In Conversation With Piyush Mishra: Talking To The Fire (Part-1)

PFCdesktop   | Editors, Exclusive, Talking-Points | March 22, 2010 at 12:40 am         Print

Piyush Mishra doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t need to. In an in-length in conversation with Piyush Mishra where he talks about his days in NSD and after it, the flippancy with which he dealt his early, formative years, his days at theater. The unending streak of not settling down and wandering that had people construe him both as a fool and genius. What is the final goal of his life and why does it still elude him? He talks about the intangible and tangible things in life, the perceived misconceptions of a genius, his views on censorship, the lyrics he wrote for Gulaal and the different approaches by the directors he has worked with in past. He also talks on why there is an increased tendency in Bollywood to trample over others right. Does he see any hope of revival of cinema in our country? Is the oft used phrase ‘New Wave Bollywood’ used aptly according to him?

Here is presenting to you Piyush Mishra, in a completely raw and unaltered form where he is delightfully candid and astoundingly honest. No diplomacy, no sugar coated rebuttal. Questions. Answers. Straight to the point. As simple as that.

Note: The conversation is transcribed below for your convenience.

In Conversation With Piyush Mishra: Talking To The Fire- part 1

My first question to you is what kind of roles you enjoy performing the most. The kind of roles where you have the independence to improvise or the kind the rules where you have to work under director’s controlled supervision.

It’s difficult to say what style suits me, as I am comfortable in both the domains. On one hand there are people like Anurag Kashyap who wants me to improvise a lot, because he knows that is something I am really good at and since I am a writer too,  so there are 50 things running in my mind simultaneously and I can put that into my role. While on the other hand there is Vishal (Bhardwaj) who is very strict about the words and wants his actors to stick to the line. Earlier I had worked with Tigmanshu (Dhulia) before coming to Mumbai in Rajdhani and he used to make me improvise a lot, but he also knew where to cut. Sometimes, it so used to happen that there were such long takes and he didn’t cut. After that his editor used to advise him to cut on time. When I shifted to Mumbai at the end of 2002, I didn’t do Maqbool first, I did Matrabhoomi and the director used to make me improvise a lot. Also,  for the movie the dialogues were written after the scenes were improvised upon. And after that when I acted in Maqbool, I faced a lot of difficulties, because at that time acting according to me meant ‘improvisation’, so initially I had problems, but after working with Vishal in that kind of an environment, I can say that I am comfortable acting in both the ways.

What are your views on Censorship? Many people on PFC and in general also found the line from the Ranaji song “Door des ke tower me ghus jaaye re Airplane” insensitive? Do you think audience’s correct morality and sensitivity at times interferes with an artist’s creativity?

That line “Door Des ke tower me ghus jaaye re airplane” was initially “America ke tower me ghus jaaye re Airplane” which was very direct and if there was someone who had a problem with that line, it was me. Barring me nobody had problems with that line. Not even Anurag. In fact no one. But, I had always thought that after all it was a tragedy, and I was so afraid that it might not become a mockery. So, till the last moment I was worried over this line and even tried to change it. And if a certain section of audience had problems with that line, I can totally understand their point of view and would not call their concerns misplaced. Because, when I write I get an idea about the things I am comfortable about and the things I am not. So, naturally, anything I am myself not comfortable with, it is not a big surprise that even my audience would not be comfortable with the same. So, I fretted over this line a lot and was even worried that there might be a problem associated with it. Now, 26/11 happened just before the release of Gulal, and had 26/11 not happened, it would not have been a big surprise had this song would have got banned, and in that case I would not have been able to do anything had they (censor board)  decided to ban it. Also, I am not a fan of that kind of creativity where people are allowed to express just about anything in its name. I personally do not endorse that kind of creativity. But, this kind of line gave the song the starting it needed and unfortunately a better substitute did not come to my mind. Also, I did not want the song to become Anti American because I do not have anti-American feelings myself. So, in the end I believe censorship is important everywhere, because then there would be absolutely lack of control and that is something I am not very fond of.

In Conversation With Piyush Mishra: Talking To The Fire- part 2

Gulal’s music was composed in a period of week’s time. Do you show such eagerness for all your projects or something special happened with Gulal?

At the time I was doing theater, it used to happen that in every play we used to do musicals. I also want to clear on one thing that there is no information available about my work before 1995. My formative age was the Act I period, and we used to do so many musicals in that period. We used to do all the musicals with brand new script, we just used to take the idea and then make the musical with all together new lyrics and music. So, if you are practicing something for quite a long time then it stays with you, so when I shifted to Bombay, most of the songs in Gulal are my old theater songs. The song ‘Ye Shahar humaara sota hai’ was improvised by me to be included in the movie, ‘Yaara Maula’ was a theater song in entirety, and then there were some new songs also written. But, in totality the music of Gulal was ready in 8 days because I can attain only that speed when I work regularly and continuously. If, someone asks me now for that kind of work (in terms of pace and quality), then it would be a problem for me, because that period was something else. Those were the days of being both creative and wild. We used to question ourselves – Why can’t we do this? Why can’t we do that? Heck! I will do this at any cost. It’s difficult to say, it was a much unreasoned life, it was much disorganized too. There are people who say ‘Genius goes with the disorder’, but I do not agree with it anymore now. I think Genius is someone who goes about his work in a very orderly fashion. Now, if I think of it, I am much calmer than what I used to be earlier. Also, coming back to those days, doing that kind of work was not a big deal for me, and at that time I had no idea that I had 250-300 songs written and composed with me. It didn’t come to my mind that I could use those songs for cinema, if somebody would have told me I could have even used some of my songs for theater; in fact I can even do it today. With Gulal there was a different kind of movie and director so my songs fitted perfectly, but, the industry works in a different way. Right now, I am writing songs for the movie ‘Arjun’ for which Vishal Shekhar are composing the music and I am facing a lot of problems in writing the songs because writing for somebody else’s music causes problems for me. Although Vishal Shekhar have been very supportive and they have been saying you can do it easily, and it is the misconception amongst people of me being a perfectionist that kills me a lot. And my heart doesn’t allow me to just write anything for the heck of it, and I am not saying this just because I am getting paid. I did my best work when I was not getting paid. I have seen many renowned lyricists who do not want their words to be changed even by an iota. And that is why music directors face a lot of problems while working with lyricists. And right now, if somebody asks me to compose music for a movie, then I will have to muster a lot of courage because it has been a long time since I composed any music.

