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"Arre Chor Saala. Koi Baat Nahin. Yahin Pe Kar Lenge Premiere. Red Carpet Lagaoonga. Lamba Sa. For many hundreds of feet. Yes! Arre foreigners Ko Yahaan Bulaa Lenge. No London. No New York. Mumbai. Yes. What? Arre Forget it. Tell them to come here. We'll put them up in a great hotel – Hyatt. Yes Yaar."



Vidhu Vinod Chopra clicks his cell phone shut. He walks back vigorously to the interview chair. "Ya… Wait. Don't click while I'm talking. I'll get distracted," he warns the photographer. Then he obliges him with poses throughout his Santacruz office premises. The freshly painted courtyard outside. The steps. The window. "Flowers Ke Saath Chahiye? Such beautiful flowers! Ye flowers Nahin Dikhe Tujhein? " More poses with the flowers. All this is done rapidly and matter of factly. Like most of Chopra's dealings. Like the decision in the phone conversation quoted above. The 'premiere' being re-located was that of Eklavya – Chopra's multi-starring return to direction after seven years. During these seven years, Chopra has staked his claim as one of the Hindi film industry's biggest producers with Munnabhai MBBS, Parineeta and Lage Raho Munnabhai – three path-breaking Hindi movies as per critical and popular opinion. 20th Century Fox has bought the rights to the Munnabhai MBBS script. And his much spoken about "international production" which was baptized Chess first to be re-named The Fifth Move and now 64 Squares, may finally be seen soon.

But this alone does not arouse our interest in the man who boasts of having had as his assistant directors, "Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Sudhir Mishra and of course Raju Hirani". Both Hirani and Pradeep Sarkar were first time feature film directors when Chopra produced their films. Much as Sanjay Dutt was going through a career slump when he was baptized Munnabhai; as Hrithik Roshan and Vidya Balan were rank newcomers when signed on for Mission Kashmir and Parineeta; and as Saif Ali Khan was not a superstar when decided on as the main lead in the latter. What's more, Chopra has refused to go onto the sets of these films (when he isn't directing) or sign cheques so as to decide expenditure, lest it interfere with creative freedom. And finally, Chopra's mode of payment: "When I'm making a movie with any director or actor, there is really no payment upfront. If the film makes money, everybody makes money. If it doesn't, then nobody does. It's been like that since Parinda." What intrigues us however is how – since Parinda – his methods have worked.



EARLY LIFE

Born and brought up in Srinagar, Chopra graduated in Economics before studying direction at FTII. His website narrates an incident from his FTII admission interview: "'Who would give up a chance to do a doctorate from Cambridge University for a course in a government-run film school?' asked a professor on the admission committee. Vinod answered calmly, 'A mad-man'." "A second question which isn't put there was asked by Hrishikesh Mukherjee," Chopra remembers. "May we ask you Mr Chopra, why are you mad?" His answer: "Making films is a childhood fantasy, and in my case, the fantasy overrules the rational senses." Not everyone follows such fantasies, however. And that's a premise for his next film with Raj Kumar Hirani: "How most people kill their childhood fantasies!" When he declared the course of his fantastical pilgrimage, friends demurred: "You are so good in studies. Socha tha scientist ya professor banega. Kyon Bombay dhakka khaane ke liye jaa raha hai?" But his father met his decision with a common idiom, uniquely put. "He said, 'I don't care whether you're a filmmaker or a shoe maker in a lane!" Chopra quotes. " Lekin apni galli ka sabse achcha mochi banna!"

At film school, Vinod trained under teachers of the likes of legendary filmmakers Mani Kaul and Ritwick Ghatak. Ghatak refused to let him into class once till he had read the whole of Hamlet. The effort perhaps did pay off because a five minute short film on death and liberation shot by Vinod to demonstrate 'continuity' is still held an ideal model for the same at the institute. His student diploma film Murder at Monkey Hill on a hit man who falls in love with his target won him a National Award for Best Short Experimental Film. Post FTII, he shot An Encounter with Faces, which was literally such – a documentary which had direct conversations with various street children, directed and presented via an 'objective' POV. These conversations won him awards at the Oberhausen, Milan, Leipzig and Finland Film Festivals, the Golden Peacock at the International Film Festival Of India and something Lage Raho Munnabhai missed only recently – an Oscar nomination.

