Roast of Patriarchy

Real men are hard to come by, though they aren’t as critically endangered as tigers. They may not wear battle fatigues and take a bullet for the motherland, but their battle against the omnipresent forces of patriarchy is no less valorous. Filmmaker Amole Gupte is one such man, for whom making morning tea and cooking for the family is as natural as launching into a discourse on Marathi theatre or Europe’s avant garde film movement in the Sixties.

The perception that doing household chores doesn’t make him any less of a man kicked in early on in life, thanks to his working parents. “Since my father, a successful software professional, was away from home on long tours for most of his working life, and my mother was employed with Life Insurance Corporation, I had to grow up quickly to take care of my younger brother,” says Gupte who began grocery-shopping when he was five years old. Soon, the kitchen turned into his laboratory and before long he was preparing patties for his mother when she returned from work.

“My mother being a spirited woman never grumbled about not having a full-time maid. She would wake up early in the morning, prepare our dabbas and leave for office. My father was a liberated, down-to-earth man, who, till the very end of his life would sit on his haunches and clean the inaccessible corners of the floor,” says Gupte for whom the first lessons in dignity of labour came from his parents.

Gupte was bohemian in his formative years, dabbling in theatre, films and art, and simultaneously indulging in excesses that are considered intrinsic to artistic pursuits. “My father was exceptional in the sense that he taught me not to equate respect with hiding my cigarette in his presence. Not many fathers would allow their sons to return home reeking of alcohol, but mine was patient and understanding.”

He owes his introduction to the world of performing arts to his father who used to take him to classical concerts, film screenings and plays when he was a boy.  

“Though my mother isn’t artistically inclined, her contribution in bringing me up was immense since she was the backbone of the family,” says the 54-year-old screenwriter, actor and director, whose forthcoming directorial venture, Sniff, draws richly from his childhood years, like his previous films Taare Zameen Par, Stanley ka Dabba and Hawa Hawai, with children at the crux of the narratives ripping through double standards. 

The freedom accorded to him while he was growing up helped him evolve both as an artiste and a human being. He loathes the word ‘allow’ when a man uses it to highlight ‘his generosity of letting the wife keep her maiden surname.’ It was never an issue for him that his wife Deepa Bhatia, a film editor and documentary filmmaker, didn’t include Gupte in her name. “Who are you to allow your wife when both of you are equals,” asks Gupte, taking a dig at the double standards of men who claim to believe in egalitarianism.

But then he is also open to talking about instances where he had failed as a spouse in their 20-year-old marriage. Since Deepa is a vegetarian and I used to be a hardcore carnivore, I decided at the time of marriage to give up non-veg. “For six months, I stuck to shoots, leaves and paneer, when one day I succumbed to the delicious aroma of chicken roast in a restaurant, and broke my promise. Deepa was surprisingly very cool about it.”

As a doting father, Gupte, has tried to ensure that his son grew with the same principles that he imbibed from his parents. “I don’t need to give Partho a crash course on learning to respect women and treating them as equals because at home, my mother, mother-in-law and wife call the shots.” 

Partho, thankfully, is a chip off the old block in the true sense of the term — a filmmaker, musician, composer and a writer in his own right, growing up in an environment where humility and creativity go hand-in-hand.