The pandemic for actor and filmmaker Renuka Shahane was not all that bad. She considers herself to be privileged that she got time to spend with her family. In an interview with Outlook’s Lachmi Deb Roy, she talks about how Tribhanga being fictionalised speaks a lot about her life and motherhood in general. Being a positive person and always looking at the brighter side of life, she feels that the pandemic was a great time to reflect and retrospect and finish the post-production of her film. In her conversation, she mentions how her childhood pain and the fact that she came from a broken family has been depicted in the film. Excerpts:
Q) Why the name Tribhanga?
I, for the longest time, loved Odissi dance and I even tried learning it in the nineties. But then I was just too busy with my television work so I couldn’t continue. But the dance has stayed with me and I love the posture tribhanga. It’s so beautiful and because it is imperfect, I find it so magical. So, when it came to writing the script, I felt it to be the perfect metaphor for the three women.
Q) How did the story happen and how much were you influenced by your own life?
I wanted to write something for the Mumbai Mantras Screen Writer’s workshop in 2013. Long ago in the nineties, an acquaintance had mentioned how she was very happy to get married because she hated her mother. That almost casual remark from her stayed with me because I found it so different from the way I looked at my mother because my mother and I share an extremely close relationship. In fact, whatever I am, I kind of attribute what my mother has passed down to me. So, I think if I didn’t have that kind of foundation of trust, friendship, love and respect for my mother, what would I have been? Could I turn out to be a rebel, the way I am? The characters are Marathi from the world of literary art and all that I have experienced through my mother as well as myself. So that came naturally to me. That was how I started off with. Of course, Masha, the third generation, happened because I felt the true perspective wasn’t really enough. I wanted a sort of circularity to the whole thing and how it had become cyclical almost. That’s how Masha came into the picture. I took three years to complete the script. The process continued even after that because there was an end number of drafts. It was only in 2018 I felt that the script had come to a point when I could pitch it to the producers. Luckily for me, Sidharth Malhotra loved it when I narrated it to him. And he backed it completely and it was he who suggested Kajol’s name and that’s how she came on board. She loved the script too and then everything else fell into place.
Q) How much do you relate to the characters?
I think any writer will have some part of him/herself otherwise there will be a detachment. So, when I write scripts, they are reflections of me and what I have read and observed. It’s an amalgamation of all of that. All three women characters are parts of me. I would love to be that unfiltered Anu at various times in my life. Masha again is very close to the person I am and the choices that I make.
Q) My mother, my inspiration…
Whatever I am, I attribute it to my mother. She means the world to me. I am part of this performing art because she was interested in it herself. Giving me the exposure and telling me to do well not just in academics, but also in extracurricular activities is all because of my mother. Today, whatever I am is because of her.
Q) You were a popular face on television and even Shah Rukh Khan’s first heroine, how did direction happen?
It was in 1988, I was called to assist Dr Vijaya Mehta for a serial called ‘Lifeline -Jeevan Rekha’ which was shown on Doordarshan. The education and training I got on the sets, kind of excited me to become a director. Actually, I never wanted to become an actor, I wanted to become a director and she had also asked me to act on Lifeline. But after ‘Circus’, I took up acting as a profession. Acting was happening continuously one after the other and so my dream of directing took a backseat. And I was getting really good offers. So, only when I took a sabbatical from acting and had my children, that’s when I started adopting my mother’s novel into a screenplay. I directed my first film Rita in 2009. It did commercially and critically well. After this, I thought I would direct every two or three years, but life had other plans. It was in 2013 when I wrote Tribhanga, I felt it was a story I was compelled to tell the world.
Q) How is your coming from a broken family depicted in the film?
A lot of my childhood pain is reflected in the film but in a fictionalised way. Society doesn’t accept certain things and there is a certain box that a normal family is supposed to be like and if anybody ticks boxes outside, then people around you try to bring it out on the children. They forget that children have nothing to do with any of these decisions.
Q) Who are the filmmakers you have been influenced by?
Guru Dutt, I am extremely influenced by him. Then Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray, Raj Kapoor, Bimal Roy and Rishikesh Mukherjee whose work I really admire. Among the recent ones are Mani Ratnam, Rajkumar Hirani and Sooraj Barjatya. In fact, Sooraj Barjatya has been one of the biggest influences in my life. I would consider him my indirect guru. My direct guru of course is Dr Vijaya Mehta. I owe Sooraj Barjatya a lot because I really got to see how he worked and how he went about the detailing of characters. He was kind enough to allow me to come earlier than my makeup time and sit on the sets and observe how things work.
Q) Creative freedom in OTT platform…
I am actually very glad as a creator to have an OTT platform. It has definitely supported women’s voices in a very big way. And they allow you to talk about content which stretches the boundaries. I also like the way OTT functions. They are so respectful of your creative freedom. OTT has enhanced the sensibilities of our audience as well.
Q) What do you have to say about censorship, how okay are you with it as a filmmaker?
I don’t think there is any concept of absolute freedom anywhere in the world. It’s like you have to put yourself in the shoes of somebody. Like for example, I get trolled very often on social media, but if it is abusive trolling then I have the right to file an FIR against those abusive trolls because they are doing something that is against community guidelines. In the name of freedom, you cannot just say anything that comes to your mind or defame or disrespect people’s religion. That is not allowed anywhere in the world. I feel there are certain things that creative people should also adhere to.