The major influence for Gulal’s music and lyrics has been your theater days where you needed an outlet to channelize your frustration which is quite evident in the song Aarambh hai Prachand, where there is a streak of unrestrained madness in that song. And as you say you have become quite stable and have also mellowed down a bit, so do you think would it be tough for you to recreate that magic and more importantly, would it be possible for you to create the same kind of unrestrained madness in your songs?

It won’t be a problem even now. In fact, I wrote Aarambh hai Prachand for Gulal only. I can do it even now, but it would be a different from my old days where I used to compose songs spontaneously. For Black Friday’s song ‘Ruk ja re bandeh’, these guys (Indian Ocean) were composing the song and I was sitting outside, and I wrote the lines for the song. They were so amazed as to how I was able to do it, and at that time I didn’t even know that the song was extraordinary. Also, what these guys were thinking as ‘extraordinary work’, they were unaware that I have doing this kind of work since last 25 years. The song went on to become a huge hit and it is India Ocean’s most popular song till now.

What has been your experience doing several one man plays ‘An evening with Piyush Mishra’ like? How do you look back at that? And according to you, what do you find more satisfying – your work in theater or in cinema?

First of all, I have been a very confused guy all my life. I have always been very restless, and I have been very different since my childhood. By different I do not mean there is something glorious and extraordinary about me. Right from my childhood to my married life, where my wife became close to me after a very long time, my elder son was born in a period where my mind was very unstable and used to vacillate quite a lot. Now, in fact all of my family members are very close to me. But, I am telling you honestly, I just could not figure out my whole life what I really wanted to do. Some people think used to think about me – Oh he can even do this, he can even do that. Before joining NSD in 83, I did a lot of things, I was a painter, sculptor, I even played Sitar for 5 years, and I have been singing and composing songs since my childhood. I did not receive training for any of these things. I used to pick a thing, do something related to it and then leave it, then again used to pick a thing, did something related to it and then leave it. That has been my personality trait. Why? Because I was not getting my peace of mind and that is something which still eludes me. Even today. When I was young, I used to think when I would go to NSD I would have my peace of mind, but it was not to be. In NSD, there was this professor who had come from Germany and I am talking about the time of 1985, 1st January and he cast me in Hamlet (co-incidentally it was also the first day of Rajiv Gandhi’s first day of government) and I gave quite a good performance. Interestingly, months before that performance he had also told me that you are a good for nothing actor and you are not fit for NSD.

In Conversation With Piyush Mishra: Talking To The Fire- part 3

But, I do not know at that time why I was so coarse and undisciplined that I could not stay with anyone for more than 2 days. I was so wild those days. And it is due to this nature of mine that earned me different names ranging from Mad, Genius, Stupid and a lots of other things. Some people also called me intelligent. After that I came to Bombay in 1989, and I had no idea how one was supposed to struggle. In fact, I did not even know whether I wanted to struggle in the first place or not. There was no clear cut goal of my life at that moment. After a glorious career in NSD, I had almost thrown it away. Because, if you don’t do any work, your name would diminish at some point of time. And I could see that. I could see everything losing in front of my eyes. So, I passed out from 86 and everything had finished by 1990. I came back in 1990 in September when Act I started. But, after Act I, I never took a step backwards. The initial days of Act I were really beautiful, full of romance, full of work, full of satisfaction, everything was there. After doing substantial work with the group, I realized Act I was not my cup of tea and I left it in 1995(it was the same year I got married). So, after leaving Act I, I did not have a stage neither I had a group. Besides, the kind of disorganized guy I was, I could not have made a group on my own too. It was Mr. M Sharma saw to it that a group was up and running. And I was really disillusioned at that point what I wanted to do. My wife used to do these small plays and we used to go to our friend’s house and just for fun I used to do some solo performances for my friends in their bedroom, roof.etc. So, from there I thought that I could do this. Thus, in 1996 I did couple of solo performances. Gradually, I started doing three solo performances, and I must say it was very taxing and I used to get very tired. But, when I did it once, I thought it was possible, and it became a trilogy and was a huge hit. Before that I had enjoyed group theatre, campus theatre, street theatre, musical theatre. After that I gave a lot of solo performances and they were all very well received. But, after two years I got tired and bored of doing these solo performances too. So, as I told you this was my fourth stardom. In fact, in Act I, there were all stars, me, Manoj Bajpayi, Ashish Vidyarthi. These all were big stars of theatres. So, cinema in a way is my fourth tryst with stardom where people recognize my work in a different way. They think of me as a guy who can also do this, who can also do that, and he is not interested in these, which is a good thing. But, then again I started facing this predicament, because I think am not doing that work which I want to do. I don’t know, I am confused, really confused. In fact, there is nothing glorious about me. People heap praises on me just like that and I am not saying this with humility. I really mean it. Also, I don’t know what stability in life means. Because, throughout my life I have been very unstable on a mental level and even now. So, it is difficult for me to compare both the experiences (of theatre and of cinema) and pin point which performance of mine was the most satisfying.

Click here for Part 2 of this conversation