And/Or

And/Or

"Even when I'm filming, I'm actually editing!"

Hrishikesh Mukherjee, writer, editor and filmmaker, passed away on August 27, 2006. Subhash Gupta (Editing 1965) pays a fond tribute to his guru in a conversation with Jabeen Merchant (Editing 1995).



Your first job after leaving the Institute was with Hrishikesh Mukherjee…

Yes. I came to Bombay in July 1965, and heard that he was looking for editing assistants. In August I joined him.

He was already quite a big name at that time. So what was it like, could you just go and approach him?

It took some time for me to get to meet him. I went to his house and didn’t manage, then he called me to another place. Finally he said, “Why don’t you come to FTII, I’m going there for the convocation.” But I couldn’t go because I was short of money. Later when I met him he said, “Arre you didn’t come, I declared there that you are assisting me.” So after that he was bound to take me.

How was he associated with the FTII? Did he go there to teach?

Do you know Hrishida was awarded a diploma from FTII? Three people were awarded honorary diplomas in the beginning. Satyajit Ray, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and the third name I forget… I think it was Ritwick Ghatak. So he used to say, “Arre main toh tumhaara FTII graduate hoon.” He had a liking for the Institute and spoke very fondly about Vinod Chopra, Raman Kumar and others whom he met when visiting there.

How long did you work as his assistant?

I assisted him for 4 or 5 years. When Hrishida worked, there was no system of assigning people to one particular film. All his assistants worked on everything and then he would figure out who was to be paid by which producer and whose name would go in which film’s credits. That way, I’ve worked on almost all his films. I think he directed 42 films in all, and I joined during his 8th film.

You know, he used to edit for others as well. One film we did was Yakeen (1969), where Deven Verma was the producer and he was editor. There was also another assistant senior to me, whom Deven Verma was not very happy with. So when he started his next film, to avoid that person, he didn’t take Hrishida as editor and decided to ask me instead. Hrishida said, “Yes, you can take Subhash, he’s good.” So that is how I got a chance to become an editor.

Then I left Hrishida, because in our association the rule is that you can either be an assistant or a full editor, not both together. Afterwards one day he called me and said, “You cannot be away from me.” Then he gave me Chupke Chupke (1975) to edit. After that I worked with him on almost everything, until Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate (1998). I even produced a film which he directed, Naram Garam (1981).

He himself started as an editor…

Yes, with Bimal Roy. But he was also involved in scripting and shooting. For Do Bigha Zameen (1953) he wrote the script, was chief assistant director and editor. For Madhumati (1958) too, he was involved in the scripting along with Ritwick Ghatak.

The first film Hrishida scripted and directed was Musafir (1957) which was a disaster commercially. But Dilip Kumar, who acted in it, was very impressed with him. So when Raj Kapoor wanted to start a new project, Dilip Kumar recommended him. That’s how Hrishida directed Anari (1959), starring Nutan and Raj Kapoor. That became quite a hit. Then of course other films followed. Anuradha (1960) was an off-beat subject, starring Leela Naidu and Balraj Sahni, with music by Pt Ravi Shankar. It was an experimental film and it won the National Award. That established him as a director.

They say, when an editor directs a film he brings a different sensibility to it.

Definitely. An editor will never take a shot which he knows he is not going to keep. Hrishida was absolutely sure what a film was going to look like after editing.

He used to work very fast. Mostly, he would shoot a film in about 30 days, and consume around 30 rolls. That meant 12,000 feet edited out of 30,000. Quite a good ratio, isn’t it? In the evening he would ask his assistant, “How many one-take oks did we get today?” Then he would calculate and tell me, “I think today we will get 600 feet edited length.” He used to say, “Even when I’m shooting I am actually editing.” And if you look at Hrishida’s films, you know they are not great from the point of view of taking. Sometimes you feel, “Arre ek shot mein hi thok diya.” But he would say, you don’t have to dress up every scene. You need to decorate some parts, but others are only for information. That’s the way he thought, I can’t say whether it was right or wrong…

But it worked!

Yes, it worked.

He didn’t make very big budget films, maybe that was the reason.

He was a producer’s director. He used to say, “Producer bachega toh main bhi bach jaoonga.” If the producer is killed, how will he make another film and how will I get work?

