In search of my fingerprints
iView Author: Arati Kadav (Mumbai, India)
Email: aratspeaks [at] gmail [dot] com
In search of my fingerprints
Five months ago I was in Hong Kong, bag-packing and it got struck by a storm. So my tourism shifted to within the city limits instead of outside it and I saw a huge dockyard. On my enquiry I was told that it is the biggest dockyard of the world and all “Made In China” stuff come from here. I was impressed by Chinese that they clothe most of the world. I secretly thanked God that still we haven’t been able to make such huge advances in technology that we can mass produce art. Since the days of cave paintings, art has remained a form of personal expression. And everytime I feel someone is getting close to finding a sure-short way to make a lovable(or so-called super-hit) film, I know that it is difficult to have it automated so well that it can be home-grown in China and shown to us with “Made in China” labels.
It is amazing that God provides us unique fingerprints. Because of this every piece of our work has our unique impression. Your clay pot will be different than mine. Am I the only one who gets baffled when someone asks what kind of movies I want to make? Isn’t answering that question as tough as answering “Who you really are and what will you really be?” I find it amusing when answer to questions like what kind of movies you want to make, someone answers : “I want to make movies like Aditya Chopra?” But can you ever? Aren’t your pair of hands different. Did you ever try to make a movie without having DDLJ in mind? And did you discover yourself in the process? Could you find your fingerprints?
The other day I was remembering the story of Eklavya and Drona – the Mahabharata story. The story revealed to me – the humaneness of a guru and his love for his student.
Someone suggested , it is a good idea to have a Guru, have a Drona in your life, especially if you are into movie-making. I went and met a director who needed assistants. He said that my assistant should have a desire to be like me. He felt he could be my Drona. But can he ever be my Guru in the real sense? And then it makes me wonder what is the worst thing that could be done to someone who wants to make movies like a particular director. Just keep that aspiration in him alive. How much struggle he would have to undergo to create pots that has fingerprints like someone else’s. How much pain he would have to undergo to see his own fingerprints perceived as mistakes. Fingerprints he can’t help show but only try camouflaging. Is it possible that the person ends up as close approximations of the directors they are aspiring to be? Will they be able to break free and discover themselves. After all, how long can you keep a person away from himself?
Eklavya’s story also pointed to me about dispensability of a Drona. Drona’s statue was symbolic of Eklavya’s intense desire and dedication to learn. Was Eklavya better than Arjuna? Well atleast Drona felt so. Even Arjuna was insecure. So if Eklavya was better, then is Drona in stone superior than Drona in flesh and blood? Who found himself faster? Arjuna or Eklavya? And then isn’t that the task of a Guru? Help a student find his own fingerprints and make his own clay pots. The moment a Guru enters the student, he ceases to be a Guru.
Having an aspiration to discover oneself is the journey an artist needs to embark on. Discover ourselves and realize how amazing we are. Learn to express things only we can express to this world. That is movie-making for me. And that’s what I am learning every passing day.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Great article,Makes a lot of sense
The funda about life is you learn as you go,maybe yourself,maybe from others,just don’t stop
Amazing read.
Well, I guess Guru teaches you basics of the thing – the product you create should not be identical to him. Otherwise the innovation in the world would stop, rather than evolution, things can now only get worse.
No guru would have ever been able to create Sachin Tendulkar, his guru wouldn’t have expected him to play the same shots as he used to play but trained him with follow certain basic cricketing rules.
And leave art, Science is no different in this respect, I would have become a Maths teacher in a school, had I been solving the same problems my Maths teacher used to solve, he taught me some basic rules of maths and logic, and I am applying them on building a search engine.
In movie making, you will learn certain techniques, but use them to create “your own films”
If this creates a pressure on you, let it do that, but we are all really really proud of you and waiting to see some best-in-class cinema created by you. Knowing you, there is no reason why you would not blow our minds away, exceeding all our expectations in the process.
Nice article…a must read for all budding movie makers.
