‘I can’t depend on actors to make my film’

Faruk Kabir’s ground floor office in a quiet Versova lane leaves you in no doubt that you’re in a ‘filmi’ space. A movie reel hangs on the wall above the entrance. Posters of classics adorn the walls. Film memorabilia — such as a conspicuous Rocky Balboa jug — are scattered all around the place. Among the posters of La Dolce Vita, The Rainmaker, Lawrence Of Arabia and other films, you spot one titled Allah Ke Banday, Faruk’s debut film.

Faruk, set to join the list of “around 365 directors in the film industry” in his words, comes across as a little too eager to please initially. He’s only 28 years old after all and understandably stressed with the little details that go into the final stages of a film that’s up for release. Soon, however, he settles down, and talks freely about the cinematic journey that has led him to don the hats of a film writer, director, and eventually —albeit reluctantly — an actor too.

Faruk is the son of well known dress designer Sabiha, who designed the costumes of top heroines of the ‘70s and ‘80s, including Sharmila Tagore, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Poonam Dhillon, Anita Raaj, and Neelam, among others. Faruk has fond memories of visiting his mother on the sets during school vacations. “I was a huge fan of Meenakshi, and love the film, Hero. I still remember the famous Amrapali-like costume she wore in that film lying at home. Those were the years I first got attracted to filmmaking.”

Except for the occasional visits during holidays, Faruk was kept shielded from the world of glamour that tends to intrude when your parent works in the film industry. “I grew up in a boarding school at Deolali, and was not too familiar with city life. In fact, I felt terribly out-of-place when I joined college in Bombay later on,” says Faruk, flicking ash off a cigarette, elbow resting on a table shaped like a tailoring table.

Unable to fit in with the student crowd, Faruk quit college at 18 and joined filmmaker Aziz Mirza as an assistant. Mirza was then working on Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani, which was Shah Rukh Khan’s first film as producer. Immediately after, Faruk assisted Santosh Sivan on another Shah Rukh Khan-production, Asoka. Both films tanked at the box office.

“Later, when I saw the two films, I couldn’t understand what went wrong. Both had two of the best directors at the helm, a big star like Shah Rukh Khan in the lead and a lot of money spent on promotion. The only explanation was that the films went wrong at the basic level — the script.”

Wanting to sharpen his skills as a storyteller, he enrolled for a scriptwriting course at the New York Film Academy. “It’s not like you can’t learn writing at home. Even though I was in New York, I wrote on a piece of paper within four walls of a classroom. But I was in a hurry to find my own voice as a filmmaker. I realised it was crucial to learn the craft (of writing) if I had to be a good director,” says Faruk, who also assisted filmmaker Rajiv Rai on the forgettable Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat. “It was a good experience in learning what I should not be doing as a filmmaker,” he says with a wry smile.

Faruk’s real training came when he worked on a documentary, Unheard Voices Of India, with Aziz Mirza’s brother, Saeed Mirza. The documentary required the crew to travel the length and breadth of the country. “If you want to tell stories about people, you need to have been exposed to them. Our idea of India is skewed. The experience educated me as a person and filmmaker, and I don’t know if I’ll get such an opportunity again.”

Faruk remembers a woman in Ajmer who ran a dhaba with two little children, all on her own. “The men who stopped over for a meal were most rugged, wild truck drivers. But she had a more powerful personality than all those men together.”

Faruk stumbled on the plot for his first feature film during this journey. In Varanasi, he met Mahesh Kant, a man who ran a school in the city’s red light district. The students were all children of prostitutes and convicts, and despite stiff opposition from various quarters, he kept the school running. “This is where I got the idea for Allah Ke Banday, which is about two juvenile criminals who get trained by the warden at the jail, and their life after,” he says.

Interestingly, with Naseeruddin Shah cast as the warden, and Sharman Joshi as one of the two criminals and Atul Kulkarni in another pivotal role, Faruk has managed to get acclaimed actors known to be choosy about the films they sign. “I just left the script with them, and they got back to me,” he says, with an air of confidence bordering on arrogance, but quickly admits that he had to cast himself in the role of the second criminal because nine other actors turned down the role.

“They all wanted Sharman’s role, refusing to play the less important character. But I can’t depend on actors to complete my film. If my script is in place, the result will show.”