Readers Write In #691: The World of Sai Paranjpye’s Cinema

By Rohan Bhardwaj

Podcast are the new rage, everyone is doing one. And naturally I stumbled upon one talking about movies which has aged well.

The movie is Chashme Baddoor. Farook Shaikh and Deepti Naval among other cast stole the show. These types of cinema isn’t getting made now. And I miss them. Its amazing and shocking that a movie with such sensibilities got made in the 80s. And of course, there is praise to everyone involved in the movie, the main praise is for the director and writer – Sai Paranjape.

How often do you come across her name when talking about 80s or 90s director. For me, her name never came up. So it was intrigued to see what were some other movies she wrote and directed.

Enter Katha. Farookh Shaikh, Naseerudin Shah and Deepti Naval are the main star cast. The same Farookh who was a sweetheart in Chashme Baddoor is a person whom you won’t like. It shows his acting prowess. The best thing about Sai is her ability to show a beautiful landscape of the places where her movies are shot. Be it Delhi in Chashme Baddoor or Pune/Mumbai in Katha. What is the most beautiful common theme between both the movies is that there are no traditional hero, heroine and villains. These are stories which happen in our daily lives.

And chances are you might have seen such movies around you. She takes 1 year of a characters lives from around and simply put it in the screen. And the magic is created. I loved both the movies. I am moved by them. Then I ventured into the next movie of her – Sparsh.

When you read about this script, you will be shy from playing the movie. Naseer is blind and is the head of a blind school. There is love, identity struggle and societal truth. Its scary to go through the movie – you are worried on where the movie is headed.

But Sai does an amazing job of making it an awesome journey. You enjoy all the facets of the movie, you develop empathy and somehow it connects with you. Its magic.

The only thing I didn’t like of her movies is the choice of songs/music. They are passe – meaning they can be fast forwarded and you don’t miss anything. And also you don’t think like you should listen to them like a recurring thing. I guess, every filmmaker needs to have some lackings.

But what Sai gives you is a beautiful landscape, characters which are around you, slice of their life, maturity in all of their dealings, no unnecessary or hyperbolic drama and simply a cinema which stays.

If you haven’t yet watched one of her movies, go watch them now.