During Naram Garam Amol Palekar didn’t have dates for us. When I told Hrishida, he said, “Don’t do anything, I’ll fix it.” He called up and said, “Amol, agle mahine char din rakh le mere liye” and of course Amol couldn’t refuse. Then on the sets, as he was leaving he would say, “You’ll come at 8 tomorrow morning, won’t you?” And Amol would say, “Yes dada.”

At the time of Chupke Chupke, Amitabh was a big star but Hrishida decided to dress him only in kurtas, and that too old ones. So he saved plenty of the producer’s money. Finally one day Amitabh said to him, “Dada, half the film is finished, there hasn’t been a single costume made for me yet, I keep bringing my own old clothes. Could I get one new kurta at least?” So then he took Amitabh’s measurements, sent someone to the market and got him a kurta from the roadside stalls. He would say, “You don’t need expensive costumes always. Anything can be made to look good on the screen, and even the most expensive things can end up looking ordinary.”

I’ve heard a story about Chupke Chupke, with Dharmendra…

Yes, for one particular scene, Sharmila Tagore and Keshto were there but Dharmendra just didn’t show up for the shoot. When he finally arrived, Hrishida took only one shot, where Dharmendra is emerging from somewhere adjusting his trousers as if he has just come from the bathroom. He said, the idea is conveyed, why waste another day. Tomorrow I have Jaya’s dates, if I postpone this, my whole schedule will be delayed.

He worked with so many big stars, how did he deal with them?

Saam, daam, dand, bhed. He used it all. During our last film Anil Kapoor once said, “Dada my acting is bad in this scene, let’s reshoot it.” Hrishida told him, “Tum kya Dilip Kumar ho? Raj Kapoor ho? Your acting is the same in every film. The question of good and bad doesn’t arise.” He would put people in their place, but in such a way that they never minded it.

We used to call him Managing Director. During the making of Anand (1970), Rajesh Khanna was a superstar, and you know superstars don’t bother about directors, even if they are super directors. So he would not give much time, come late and all that. You must have seen the song “Zindagi kaisi hai paheli hai.” That was shot on the beach in one day. Rajesh Khanna wasn’t giving us dates, and then when he came, he didn’t remember the lyrics of the song. So Hrishida told him, just say “Zindagi” and then turn your back to the camera. You can go on singing whatever you like after that, I’ll handle it. So if you look at that song, it’s not properly taken. The only good shots are Amitabh Bachchan’s reactions.

What was it like working with him? How was he in the editing room?

He used to say, editing is not only about continuity, rhythm and all that. Editing is also about making a joint. Don’t think that the physical aspect of editing is unimportant. If you can’t rewind the film properly, I don’t consider you a good editor. Many times he would say to me, “I want to relax, let me splice some shots for you.”

We edited Chupke Chupke without a movieola. It had been ordered from abroad and got delayed. All we had was a 35 mm pic-sync. I asked him, how do I synchronize the songs on this? He said, “Very simple. You’ve got the close-up, you know what line he’s singing. Suppose it’s “Chupke Chupke Chal ri Purvaiyaa.” The first time you get a ‘p’ the lips will meet. So mark all the frames where the lips meet, then mark all the ‘p’s and ‘b’s on the sound roll, then try to keep all those dots parallel.” So that’s how we edited the entire film. Only for the last 5 days, when we wanted to check everything, we went to another place and ran it.

Then during Golmaal (1979), I was busy elsewhere so I sent my assistant for the negative cutting. One day there was a cricket match, so they packed up at 6. Hrishida called the editing room and nobody answered the phone. So he went there and started cutting the negative himself with the attendant. At night someone called me to say, “Hrishida is working all alone.” I rushed there and said, “What are you doing here?” “I don’t depend on anybody,” he replied. I told him “Don’t worry, I’ll come and finish it in the morning” but he wouldn’t listen.

And when he cut negative, he wouldn’t even look at the edgecode numbers. He’d say, “I’m an editor, I can look at the negative and see the shot. I might want to change the cut, if I realize that something needs a few extra frames, I have the option to do it here.” Nowadays the editor hands over the negative to someone else for cutting, he used to hate that. He said, “I will never give my negative to anybody. If you can’t cut it, I’ll do it. How can it be done mechanically by someone else?” He cut the entire negative of Golmaal in 24 hours. I had to plead with him and promise that I would do it myself, only then did he go home. He was childlike, sometimes you had to go through that with him.