Drona in stone was better than Drona in stone- Almost a quotable quote to make a very subtle point.How good a teacher is depends on the willingness of the student to learn. End of the day Drona got famous because of Arjun and not vice versa
nice article,
of all the ppl i think a director needs to have his/her individual stamp on film
few months back i was in top indian film institute(how many are there really
)interview round ,they asked me few director’s name ,i told them i have heard but never seen any of their movies ,they told me that they are shocked that a film institute aspirant hasnt watched “those” kind of movies ,i told them i want to make my kind of movies,i dont think i need to tell the result of interview
What if you really want to be like someone?
Superb thought. Superb self confidence. God give you all success.
However reality differs some time and many a time we think that we are the best but some one also has to say same thing for you. You can read books on horse riding but unfortunately dog can not read those books written on him.
I fully agree that every person has its own identity or say finger print but some time we make some one as our idol and try to become successful like him. However it is not only the success formula and I fully agree that some time our own creativity can make us more successful but it is an experiment which may click or may not but since we know how exactly our idol got success there is nothing wrong in copying him.
Films are for mass entertainment and it is not necessary that what we think other too think in same way. If you impose our identity on them just to satisfy our creativity, it may fail. Remember film making is a business and it is for making profit. Remember Sanjay Leela Bhansali – he is putting his finger print in all movie he is making. Some time he is succeeding some time failing miserably to the extent that when I took my wife to show his movie, she shouted at me as if I have made that movie. Don’t think and do not allow others also to think. This is an art of entertainment and film making – which I realize after seeing many David Dhawan confusing movie.
we’re no unique snowflakes. we’re the all singing dancing crsp of this world, imitating and copying each other. we’re the modern apes. no one ever taught me a thing that meant anything.
‘Being different’ is one of the most common goals every second person aspires to be. Its not wrong, but being different never means to leave your own skin.
‘Always show the you in you that makes you the you that you are.’
Admiring someone and wanting to be like them is fair enough till you hold on to your own mark.
Btw, I’m impressed with your thoughts.
And I’m sure you know who I am. ;)
a ‘guru’ is only as good as the ‘chela’ is. drona was not only arjun’s guru, but guru for kauravs and pandavs; who learnt wat from drona made all the difference. its the dedication of the pupil tats important. eklavya showed tremendous dedication to the art of archery and drona felt tat if eklavya cud show so much dedication by just keeping a statue of drona, then how gr8 an archer he wud have become in drona’s presence and guidance!
by the way, wen i started reading the article i was expecting something on the lines of smallB’s ‘guru’ and ‘drona’ and bigB’s ‘eklavya’
Nice poetic Article,
All the Best
brilliant! and, strangely, the essence of this has helped me put a few things – the stuff whose meaning has defied me till now – into perspective. god bless you.
Thanks Asim, saubhy, rahul, papa, abhisal, sutta, crazyrals, Shekhar, wb.
Dear Sara,
I feel that it is difficult to be like someone. Most of the time we aspire for someone’s success or money but then want the same thing to happen to you. So in a way you are not willing to forego your “self”.
Dear Papa (Sharad Kumar),
Thanks for eading the article. I understand you speak from an audience point of you and one needs to make sure that your movies are entertaining and has a mass reach. But I feel everyone aspires for that. Even when Sanjay Leela Bhansali made Saanwariya he hoped that everyone will like it. If it didn’t work it didn’t – but the intention was to make it work. If most of the folks like David Dhawan kinda movies, and if Sanjay Leela Bhansali tries to make something like him, I wonder if that movie would be liked by him or other as much as he or other liked Saanwariya. He has a style and he hopes that his style is liked by the people. He will improvise if it is not liked by them. But he shouldn’t start making movies like David Dhawan only because those are hit. That is my personal opinion.
If you want to make good, inspiring movies, please forget about ‘DDLJ’ or any other crass, melodramatic and mediocre Indian movies. Focus on those little gems out there, none of the mainstream Indian movies are any good. None of the folks in Mumbai are good Gurus to follow, you can take my word for it. Try to find somebody who really loves the art.