Fifteen minutes into the conversation, Prakash Bare gently informs that he is in a theatre, could he call back. The niceness stuns. For one, he comes from a field where fame is kind of default. For another, he has been this busy entrepreneur running between companies for years. But nothing seems to have gone to his head. With surprising patience, he tells you about choosing the art house movies he does, to act in, to produce, the latest release Kaadu Pookkunna Neram.
“I was there in Dr Biju’s previous film Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal and had been in the loop for this one too. I play this policeman who is doing his job as usual. He is a ridiculous character, but realistic,” Prakash says.
“He acts on behalf of the system applying huge power of forces on hapless people.” Prakash likes a scene in the film where a bunch of policemen, setting camp in a local school, spent one night playing cards, talking of Maoism among themselves.
“They have come to catch the Maoists they heard are in the area. And in that night conversation, the policemen ask among themselves the basic questions that no one really asks — like for instance, who or what is a Maoist. We, as a society, are fine-tuned to put some labels as these, without asking questions.”
Prakash had a good time watching the film at the IFFK last month. “It was a highly politically-conscious audience picking on every dialogue and responding to it.” He is quite comfortable with the label of an art house artiste. “People are after movies that ‘win’. But I want to stick with good movies; it doesn’t matter if they don’t win. I want to do the projects I like.”
One such project is Brown Nation, a sitcom series co-written by Matt Grubb, George Kanatt and Abi Varghese — the same Abi Varghese who made the popular sitcom Akkarakkazhchakal on American Malayalees. “I met him some time ago and we spoke about this series which is in English and I became one of the producers. It was released on Netflix last November.” Prakash believes that Netflix is going to create a revolution. “There is going to be a lot of demand for content.”
Prakash also continues with his IT work, shuttling between Bengaluru and Kerala, with a couple of annual visits to the US. But this has not stopped him from spending time on his passions — theatre and cinema. Prakash is now involved in three plays by N.N.Pillai, one of which he is directing. “There are a bunch of plays our theatre group — Blue Ocean — is working on, of Jayaprakash Kuloor and N.N.Pillai.”