The man who today premieres a mega blockbuster with Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan, Vidya Balan and Sharmila Tagore started off on a more 'experimental' note. His first feature Sazaa-e-Maut revolved around an unemployed youth murdering his prospective employer. Khamosh, his next film, was one of the best suspense thrillers to emerge out of the 1980s. And then came the film that became a legend by virtue of redressing the quintessential criminal. "I didn't have a smuggler in a red muffler and coat! Never before had you seen a don in kurta pyajama and chappals!" Chopra had boasted about Parinda in an interview. Never before had you seen a don wearing a doctor's coat or spewing Gandhi's sayings either. Come to think of it, Chopra's two most critical turning points have emerged by redefining the Bhai stereotype.



THE AFTER TASTE OF SUCCESS

"In the beginning, they said I was ahead of my time. Then times caught up with me. I am the same. My cinema is the same. A Khamosh is very much of the same texture as a Parinda. It's just that the audience grew up," is Chopra's answer to the current commercial success of his films. Post Parinda, 1942 A Love Story saw an 80-lakh set being blown sky high at it's climax, even as the music of the film recovered most of the costs… leaving the rest, plus sizeable profits, for the box office. With Kareeb, Chopra met his commercial nemesis. Writer Suketu Mehta, who's dedicated a sub-chapter to him in his bestselling Maximum City (Chopra's is also one of the first names to be acknowledged) has written "After Kareeb he is about a crore in debt." Chopra had admitted, "Kareeb wasn't a film I had a great time making. Sanjay (Bhansali) was supposed to make his debut with it, but he made Khamoshi instead. I got slightly bored."

With his next project Mission Kashmir, Chopra went through every filmmaker's nightmare: the casting catharsis. As opposed to the Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, Chopra had to take on board Hrithik Roshan and Sanjay Dutt. Industry insiders whisper this was because of a disagreement as to payments to the stars. Nevertheless, Mission Kashmir did very well, in India and abroad – Sony/ Tristar buying the overseas rights made it the first Hindi film to open in Times Square New York, the city whose leading newspaper compared it to Costa Gavras' Z. With this film ranking in the top 50 US rentals rankings, Vinod Chopra Productions (VCP) went decisively 'global'.



THE WAY TO WORK





This brings us to what has made VCP the focal point of filmi conversations in an entirely different avatar: the producer alias the mentor. "It started because Raju Hirani couldn't find a producer. I don't like producing… I just did it for the love of Raju Hirani," Chopra starts on his advent into producing. "But now, I'm also doing Ram Madhvani's film and other films which I don't direct, because I realize I'm serving an important function: making cinema which no one else has the courage to make, but which would make Indians proud." We're on the first floor of his office now. Both Hirani and Madhvani are in the same room, watching the trailer to Madhvani's film (shot with Amitabh Bachchan). Madhvani, director of Let's Talk and winner of a bronze at the Cannes has been associate director for Chopra. The trailer being produced so quickly into the production of the film reminds one of another of Mehta's lines in Maximum City: "For Vinod, step one in the creation of a film is its publicity."

VCP's last 3 successes Munnabhai MBBS, Parineeta and Lage Raho Munnabhai has arisen from Chopra choosing the right people to back, and allowing them that crucial autonomy . On choosing, Chopra informs: "Affection, love, honesty – which are age old values – still hold good for me. More than an established star or director, the person concerned has to be a good human being." He then tells us how Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan and Sanjay Dutt were on location at Rajasthan, a week before the camera rolled, just rehearsing their scenes. "The trick is I don't think how much someone will sell. I don't have time for brats or an idiot who thinks he is a star." On the autonomy he gives his directors, Chopra theorises: "I have great affection for those I choose as directors. Also I don't have any great ambitions like owning a studio or opening a distribution company or having a public company worth 1000 crores. Hence I have no insecurity about my films. I want to make films till the day I die. That's it." He then bends over to confide, chuckling, "Let me tell you a little secret. Not only did I not go for Ram's (Madhvani's) trailer's shooting yesterday, I'd completely forgotten that it was happening! It was only when Ram phoned me to say it was over that I remembered!" Chopra had explained this autonomy earlier: "When I make a movie, as much as I like Francis Ford Coppola, I would not allow him onto my set because then the actors would look at him for approval and not me."

We move from people (skills) to topics. Chopra has made (slowly but surely) an array extending from gangster to thriller to romance to historical to comedy to epic. How does he choose his subjects? "The first criteria is entertainment. Nowadays film tickets cost upto Rs 200. So someone shouldn't say after having spent Rs 1000 on his family, kya rona dhona lagaa ke rakha hai. They should feel it is worth Rs 1000. The second is what I'm 'saying'. People should feel a little richer – in experience – at the end of the movie, like what happened with Gandhigiri." For someone who's studied complex, cinematic masters in film school, Chopra distills every principle down to a simple adage – sounding very like what his father had recommended about being the best shoemaker in his lane.

