There were only two days left for the Independence Day. And Sangeeth Sivan sat listening to a man he had only recently met. He understood KC Loy was doing some serious work as a musician, in Bollywood, in Marati films and even a track for Life of Pi. He also understood Loy was in fact a Malayali who was brought up in Mumbai.
‘I want some stills taken,’ he was telling Sangeeth. He wanted to release it on August 15. Sangeeth looked at him and said, stills will not be effective, ‘Let’s make a video’.
Ab Nahi was shot in a day, released on India’s 69th Independence Day and went on to win the best music video award at the 4th Delhi Shorts International Film Festival.
He (Loy) releases something on special occasions, and this one was about the freedom of women in India,” Sangeeth Sivan says. The veteran director had to shoot the song on a budget. “I could do it for free but there are other things.” Luckily, there were more like him in Mumbai who would step forward to work for free when the work was good. Renju, a choreographer, also a Malayali, joined them. He brought to the team, Deepak, a cameraman. Loy took them to a small hall that belonged to his brother-in-law to shoot the video, and on the night of 13th, he brought in a Marathi actor Amruta.
“On 14th morning we started shooting, and by 2 am it was over. We slept for two hours, woke up at 5, edited the video and gave it at 6am,” Sangeeth remembers. Even the entry for the Delhi film festival was a last minute one. “I heard a day before it was the last date to send the entries. I believe that some things will just fall into place like that. Sometimes you wait for years, and it doesn’t happen.” Loy’s was a reaction to all the rapes happening in the country. “But I also wanted to stress on the fact that development is always associated with empowerment of women.”
Sangeeth’s last directorial venture in Malayalam was in 2000 — Snehapoorvam Anna. Twelve years later, he produced and wrote Idiots. But his most popular work continues to be ‘Yodha’. “I am planning one for next year. It might be in Tamil or Malayalam.”
There has also been a series of Hindi films in the 2000s. “It is not that I am completely staying away from Malayalam cinema. I do watch every movie that releases here (in Mumbai). I observe the change in grammar, the change in subjects, from the past. You have to understand the pulse of the audience. Pathemari was a pleasant surprise, I could empathise with the character. I was impressed with Moideen, and it is good that someone had invested in a new director. I loved the making of Rani Padmini, and a film like 7000 Kandi, we wouldn’t have thought of ten years ago.”
In recent times, Sangeeth has also ‘rediscovered’ his love for photography. It was only natural that he knew photography as a child growing up in a house full of cameras. “But my father used to say whatever you choose to become, you have to be the best in that. And in my family, my younger brother (Santosh) was too darn good in photography. It was not something I could go ahead with.”
He never thought digital would replace film, but then neither did he think mineral water would ever be ‘bought’ by people. One day, when he was taking it easy, having had some health issues, Sangeeth came upon a digital camera that his actor friend Riteish Deshmukh lent him. “I started clicking, and felt this is like any other film camera.”
When Riteish took back his camera, Sangeeth bought a new one. He studied photoshop, bought lights, and every Sunday turned his office into a studio, shooting lots of artistes. “My daughter used to tag along and one day she said she wanted to go for photography. Now I have to learn from her!”
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