Vidya Balan: I detest calling Begum Jaan a film about women’s empowerment – Times of India

Patriotism and feminism, the two dominant questions of Begum Jaan, are different things for different people, asserts the film's team - lead actor Vidya Balan, director Srijit Mukherji and producer Mahesh Bhatt.

DT: What is the criterion of a successful film - first weekend collection or long-term recall value? Srijit: The film should stay with you for years. Abhi there are lots of films that aren't box office successes at the time of release, and later they get cult classic status.

Vidya: But I have never understood how that happens! Theatre mein nahin gaye log, and you feel that the film has flopped. Hamari Adhuri Kahani, for example - people are writing about it to me every week on Twitter. And the film didn't do well.

Bhatt: Saraansh did 15 weeks - but it didn't make money. But people tell me ki humne apne bete ka naam Saransh rakha hai... Time is very merciless to mediocrity, it nurtures brilliance. Achha kaam waqt ke saath nikharta hai. It endures. Mediocrity doesn't linger. Ultimately, movies have to resonate in your consciousness.

DT: How do you define 'mature' cinema? Nowadays, it only means 'adult cinema', but does the Indian audience comprehend mature cinema, serious cinema? Or is it a given that the award-winning film will not run beyond three days in the hall? Each year, there is a high casualty rate of these risk-taking movies, like Miss Lovely and Gangs Of Wasseypur. So if we make mature cinema, and it mostly doesn't work, do we by default make 'immature' cinema to make it work? Bhatt: Any person who presumes himself to be a 'mature' filmmaker and makes a film, it's a bullshit film. There are certain filmmakers who begin with that position ki hum bade mature hain, humara content bada painful hai - muh kholne ke pehle they are in awe of themselves, ki main kamal ki baat bolne wala hoon. Kuch filmein aisi hoti hain joh indicate karti hain ki tumko kuch pata wata hai nahin, humne tum par bada upkaar kiya hai.

The unpretentious quality of Begum Jaan doesn't claim anything. It just goes out to tell the story in a very engaging way.

Srijit: This philosophy I have followed all my life in my Bengali films. So my Bengali films do well in the festival circuit and at the box office, and they get awards. And this balance is not conscious, because I have to clue what works, what mature cinema is.

Vidya : I think it is pretentious to assume that you know what mature cinema is. Bhatt saab made films that were labelled as art cinema. Many films that were labelled art films, they didn't touch you. They were too intellectual. But Bhatt saab's films touched you. That's why his films, even if they were not formulaic, they ended up doing business. I also think that films that do well connect with people.

Bhatt: Agar main iss intention se aaya hoon ki main tumhe impress karunga, tumse wah-wahi lootunga, log mujhe paise dein aur main unhe batunga main kitna kamal hoon - bewakoof hai kya audience?

DT: In the last two months, we have seen a massive number of women coming out on to the roads in the US. That is one kind of politically aware feminist perspective. How far is the gap (from that) in the mind frame of a Begum Jaan? Vidya: Begum Jaan is a lone soldier. She doesn't need collective reinforcement at all. At some point in the film, she tells these girls, go away, I will deal with this on my own. Change or empowerment is very, very personal. I detest calling Begum Jaan a film about women's empowerment. It's a very personal journey. You have to discover your own strength. There can be some triggers; that alters you. But Begum Jaan is far ahead in her understanding. I don't think she knew the word 'feminism' or cared for it even if she did. Because I have not seen a more consummate woman on screen. As long as it serves her purpose, she is servile with the raja, then she says, I can't help you anymore.

'Begum Jaan' doesnt need collective reinforcement at all: Vidya Balan

01:30

Srijit: Khoob ladi mardani woh toh Jhansi wali rani thi. Even when you compliment a woman for valour, you do it in masculine terms.

Vidya: She does it on her own terms. Woh apne liye sajti hai. She is not in the market anymore. She cannot be slut-shamed.

Srijit: She is intensely apolitical and individualistic. There is no interest in the revolution. She is not making a statement or changing the condition of women outside her kotha. Koi fark nahin padta usse. When people are celebrating 15th August, she is sitting glumly, saying that people spend festival time with their families, so it's a bad day for business.

Bhatt: She has come to terms with her desolate life. She is not frightened of it. Aur humne aisi aurtein dekhi hain, who are fiercely independent. But they are not compelled to organize it into a larger political expression.

DT: In an interview with Vidya that DT ran on August 15 (incidentally) last year, the question that got the interview discussed online was the point of 'Can a woman who runs a brothel be a feminist?' And she (Vidya) said of course she can be a feminist, and she had a track to it. Currently, in the same way that I can't decide what patriotism is for me - it is defined by the majority - are the women in this country being given a template of what empowered feminism is? Vidya: 'Empowered' and 'feminism' are much abused words today.

Bhatt: Hum kisi ki lobby pe depend nahin karenge to tell me what 'empowerment' and 'freedom' are, what the attributes of a free woman are.

DT: So the causes seem so sharply defined that we are all traitors to the cause if we don't subscribe to it whole-heartedly. I am not a patriot if I don't say 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' three times a day. And you are not loyal to the feminist cause if you don't say those words. Srijit : A woman in a village in Rajasthan, a woman in Mumbai and a working woman in New York - the social coordinates of all these three causes are so different that there cannot be a standard set of parameters. It's relative. For a woman in a village, saying 'no' to her husband one night could be an act of feminism.

Vidya: Or not standing when the father-in-law enters the house. The struggles are different.

