Like it is almost customary, while wrapping up the almost half-an-hour interview with filmmaker J.P. Dutta ahead of his film Paltan’s release, I ask him if he has decided on his next project. He doesn’t say anything, but gestures pointing his hand upwards. It’s all in God’s hands, “He’ll show me the path,” he means. That stretches the conversation further.
68-year-old Dutta has always been a believer, a staunch one too. “I am just a medium in the hands of the almighty,” he says and adds, “If it were not for the grace of Goddess Saraswati, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing. Often, people ask me about the shots I have taken, and I only say it’s he working the magic.” He understands that filmmaking is a technical art, but then he can’t negate that “he has been the chosen one.”
He talks about some of the great artistes from India—Raj Kapoor, Lata Mangeshkar, Mohamamed Rafi—who have always maintained that God blessed them with the talent. “All the greats believe that,” he says with a smiling disclaimer, “I am not great though, I am just a small human being.”
Before we realise, the conversation has taken a nostalgic turn. Dutta remembers the time his father, O.P. Dutta, also a director, took him to the sets of K. Asif’s Mughal-e-Azam when the song, Jo Wada Kiya… was being shot. He says life has been too good to him. He has worked with and been touched by some of the greats in the industry, he says, remembering the film Bandhua that got shelved soon, for which he had collaborated with Kaifi Azmi. He says with a sense of pride that he has had the pleasure of working with Azmi.
He was very young during the filming of Mughal-e-Azam. Asif had lifted him up in his arms and told him in his bold, loud voice, “Director banega? [Will you become a director?]” It rang true since his childhood. “Since the time I was in class 5 or 6, I knew I had to become a film director and my brother always knew he wanted to be a fighter pilot,” he says.
It’s the association of his family with the forces that drew his interest towards the subject with Border (1997) that he decided to turn into a war-trilogy. He followed it up with LOC Kargil (2003), and now Paltan, the September 7 release starring Arjun Rampal, Sonu Sood among others, completes it. The film tells the story of the clash between Indian military forces and the Chinese army at Nathu La and Cho La in 1967.
Dutta came across the subject during conversations with his friends in the armed forces. “They spoke about this battle (which India won) and I felt that this story needs to be told. As a country, we need encouragement. We need to feel good about ourselves, instead of thinking that China is more powerful or any other country for that matter is more powerful,” he says.
The Nathu La and Cho La clashes began on September 11, 1967, alongside the border of the Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim, then an Indian territory. The initial turbulence went on for four days, before the clashes began again in October of that year. But Indian troops stood their ground and forced the Chinese soldiers to withdraw at Cho La. The Indian army, however, stood ground, reclaiming Sikkim, which then joined the Indian union as a state in 1975.
For the film, like for his earlier war films, Dutta met the soldiers and their families. He brings up a line in the trailer of Paltan: A soldier doesn’t die when he is shot at, but when he is forgotten. “In my own way, I make my contributions, now that I am on this earth,” he says. “Everyday something is happening in the lives of the soldiers sitting at the borders, families are being destroyed forever. We need to give them the credit.”
More often than not, war films and now even sports biopics that end up showing clashes between India-Pakistan, has been termed too jingoistic in nature. Dutta, however, feels we are taking things out of context. “Jingoism, you must understand, is being used too often by most of the people. The word is ridiculously applied to the country. India has never been an aggressor, has never attacked another nation or grabbed any territory. We have always been invaded and been enslaved by foreigners. People using the word must re-look the meaning of the word in the dictionary. Once that happens, you will realise that the word doesn’t apply to India at all, and that should be the end of it.”
With Paltan, Dutta has also got back to direction after 12 years. His last being Umrao Jaan (2006). In the interim, a lot has changed. His father, who collaborated as a writer on all his scripts, is no more. That left a vacuum in his life and the process of filmmaking. He recalls how his assistant directors and technicians who have been with him since the time of Yateem (1988) dissuaded him from the idea of bringing in a writer. “They said I won’t be able to work with anyone, and that it would be better to write the script on my own. They gave me a lot of strength that I can do it.” He fiddled with the idea for a bit, and then wrote the film himself.
Another big change has been the advent of the digital cameras, but he is happy with the change. Umrao Jaan was shot completely on celluloid, and he has been surprised how digital cameras gave him the freedom to shoot without any limitations.
Besides, the promotional campaigns around films, are a bigger change. Dutta has adjusted to it —attending press conferences, media interviews and other activities, but he loves his privacy. “I have never been social. I have always let my work speak for me, and it will remain that way even now,” says Dutta who says he is not governed by the box-office collection. “What I am happy about is that the little number of films that I have done, I have never stooped low or played to the gallery. I have done what I had to do with a certain class, and I want it to remain like that.”