HITS AND HEARTBREAKS

Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali talks about redeeming himself with the extraordinary Chamkila, dealing with star-studded setbacks, and why we've forgotten to make love stories.

- ANKUR PATHAK

I USUALLY HAVE a hard time justifying why a character in my movie would suddenly break into a song,” Imtiaz Ali says, while juggling between different looks at GQ’s Men of the Year photo-shoot in Bandra. “Which is why maybe I gravitate towards stories of musicians. They lend a creative justification for my characters to sing.”

He’s comfortable expressing his editorial voice through music. “It’s my way of revealing a character’s secret to the viewer. It’s similar to what we see in desi theatre: The protagonist could be struggling with something, but it’s people in the background who vocalize their tragedy through songs.”

If we were to think of a filmmaker whose stories capture the millennial dating conundrum with a great degree of emotional authenticity, it would be Imtiaz Ali. Sure, Yash Chopra still remains the presiding overlord of Bollywood romance, but Ali’s cinema speaks a more accessible language of modern love, while retaining the classical tropes of the quintessential Hindi film.

His films feature urban characters negotiating the emotional minefield of love and heartbreak while balancing niche careers in cities that heighten their isolation, intensify their yearning, and make them question their identity. Whether it’s Geet from Jab We Met (2007), Jai and Meera from Love Aaj Kal (2009), Jordan from Rockstar (2011), or Ved from Tamasha (2015), Ali’s characters are fundamentally at war with established norms and societal morality.

His last film, Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Amar Singh Chamkila, a biopic of the wildly popular Punjabi musician, illustrated Ali’s quiet dissent in the clearest way possible. Chamkila’s provocative music eventually leads to his assassination as forces of intoler-ance win over artistic freedom. Although set in ’80s Punjab, the film is very much an indictment of our political present.