Celebrated writer, poet, lyricist, comedian and filmmaker Varun Grover sits down with Amborish Roychoudhury for a marathon two-part interview. In this first instalment, Varun talks about his early influences, his favourite films from Rakhwala to Ray, and busts some popular myths about storytelling. The second part will follow soon.
ADVERTISEMENT REMOVE AD AR: You once said in an interview that you wanted to be a Sai Paranjpye film. Which film would that be? VG: Katha , actually. A mix of Katha, Chashme Buddoor and a film called Disha , which came on Doordarshan.
For me, it was the kind of conflict in her cinema that worked. But not grand conflicts - conflicts of heart versus mind. These were the kinds of internal conflicts in her films.
Still, they were not as subtle or as multi-layered as, say, a Shyam Benegal film - where there is a lot of internal conflict going on and you have to rack your brains to follow the proceedings. So, in my mind, hers was the perfect middle-of-the-road cinema. And she had a hopeful view of the world which was very important to me.
As a kid growing up, I wanted to be seen in the films - I wanted to identify with them. Those days, we used to watch everything right from Loha to Tridev to Khatron Ke Khiladi..
those films had thrill, excitement and we had a lot of fun watching them, but there was no identification. I still remember when I watched Rakhwala ..
. AR: The Anil Kapoor-Farha film? Did you watch that in a theatre? VG: No, we rented a VCR. But.
