Rebel with a Cause
Mira Nair on moving cities, gender biases and Bollywood
Mira Nair’s cinema has been like her—bold, vibrant and brave. Never afraid to speak truth to power, the world seems to have finally caught up with her , given its rather late recognition of racial diversity and gender balance. Having wrapped up the Berkeley Repertory Theatre run of her beloved 2001 movie Monsoon Wedding, she is now all set to adapt Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy for an eight-hour piece of cinema, which she says is the “culmination of my life’s work”. Having moved from New York to Delhi, where she will now be based for two years as she directs the mammoth 140-character cast, the former Rolex Arts Mentor, speaks to Kaveree Bamzai from the sidelines of the Rolex Arts Weekend 2018 in Berlin on #MeToo, #Time’sUp and Harvey Weinstein’s “beastliness”.
Tell us about the musical version of Monsoon Wedding. How was it?
We are doing some revisions to it which are par for the course and hope to open it in the West End by late 2019 or early 2020. People just love the film and so even in Berkeley they were so surprised that 80 per cent of the audience was white. It’s not only a love of Bollywood, although we have a nudge and wink to Bollywood in terms of the shaadi, gaana and all. People just erupt out of their seats and start dancing. The world really is in a terrible state and we need to be somehow fueled by the joy that doesn’t exist around us. And like in the film, there is a sort of universality of family and how people really relate to the characters of our mad Punjabi family is very heartening. People were sort of taken aback in the rest of world about how weirdly global we are around our dining table. I’ll never forget borrowing my brother’s Cuban cigars for a prop at the end of dinner. That’s what happens in my house--they roll out their bloody cigars and he said, “I’ll give them to you on one condition that you don’t light any one of them. Mujhe to continuity ka pata hai that you will just go through my whole case.” So if you look at the movie, they don’t ever smoke the cigars. Yaar kya baat
hai Cuban cigar, bahut badiyaan and all, but they never light them.
You’ve always spoken truth to power so what was your reaction to #MeToo and #Time’sUp?
You know, before #MeToo, the lid blew off in terms of the #OscarsSoWhite campaign, of the shocking lack of diversity on our screens relative to the world and why that was so? The whole white male universe was for the first time I guess, in an organised and slightly shocking manner, held a mirror to. And then
that was soon after followed by the Producers’ Guild of America’s Women’s Impact Network talking about the inequity at all levels, in terms of salaries. And then of course, #MeToo was a real avalanche. I know all these players. Uma Thurman and Lupita NYong’o are like daughters to me and it was so painful and oppressive to them that they never mentioned it to me. I cannot help but believe that this is a watershed moment and that there is no turning back from here. Women’s solidarity is remarkably powerful and the publicness of the explosion has to change things.
Did you have any dealings with Harvey Weinstein?
You know I had the vFeirlmymgaokoedr sense to turn him down because of his reputation as a creep. There were three movies on which I remember very distinctly the doorbell would ring and there would be these 30 long stemmed roses. He would woo me, but you know not sexually. He’s a beast but I did not know the extent of his bestiality. Actors are infinitely more vulnerable and it goes back to Marilyn Monroe.
Have you seen this in Bollywood?
I have seen it in the way men in power refer to women. The power of simply being able to summon a woman. It reeks of patriarchy and I have always called it out. I do believe there is a powerful nexus of media and the film industry that keeps this buddy system and the silence intact.
Did the controversy around Padmavat remind you of your own troubles during
Kama Sutra in 1996?
You know I fought those who wanted to ban the film and I won on paper. I was able to release the film. But when they began to possess my subconscious and started winning my dreams, which is the only realm of an artist, I was afraid I would never work again. I was lucky in having a foot here and a foot there but what I am seeing ahead is the terrible situation of self censorship. This is not our India that celebrates multiplicity and diversity. You cannot banish Mughals from our history or pretend Urdu is not a national language.
“I CANNOT HELP BUT BELIEVE THAT THIS IS A WATERSHED MOMENT AND THAT THERE IS NO TURNING BACK FROM HERE.”