It’s remarkable that, even while he was directing his own films he continued to edit for others. I know so many editors nowadays who want to become directors and switch over completely.

Hrishida used to say, “I enjoy editing much more. What is direction? You’re transfering the material onto film. But editing is where you actually make it work.” Also, he used to say, editing an entire film is very different from putting together a single scene. When you join them all, that is when editing starts.

I remember he was editing Professor Pyarelal (1981) and he got 1000 feet of rushes for a chase sequence. He said to the director, “I can put in all the good shots, I can make it 9000 feet long or 100 feet. But the point is not to cut a beautiful chase. Actually it might be better to use some of the bad shots. Unless I know how the characters in this chase are related in the film, I cannot give it the correct shape. There is no point in just joining shots together.”

How come he didn’t want to edit all of his own films?

There was too much work to be done. He was busy scripting, planning the shoot and directing. He used to say, “I have trained you to understand what I want.” Also, he didn’t like that, ‘Edited, Directed, Written by…’ He would say, “Somebody else should be the editor. After all, he too has aspirations, why should I take the credit for everything?”

That’s incredible. People don’t normally do that.

He was extremely generous. People don’t know, but he used to write his own dialogue too. Take Anand, for example. Raj Kapoor used to call him babumoshai during the making of Anari. They became good friends, and everyone knew RK’s lifestyle in those days. Hrishida would say, “He drinks so much, leads such a life, what if he gets some disease like cancer?” Raj Kapoor would reply, “Toh kya hua, zindagi jitne din hai, jeena hai…” So from that idea, Hrishida wrote the script for Anand. He used to say, “Every line here I have been thinking about for the last 25 years.” And yet, the writer’s credit is Gulzar. I asked him why he didn't put his own name in. He replied, “It’s not like that. Gulzar has added some lines which have transformed the whole thing. Uske bina sab pheeka ho jaata.”

His Hindi was weak, but he could judge which lines were good or bad and he knew exactly what he wanted. Also, about scripting he would say, “If you want your characters to look genuine on screen, each one must have a solid background.” Whether or not you show it on the screen, you must imagine it all. The heroine’s father is a doctor, mother is a housewife, she has a younger brother… that will tell you how that character will behave. Otherwise she will appear irrational. And when he narrated the part to an actor, each person hearing him felt, “This is my film.” He narrated even side characters in such a way that each person felt he was important.

Tell us about his last film, Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate. There was a lot of hype around it, since he was making a comeback after so long. But it didn’t do well.

Hrishida had almost retired in ’86, he was not so physically fit. He had gout and things like that. Sitting at home, he was getting bored because he knew nothing else except making films. So he made a few TV serials when people approached him. Then Bhappi Soni, who was himself a producer-director, brought this proposal to make a film. He said, “I will arrange everything and assist you.” He practically forced Hrishida to make that film. Polygram, the producers, wanted it to be like Golmaal. So if you see Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate it looks like a bad repetition of his old films.


When it flopped, people said now his time is past, that style is outdated.

Hrishida never bothered about all those things. He said, “I want to help Bhappi Soni” and he did it.

He said, “Subhash, do you know how much they are paying me?” Until then he had never been paid more than 2 ½ lakhs for any film. These people paid him 30 lakhs. Not that he required money for himself, but he felt it would be good for his assistants, they too had been unemployed. He knew it was not going to work, it was not upto his standards. He wasn’t happy with it. But then, he couldn’t say no to anybody.

Do you think he could have changed his style?

He would say, “Today’s songs, they are not for melody, they are for your eyes. Different colours and visuals. Whether or not they convey anything, they please your eyes. You don’t even know what the lyrics are.” He couldn’t do that kind of thing. His kind of storytelling has now moved to television. But it’s all right, times have to change. Actually, he continued for a very long time, 50 years is a very long time.

“While a film is getting made, from the way the shoot is going, the director can tell what its fate will be,” he used to say. “It’s like being with a cancer patient. You can see what's happening in front of you,
but you can’t do anything about it.” But then, he would say, if you like your own film it is definitely going to be liked by other people. Irrespective of the box office, if we enjoy the process of making it, that is our return. So why not enjoy making it?