Oh-oh, so the news is that the infamous Tarun Tejpal sexual harassment case is being made into a film. Piyush Mishra, the man behind the adaptation, is a gifted actor, writer and balladeer, who hasn’t confirmed or denied the report yet.
The 50ish Mishra, a National School of Drama graduate, is associated in the public mind with Anurag Kashyap’s cinema ranging from 'Black Friday' and Gulaal to 'Gangs of Wasseypur'. In Wasseypur, he was the somewhat kinky gangster, who flagellates himself to suppress his sexual desires. Ummm, so you’re bound to wonder how the disgraced Tejpal will be flagellated?
And there’s another question: Will the journo and his family permit a film expose? Shekhar Kapur’s 'Bandit Queen' is just one instance, in which hackles were raised about the representation of Phoolan Devi. Silk Smitha’s surviving husband wasn’t amused at all by 'The Dirty Picture' either.
As for bids to “fictionalise” the life stories of Satyajit Ray, Guru Dutt and Raj Kapoor, these were scrapped following their families’ objections. The immensely dramatic and sometimes incredible life story of Kishore Kumar, however, is under the works, to be directed by Anurag Basu with his Barfi hero, Ranbir Kapoor.
The point this Sunday, however, hinges on the Tejpal story. It goes without saying that Bollywood was bound to jump on to the sensation wagon. Indeed, Sudhir Mishra whose Inkaar had turned out to be a clinker last year, is now hoping for a re-release by his producers Viacom 18. Reason: He believes sexual harassment at the workplace is more relevant than ever before. Right, you can go with that, even if the backdrop of Inkaar happened to be the advertising industry.
Post-the-Tejpal scandal and arrest, journalism, treated as a necessary evil by filmwallahs — loved for publicity, detested for any form of criticism — is now open to more bashing. Over time, you’ve seen a doltish journos enacted by junior artistes in ill-fitting suits and khadi kurta-jholas, at clumsily picturised press conferences. And over time, they’ve been either sharp sleuths like Feroz Khan was in the black-and-white Reporter Raju or they’ve been idealists who must bend their principles under duress, like Dilip Kumar did in Mashaal. Editor saab actually joined hands with the underworld. Quite jazzily, news reporters have flown in helicopters, too, like Parveen Babi did to cover a coalmine disaster in Kaala Patthar.
Unarguably, then, Bollywood’s journalists have been a figment of the imagination, untold leagues away from reality. Perhaps Ramesh Sharma’s New Delhi Times is the one exception, since it looked sharply at an editor’s dilemma, on being pressured by power politics. Ram Gopal Varma’s 'Rann', which sought to tread the same terrain, was much too convoluted to ring true. Madhur Bhandarkar’s 'Page 3', had some authentic vignettes, marred by flashes of crowd-baiting vulgarity. And women journos have been quite Barkha Duttish, zipping off to military camps, be it Preity Zinta in 'Lakshya' or Anushka Sharma in 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan'. Unlike Ms Dutta, though, they wore hot pants. Now, it could be argued that films have to exaggerate and entertain. So what’s wrong with some glam-sham licence? Correct, perhaps that’s why journalists have never objected to their representation on screen.
All things considered, the film on Tarun Tejpal — if it gets made — should be a significant case study. Can Bollywood ever approximate reality? Or will it be another licence to overkill?
