NEW DELHI, Jan 17: At film school, he walked out of Kurosawa's Roshomon. Yet he is a film maker, and a good one at that. No one among the film-loving janta at Siri Fort had a clue as to who Subhas Agarwal was until his curiously-titled Rooi Ka Bohj was screened.One of the 13 films in the Indian Panorama, Rooi Ka Bojh is the unwitting gem of this year's selection. Set in a village somewhere in India, it is a funny yet poignant story of an irritable grandfather living an unhappy life with his sons, their squabbling wives and children.
Agarwal tells his story simply and with such a flourish that it has bowled over everyone who has viewed it. Critics agree that he is undoubtedly the find of the festival. National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), the producers of the film, would do well to release the film in theatres across India.
``For 15 years now, I have been working as a sound engineer, and if I may add, I am one of the busier ones in the Bombay film industry,'' says
Agarwal by way of introduction. ``I started by doing sound for the TV serial Buniyaad, and later went on to do films like Parinda, Kabhi Ha Kabhi Na and Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman.''
How was Rooi Ka Bojh made? ``I am an avid reader of old books,'' he said, ``and during 1984-85, about four years after I graduated from the Pune film institute, I picked up this book Gawa Gair Hazir.''
Written by Chandra Kishore Jaiswal, a teacher at the Bhagalpur Engineering College, this little-known book is wonderful in its treatment of this age-old problem, says Agarwal. ``Soon, I was writing the script.''
Even though most of his friends discouraged him, saying that a story dealing with old people would tend to get verbose and boring, Agarwal went ahead with his plans and submitted his script in 1989 to Doordarshan which did not respond to him. This prompted him to try his luck with NFDC in November 1996. To his amazement, his script was approved, and by February 1997, he started work on the
film.
Shot in Agarwal's ancestral village home in Roorkee within a budget of Rs 30 lakh, Rooi Ka Bojh boasts of brilliant performances by Pankaj Kapoor, Raghuveer Yadav and Rima.
Rooi Ka Bojh is an exercise in spartan film-making that lets the content decide the form. Paced leisurely and filmed meticulously, Agarwal and cameraman Mahesh Chandra capture rural India in all its splendour without going over-board. The village remains a village, and does not get kitschy with the typical sunset and sunrise scene. The story is a King Lear of our times.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
