English Vinglish Interactions with Mr R. Balki and Ms. Gauri Shinde

The interactive session with Ms. Gauri Shinde and Mr. R. Balki, prominent Hindi movie directors of English Vinglish, Paa and Cheeni Kum fame and popular ad film makers was an exciting opportunity to understand creative aspects of film-making.

In this session, two IB students studying ‘Language and Literature’ and ‘Literature and Performance’ interviewed the couple on varied aspects of their academic studies. While the former focussed on the role of media, persuasive elements, gender and power structures in the films, the latter addressed performance and stagecraft elements among other aspects.

The rendezvous began with the directors narrating anecdotes about fostering their passion for film-making and their early days in the world of advertising, Ms. Shinde’s candid, matter-of-fact responses complemented by Mr. Balki’s dry humour. This was followed by a discussion of casting choices for their movies. While Mr. Balki’s affinity for Mr. Amitabh Bacchan was a driving force in his movies, Ms. Shinde’s discovery of Ms. Sridevi for the role of ‘Shashi’ in English Vinglish was coincidence, the crux of the matter being that casting the right actors goes a long way in ensuring the success of a film.

We then discussed the standoff between ‘commercial’ and ‘intellectual’ movies and whether success is defined by box-office collections or critical acclaim, with the directors firmly establishing that every movie is ‘commercial’, the popularity solely depending on the connect with the audience.

Finally, the ad gurus elucidated the differences in ad-making and film-making with interesting examples and engaged in a series of questions by the students about the development and scope of Indian cinema.

For us it was an insightful, engaging experience, the gist being that creativity is not just about putting on one’s thinking caps and radiating brilliant brainwaves, but about seeing those ideas through till the end. The best learning experience was to see the creative aspects of our course come out alive in the context of the real world.