Uttarakhand – Through the Cinematic Eye

By Ananth Narayan Mahadevan

The aerial view from the flight as it lands in Dehradun is but a teaser. Uttarakhand, nestled in the Himalayas, is a pristine site for filmmakers with an eye for visual sweep.

The recce for my forthcoming film, PAST TENSE, curated by the indefatigable Satish Sharma, turned out to be uncanny. Every location I had described in the screenplay materialised, as though I had seen it all before. Satish Sharma is a multifaceted personality. He owns and publishes a prestigious English daily in Uttarakhand, The Garhwal Post, besides being a cinema aficionado. His comprehension of screenplay requirements could be the envy of production designers and executives in the mecca of cinema – Mumbai. Each outdoor and indoor location spread over Dehradun, Mussoorie and Rishikesh was meticulously shortlisted. This saved us several man hours and expense which would have been expended on a trial-and-error method to find the right spots.

My experience over the years filming at least 20 features spread over South-East Asia, England and Mauritius made me skeptical about line-producers who either depended on familiar terrain or shots-in-the-dark to supply the right locations for my scripts. The Uttarakhand experience was a pleasant departure. Three days of recce and precisely 26 days of shooting was just what the budget doctor ordered.

With funding for parallel cinema being hard to come by, producer Anup Poddar was cautious of PAST TENSE being filmed, factoring in time and money. The handpicked cast of Aditya Rawal, Paresh Rawal, Adil Husain, Sharib Hashmi, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Dolly Ahluwalia and Gagan Dev Riar, amongst others, feasted their eyes on the locales which probably injected the right energy into their portrayals of complex characters caught in complicated situations.

For a director like me, who is finicky about small details, the 23 locations spread over Dehradun, Mussoorie and Rishikesh posed a daily challenge. The scope of improvisation that the locales offered was fascinating. It proved the adage that movies are more improvised than directed. The locations were like canvases that offered me a brush to apply mild strokes upon. This contributed to the spontaneous moments that emerged, both, in crafting the movements and the natural approach of the performers.

Despite the hectic schedule, the inviting character of Uttarakhand enveloped you and calmed your senses. The homestays [a characteristic of the region] seemed to compete with each other for drawing guests and filmmakers like me. The thickets and the forests that surrounded most of these dwellings made the origins of a metropolis like Mumbai pale in comparison. Nature was the cradle of all life, and it would be hard to resist the temptation of settling down in a place like Dehradun.

But Mussoorie it was that captured my imagination. The picturesque valleys that pass by as you ascend the mountains to Mussoorie are a spectacle that will remain etched in memory. Mussoorie itself is no longer the quiet candy-bowl of the British era. More tourists than necessary have discovered it, turning it into a melting pot. Long time residents like Victor Banerjee and the legendary Ruskin Bond often wish the din would disappear and calm prevails again. Memories of Tom Alter, the gentleman actor and author, weighed heavily on my mind as I drove my way up. For him, Mussoorie was not just a town but a metaphor of sorts. The fairy tale like streets and shops, the wayside cafes, the clouds that descended and embraced you and the historic Picture Palace [now defunct] was poetry written all over. His books still adorn bookshops and his name evokes a rare kind of ecstasy amongst the people.

Satish Sharma was skeptical about getting an audience with Ruskin Bond, but his perseverance eventually bore fruit. On a cloudy evening, I wrapped my shoot at 5 p.m. to keep the 6 p.m. appointment with him. We traversed the narrow paths that led to “Mr Bond’s” dwelling. The steep steps up to his door were like characters from one of his stories. Mr Bond himself appeared to emerge from the pages of his much-loved novels. As a famous poet had said “kabhie hum unko, kabhi hum unke kamre ko dekh rahe thhe”. When he spoke, it was like an audio book. Precious memories, anecdotes and quotes filled the room, and I listened mesmerised. He had the ability to encapsulate an entire lifetime in 60 minutes. He swore he would continue to write because “if I don’t, I have no business to be alive”. He generously gifted me a compendium of his short stories, urging me to film any of them. The only thing he asked in return was “a role for me in your film”.

Satish Sharma’s conscientious work model made him approachable to the who’s-who of the State. While Mr Banshidhar Tiwari, the Director General of Information and Public Relations, along with Mr Nitin Upadhyay, the Joint CEO of the Uttarakhand Film Development Council, dropped in on our location for tea and a chat, the icing on the cake of the Uttarakhand schedule was an exclusive session with the Chief Minister, Shri Pushkar Singh Dhami. His endeavour towards making Uttarakhand a film friendly state was showing encouraging results in a short span of time. The tax licences offered are attractive and could prove mutually beneficial to the State and the Filmmaker. The State isn’t just film friendly, but extremely hospitable to filmmakers. The sumptuous lunches at several locations bear testimony.

More than a month’s time spent in Uttarakhand can seriously spoil you. Besides the fruitful energies expended at work, the environment had a hypnotic appeal that beckoned you to stay on. My mind is working overtime to accomplish this. One of Ruskin Bond’s stories if filmed there could do the trick. That would make a smooth transition from PAST TENSE to “future tense”.

(Ananth Narayan Mahadevan
is a renowned national award
winning actor and writer￾director. Besides carving a niche
in Marathi and Hindi films, he is
doyen of Hindi and English
theatre. He has written ‘Once
Upon A Prime Time’, a book on
his life journey of 40 years with
TV and cinema).