Manish Gupta’s rage against ragging
Manish Gupta says his film 'Hostel' is based on a first-hand experience of ragging. Here is the director on the film and the phenomenon of ragging.
Tell us something about your film ‘Hostel’.
Since I started life as a mechanical engineer, I have had a first-hand experience of ragging. Though I have never stayed in a hostel and was never subjected to ragging, many of my friends were. I had met one boy who was regularly raped by his seniors (boys) in the hostel as a part of ragging. The rage that I felt at that boy’s plight gave birth to the idea of ‘Hostel’. Later, that rage was only fuelled by the death of students like Indu Anto due to ragging. And when I read about the Aman Kachroo death case, I could not control my anger any more. My anger boiled over and took the shape of ‘Hostel’.
So your film is based on a real life incident?
Yes. ‘Hostel’ is based on a string of real life incidents of ragging-related deaths and suicides. I have heavily researched the subject over the past 17 years. I have personally interviewed scores of victims of brutal and inhuman ragging. I have also interviewed many perpetrators of ragging — boys who used to brutally rag their juniors. The most surprising and depressing part of my research was that boys who ragged their juniors were often proud of the disgusting things they had forced their juniors to do.
Do you want to convey any message to the youngsters through your film?
There is a huge amount of ignorance about ragging in India. People mostly perceive ragging as a session of jokes or harmless pranks. Nothing can be more far from the truth. The statistics speak for themselves. There are 20 deaths reported every year as a result of extreme ragging. Students in many colleges across India have to go through gruelling sessions of ragging in their first year. The humiliation and torture meted out to them is so extreme that it has driven so many of them to commit suicide. Hence, I want this film to be an eye-opener and a wake-up call for students, parents, teachers, college management personnel and Indian citizens as a whole — about the seriousness of this issue. Only if the people of India realise the graveness of this problem, will they wake up from their complacence and attempt to do something to curb this menace.
Do you think big stars make any difference to the film?
I personally do not think that stars matter so much to the audiences as much as they do to the film trade people i.e. distributors and exhibitors. Audiences look for good content but the people who run the distribution and exhibition circuits usually lack the judgement to gauge the merit of a film. Hence they like to play it safe by banking on a big star to pull in the crowds.
There have been other films about ragging in the past. What’s so different about ‘Hostel’?
Many films in India have depicted ragging. But none have ever explained the psychology behind this senselessly sadistic phenomenon that is followed in a ritual manner by the cream of our country’s intelligentsia — our future doctors and engineers — and that too, year after year. What makes them torture and humiliate their juniors to such an extent that often drives their juniors to commit suicide? Watch this film if you're looking for the answers to such questions.