To develop his ideas as a writer, Chopra writes every morning… till lunch time. "I spend a lot of time with myself," he smiles, the strong twang of a Punjabi accent matching every "fundamental value" he pronounces. "I am not in any rat race." Chopra takes time over his movie, he says, because he wants to make movies he will love to see. "The idea of Eklavya – The Royal Guard came up because Amitabh Bachchan came on TV in Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai and said, 'You'd better work with me or I'll bash you up.' I started developing the script as a tribute to that fine actor," he claims. "And since then I developed the script – for five years – creating other major characters played by Saif, Sanjay… and others." While Chopra admits to Eklavya being his "epic project" his other dream film – now called 64 Squares is due next. The project – also being developed for a very long time – was supposed to star Dustin Hoffman, with Chopra later adding: "There is no positive word from Hoffman. I'm planning to offer the role to Anthony Hopkins." He informs us today that 64 Squares will be made in Princeton with Amitabh Bachchan playing a retired professor of Chemistry. It will be made in both English and in Hindi. He points out that his writing process being so long means that there is no one point where an inspiration moves the story… it's an amalgamation of many days' work. Or as quoted by Mehta: "The harder I work, the luckier I get." Yet another idiom. As quoted by Chopra: "I write, storyboard and pre-determine every scene. Then I go to the set – and change everything…"

Mehta also discloses in his book a "secret" written contract whereby Chopra promises to pay Sanjay Dutt Rs 25,00,000 if Mission Kashmir works, a token sum of Rs 0 if it doesn't, and a Rs 25,00,000 bonus if it succeeds. While Chopra had generally denounced Mehta's book as something that "should be banned", he is quite open (as stated at the onset) about having such terms of employment. "When Raju Hirani made Munnabhai MBBS, his payment for the film went up to 21 lakhs, then 31 lakhs then 51… and finally more than a crore! For the second Munnabhai, it went upto 4 crores!" He emphasizes. "This is not because of a legal contract! It is a heartfelt thing – a producer's dharma to share money when he makes it. I have not signed any 'letter' with Amitabh Bachchan for my film. Only that 'I will pay you when the film is released'." He adds: "The income tax guys are very confused with me. But as long as I pay my taxes, no one can tell me how to lead my life!"

Mission Kashmir's Times Square release and Chopra's aspirations of a Hollywood film were crowned by Fox's purchase of the Munnabhai MBBS script. "I am looking at becoming global by becoming local," Chopra gives us his most complex idiom yet. "The Taj Mahal was a global monument made by a king for his queen. Shakespeare didn't write Hamlet for us who read it hundreds of years later in Mumbai – he wrote it for Globe theatre!' Similarly Vidhu Vinod Chopra will make his films locally, but market them globally "by being very damn good at my work!" He then goes on to say, "Even after making Lage Raho Munnabhai, we didn't market Mahatma Gandhi, because we didn't want to." His Punjabi accent gets even more pronounced with his mounting excitement, so much so that he holds the Dictaphone in his own hand . Still, don't those clouds that transform into a shape of Gandhi's head during the promos, spectacles et all, amount to a marketing teaser?

We're driving down to his home now. Chopra's in a hurry because he's asked his child to stay awake so he can have a father-son heart-to-heart before sleep. But the caring father has other sides to him. Chopra once slapped a critic for insulting his wife, refused to attend the Filmfare awards because it was sponsored by a tobacco company and did attend a police organized meeting to speak out against the underworld when many had warned him not to. "If you're honest you will do exactly what I do," he claims. "Things become simply correct or incorrect. It has a lot to do with the fact that I come from a small town like Srinagar. Values like what my father said about being honest to one's work are ingrained in me. Honesty enables you to take stands." Mehta, in his book, claims the underworld threat on Chopra was alleviated because of Sanjay Dutt: "Sanjay had called up his old colleague (Abu Salem) and reminded him, 'Vinod is like my brother. He stood by me when I was in jail.'" Finally, as we approach his house off Carter Road, we ask him about Mehta, who wrote in detail of his business and personal life. Chopra had reacted in earlier interviews with statements like "I'll sue his pants off" and "If he were to come in front of me now, I'll slap him." To us he says: "Absolutely no comment. It's like tomorrow, after this wonderful time with me, you write some piece of s***. I'll wish you well… you lead your life, I'll lead mine." Call it filmy, but we'd reached his house by then… and parted ways.