INSTEP Magzine

Aditya Chopra, the Invisible Man of Bombay moviedom, doesn't exchange a syllable with me after a thumbs-down on Mohabbatein, seven years ago. Before that, Prodigy Chopra was as accessible as the fire brigade service. The Bachchans love you to love them. But bring up touchy points in the course of cobbling a coffee-table book on the Big One, and comes the Dolby drawl. "Don't behave like a journalist." Hello, some brand identity confusion there.
Actors are especially vain creatures-fault anyone's diction, attitude, whatever, and he'll cry f*@* shit. Aamir Khan bans press, then courts press with Capuccinos Zameen Par. Point out that a script wasn't up to much and you're erased, nay Anarkalied, by Prince Salim Khan.

Lyricist Gulzar, after a difference of opinion, goes blind as a bat on colliding into you at a soiree. Director Ram Gopal Varma turns silent as a tomb for months (years), to resurface chummily on the eve of the release of one of his underworld slugfests.

Kajol takes up violent cudgels for a performance by Ajay Devgan, wounding you with phrases like "vested interests", never mind if the vested ones aren't identified. Khallas.
Name anyone from the who's-why in Bollywood's A- or B-list, they will accept criticism as much as a vegetarian will tuck into venison and veal. There's a racy, even ribald 21st century book waiting to be written-if not a Michael Moore-style documentary-in this age-old Critics vs Creators kurukshetra.

Better to say what you must, in the ink of integrity, in that allotted column space. After all, for a critic the relationship is with cinema, not personalities. If in the process, friendships are struck, you ensure that they are partitioned by mutual professional respect. But, as happens ever so frequently, respect is quicksand. As frequently, you are consoled, "You are only doing your job"-but only if the criticism is about someone else.

So what should a critic do? If you're delighted, entertained, edified, touched by a film, say it. If your interest is just about aroused, express it. If you're irritated, offended, bored, don't hide it. The one-to-five stars which crown every review encapsulate your feelings, the half twinkler suggesting that well, you were hemming and hawing. But that's a given too, like a book which absorbed you only in parts.

And woe betide-if a critic dreams about making a movie and then does it, he should be ready to be lynched. The baggage you carry from your job is subjected to all sorts of duties, levies, taxes and how-dare-he! Your film is not estimated for its content or style but for your life in print-which is like forbidding an art critic from painting and a restaurant reviewer from opening even a dhaba. The sport is called critic-bashing. It hardly matters that the world over critics, like say Francois Truffaut and Peter Bogdanovich, have been widely supported in their enterprises on the printed page as well as on the screen.

Contradictorily, the film tribe is in constant vengeance mode against critics who (sigh, sigh, sigh) are forever accused of wreaking personal vendetta. Clearly, such accusations arise out of hyper-narcissism. Then, a filmmaker friend of Tigmanshu Dhulia will thunder that you could not understand the Dhulia masterpiece because it was set in the rural badlands, whereas you are an urban rat. Now, did he check where you were born? Your travel records? Your concerns?

Quite clearly, praise and paeans are expected as a birthright. You may smother XYZ with raves for years. Then one fine day, when you're disappointed, you don't hold your words back. From an angel you turn into a snake, a worm, a Judas, or all three. Praise us, praise us, 365x12, say film people.Give us reliable guidance and understanding, says the reader. Do all of those things, say critics, but add that we're human too, our words are essentially an invitation to think. Ulp, but is anyone doing that nowadays?

Many critics have seen blockbusters and superstars come and go with the wind. If you survive, it's because of a piece of advice from the late Bikram Singh. Not without a flourish, the big daddy of critics had said a couple of decades ago, "Son, always write a review as if it were your last one. And you'll be okay."

So who needs any other kind of Mohabbatein?

(The author has written the scripts of Mammo, Sardari Begum, Zubeidaa and both written and directed Fiza, Tehzeeb and Silsilaay. This article originally appeared in Outlook, India)