reality of the film industry is that many films won’t be completed or released, some will bomb at the box office and the rest will see the light of the day. Doing multiple films just ensured that one’s career doesn’t come to a sudden halt. Amol candidly admits that he didn’t have that luxury of choice and that mostly, films and roles chose him more than him choosing the films he wanted to work in.
His filmography includes films in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada, a growing number of web series and TV shows and over 40 plays. The films he directed focused on social and personal conflicts, injustices, patriarchal prejudices prevalent in society, issues like Alzheimer’s, sexual choices, incest, and Euthanasia. It’s one of the rare autobiographies that also details all the films he was forced to leave unfinished despite his efforts, either due to a lack of funding or due to the lack of a distribution partner.
Given the nature of the book, a sort of random reflections on his life, as if told to a companion while lounging on an easy chair, the narrative is, at times, difficult to follow. It doesn’t delve much into the films or his craft as much as it details the events in no particular order. With its randomness, it becomes a difficult book to read after a point, with repeated cross references to events. An editor may have perhaps helped.
He intermittently shares details of his personal relationships, the challenges of bringing up a lesbian daughter and the peace he has found with his second wife and collaborator, Sandhya, in his sunset years. Reflecting on how the society is degrading, he laments the continuing hold of religion, the rampant corruption and political greed, the social stigma of homosexuality, the growing instances of heinous crime that we are being numbed by.
Amol shares a few regrets that still hurt his conscience- the fact that he smoked 50 cigarettes a day, that he travelled to 40 countries and the carbon footprint it may have left and that he didn’t strongly stand up for some issues he believed in and accepted some regressive roles offered to him. He also speculates that he may not have won many awards or got plum positions in government bodies due to his principles and liberal left leanings.
The most refreshing parts of the book are the colourful, easy on the eye self-portraits. The photographs from his various films transport us back in time to when life was simple and easy and we, like Amol Palekar, sometimes needed just a little nudge to get by.
(Naveen Chandra runs 91 film Studios that produces, markets, and distributes regional language feature films. )
Check out the book on Amazon
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