Srijit: So the feminism for Begum Jaan, who is the madam of a brothel... Life gives you certain coordinates, that this is where you belong, this is the language you speak, this is what happened in your childhood. What will you do to define feminism? Those sets of parameters uniquely define your feminism. You cannot seek a commonality with other parts of the world and other eras.

But Begum Jaan's feminism is giving these girls an atmosphere where at the end, when Begum Jaan asks them to leave, a girl cries and says, 'I don't get the freedom I get here even at my so-called home.' This is a very strong statement. So in this place, yes, we are catering to the male gaze, but we are catering to the male gaze on our own terms. And the exploitation that we face outside is much more. That might sound scandalous in the concept of a city. But for women who are being marginalized in an oppressive set-up, there, for them, this leash of freedom is huge. And that's where the dialogue comes from - 'It's my body, it's my house, it's my country, it's my rule'. She is what she is. But her socio-economic coordinates determine her parameters of feminism. Every woman's situation is kind of unique. Patriotism also - that is also a very unique scenario. Let's say a person who can't stand up (for the national anthem), what is patriotism for him? A person who is bound to a wheelchair, how will you determine if he is a patriot? The parameters need to allow for different human conditions - be it parameters of patriotism or of feminism.

DT: In an interview with Manoj Bajpayee for Gangs Of Wasseypur, I asked him, dikkat kya aayi role karne mein, and he said the 'haraamipan', the way Sardar Khan looks at the girl who comes to his house, he had to make a lot of effort for that. 'Woh expression nahin aata'. Sometimes the difficulty is in playing great martyrdom, sometimes the difficulty is in playing the other side - the grey side. Vidya: People ask me, how come you are okay with playing someone who seems like she's all black? I know there are dark corners inside me that I have to come face-to-face with, and that's why I am able to do it. And that's something freeing. Because I don't have illusions of who I am anymore. Or delusions.

I think I got what she was doing throughout. I watched the Bengali film (Srijit's Rajkahini, from which Begum Jaan is adapted). But the difficulty only came in the places where I had to be physically violent. I don't know how anybody can be physically violent. In one scene, I had to slap repeatedly. In the first few takes, I could not get it. Then Srijit told me, you are slapping her half-heartedly, but you are slapping nonetheless. But until I hear that thappad ki goonj... After the scene, I would go to the actor, kiss her on the forehead, hold her hand, ask for ice - do those things. Because I didn't have to do it once, I had to do it repeatedly with two-three different girls. If I didn't have to do it and had to ask someone to do it, it would have been easier. It was the only point of dissonance between Begum Jaan and me.

I know there are dark corners inside me: Vidya Balan

00:46

DT: For Humari Adhuri Kahani, you said women write to you saying that they could relate to it, but nobody would like to be Begum Jaan. Between playing the ideal role - the infinitely simpler and easier role - and this, which expression is more difficult? Vidya: I don't think I worry about anybody's reactions. What really fascinated me about Begum Jaan is that she is so unapologetically powerful, and that is not easy as a woman. I think as we are slowly entering routes and parts that are unknown to us, and we are seeing success, and we are tasting power, it is still very difficult to come to terms with it. You always feel the need to overcompensate. Power has been the preserve of men, or so we thought. So the moment you feel you are powerful, you are exuding a certain power, you feel you are trading your femininity. But Begum Jaan doesn't care about anything or anyone except her survival. No one scares her. She fears nothing.

To get into the mindspace of someone like that - people are asking me, chaudaa body language hai! There is no English equivalent of chaudaa, but yes, her body language is chaudaa because she appropriates that space!

'Begum Jaan' is unapologetically powerful: Vidya Balan

01:55

DT: By reflex, does Indian society get unsettled by the unapologetic display of power by a woman? Vidya: I do think so. I think people find it very difficult. Women themselves find it very difficult. Because of their deep conditioning, because we have always seen power as a male preserve, we find it difficult. It is seen as intimidating, alienating, when a woman exudes power, when she is comfortable in her skin exuding power.

DT: The majority of powerful women in politics in India - past or present - tend to be wielding positions of power when they are either single or widowed, as standalone individuals. Is there something to read into here? Vidya: Which is why I'm saying - does she stand alone because she is powerful... or is she powerful because she stands alone?

Srijit: It's a chicken and egg thing, really.

Vidya: It's so interesting. It was only after MGR passed away that Jayalalithaa became powerful. It was after Kanshi Ram that Mayawati became powerful.

DT: It's not been very different elsewhere in the neighbourhood either - Aung Saan Suu Kyi, Bandaranaike, the current political power centres in Bangladesh... Bhatt: My thesis is that only when you are completely powerless, your journey to power starts then. There is a rule of storytelling - it is not important for the hero to succeed, it is important for him to exhaust the limits of the possible. Once he has exhausted everything he can - and he dies - he is a great hero!

DT: Which is why Bose always makes for a great story; fight, struggle, and lose - and flamboyantly at that? Srijit: "...and flamboyantly at that..."

Vidya (to Srijit): But how happy you look! You reveal the Bengali in you (laughs)!

Srijit: Bose is the ultimate open-ended ending as well. Never tell a Bengali that Bose is no more. We don't know that yet! You don't often get lives like that to make a biopic (wistfully).

DT: Why don't you make a movie on him? It's been ages since Benegal's Forgotten Hero. Vidya: And I will play Lakshmi Swaminathan, that is decided.

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Vidya Balan: I detest calling Begum Jaan a film about women's empowerment - Times of India