Tête-à -tête with Shibani
Thanks to SAAFA, I got to meet Shibani Bathija in person and had a one on one chat with her. On her suggestion, we moved away from the crowd to the patio where I quickly wiped my fingers greased by the sheek kababs and cheese pakodas to switch on the button on the recorder.
To begin with it was a neat event organized by SAAFA and I’m sure there are more such events to come. Check the organization out and enroll on their mailing list.
The meet attracted people from all walks of life. From accountants to aunty-jees to people eager to know “Yeh Bollywood wollywood kya hain” - a mix and match of people of all shapes, sizes and age landing on a beautiful Sunday evening to share the passion for cinema.
There were doubts on whether I should ask my undiplomatic straight forward question or whether I should tone them down. After all I didn’t want me to be the cause Shibani walking out of the SAAFA meet because of some Desi Train guy.
Sense prevailed and more so after the initial chat with Shibani, I thought it would be nice to simply talk to the person behind the writer, rather than the writer in front of the person.
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So what did I think of the whole exclusive interview with Shibani and later the Q & A - I thought Shibani did bring out her perspective, her view quite openly and she didn’t mince words to let me know that scripts do get modified and changed after it is passed on to the director and his team. (T! has some of that coming up on Fanaa, where Shibani spoke to her in a private conversation after the meet). But there is a certain degree of “acceptability” on her part. More on that - she explains in her interview.
I would have liked more clarity of her views on the indigestible or implausible elements in her scripts. Though she was of the view to see a film with an “open mind”… somehow I was looking for reasons as to what makes her put those elements in the script.
Of course I bit my tongue when I so badly wanted to ask her how far would a writer take the implausibility in the script and still not insult the viewer’s intelligence. It would have been a geniune question but with an underlining rudeness to it. And I couldn’t find words to mask it in a sweeter way.
But in the end I did see where she’s coming from. Fanaa and KANK may not have gone down well my throat, but it’s her kind of cinema and stories which she and her directors/producers believe in. Rather than try to change her or make her see “my way”, it would be rather more comforting to sit back, relax and enjoy the different kinds of stories Bollywood has to offer us.
And if the story is adamant on giving me an indigestion, there’s always these pages on Desi Train, where I can just be myself and let them know how I felt. No diplomacy required here.
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October 2nd, 2006 at 9:10 am
[...] My personal view on Shibani and the evening are recorded back at Desi Train. [...]
October 2nd, 2006 at 2:48 pm
“After all I didn’t want me to be the cause Shibani walking out of the SAAFA meet because of some Desi Train guy.”
You should have done that… DT would have become very famous ….;):d
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Agree with u Oz … As much as we may want to murder her, we shouldn’t do it … :-?
And probably the best approach is to, as you said, treat her films like the david dhawan types (meaning - with no semblance of any logic whatsoever) …..