National Award winning director Madhur Bhandarkar on starting out rock bottom – and why his films fight the system
Madhur’s is a classic poor-boy-makes-it-good story but its truth lies in the untold details. A boy who dropped out of school at age 6 may have been seething with ambition but it was his years as a “video-cassette boy”, delivering tapes of the latest releases to everyone from chawl-residents to A-lister bungalows, from actors and politicians to labourers needing to shut out the relentless hopelessness of their days, that gave him a unique insight into the psychology of every level of Indian society.
It seems to have protected something fundamental in him because Madhur remains incredibly humble despite the success he went on to achieve with films like Chandni Bar and Fashion, and told with wit and without rancour the story of how he went from delivery boy to failed filmmaker – his first film, a commercial potboiler called Trishakti, flopped without ceremony – and still came back to make the movies that have meaning in his life.
But it was when he spoke of Indu Sarkar and the self-censorship that had already preceded the film’s public censorship battle that he was most sobering, reminding us that the truly insidious nature of censorship is when it afflicts you inside out.
Watch the full session above.
