IT was as a photographer that Sooni Taraporevala started her career — though she already had a degree in Literature from Harvard University and a Masters in Cinema Studies from NYU. Mira Nair had been a fellow student of Sooni, and in 1986 — that’s a decade after leaving Harvard — she teamed up with that friend to write the screenplay of Salaam Bombay. And there has been no looking back since.
One of India’s premier screenwriters, Sooni teamed up with Mira on other projects such as Mississippi Masala (1991), My Own Country (1998) and The Namesake (2006). Besides these, her resume also boasts Stella Gunnarsson’s Such a Long Journey and Jabbar Patel’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.
Photography has been an enduring passion and vocation resulting in a book called Parsis: The
Zoroastrians of India: A Photographic Journey.
Today, photography might no longer be Sooni’s chosen profession, but cinema has taken on a new
dimension. Considering the perfect marriage of literature, films and photography, Sooni has written and directed Little Zizou.
The personal contemporary comedy has been feted at film festivals around the world and, in India, it is scheduled for release in March. Produced by Sooni and friend Dinaz Stafford’s company Jigri Dost Productions, and presented by Mira and
Indian Films, Little Zizou is a Parsi story set in Mumbai. It examines its central concepts through two eccentric families in conflict.
The film is peppered with an ensemble of characters “inspired by the spirit of Frederico Fellini, with just a hint of Mel Brooks”. “It has several themes at its heart — forces of fundamentalism versus a more loving and tolerant attitude and a child’s perspective through a belief in angels,” says Sooni. “I believe that those who are dead are still with you. The film includes fictionalised situations that I was following in the community.”
The film has also been cast with an equal blend of professional care and personal touches, like her children playing the two central children in the film. But she also has strong actors like Boman Irani, Shernaz Patel and a cameo by John Abraham.
“My cast and crew were very nice. We had fun. This is a film made with lots of love,” says the director, who describes her film as one that “confounds stereotypes” and “discovers the fun in fundamentalism”. But she resists Little Zizou being labelled a ‘Parsi film’. “Why brand the movies of minorities? You don’t call films, for instance, Hindu films or Catholic films, do you?”
Sooni wrote many of the characters with the
actors in mind, like Sohrab Ardeshir as Cyrus II Khodaiji, her son Jahan Bativala as Xerxes Khodaiji (or little Zizou, a football mad Parsi boy) and daughter Iyanah as Liana Pressvala. Naseeruddin Shah’s son Imaad continues the family tradition of playing a Parsi, taking on the role of Artaxerxes Khodaiji. For the part of Arjun she zeroed in on Abraham, as she wanted someone commercial and ironically handsome. It helped that he is half-Parsi. Ask her what she enjoyed most about filmmaking and she replies, “Being the boss.” Not that Sooni was in any hurry to get to that position.
Though the first draft was on paper in 10 days, it took 17 drafts before Little Zizou went on the floors. “Screenwriting is about re-writing,” she says. “If you are not the kind of writer who can work and rework, then you are not meant for the job. With Little Zizou, I needed to check that people were getting it. I have explored a local subject, which I hope has universal appeal and relevance. Only when you are really local and particular can you speak to other people.” It is interesting to note that the almost 20 screenplays she has written in the last 20 years were all on commission, while Little Zizou is her first spec screenplay.
The award-winning screenwriter feels that though there is absence of originality in our scripts, screenwriting in India is evolving. “We are now seeing an independent film movement with multiplexes and corporate funding,” she says. Of recent Hindi films, the Munnabhai series has interested her for being “brilliant and original”. She adds, “We really lack originality.”
Once Little Zizou is released, Sooni hopes to take a long holiday before she continues work on the adaptation of Mark Shand’s book, Travels on My Elephant. As for another film as director, she will consider that when her children are a little older.
And what about returning to photography? “I don’t do professional assignments anymore,” she says. “I would like to do a show sometime in the future, but photography is very expensive and you never get paid. So I only take photographs for fun now…my kids are quite fed up with me sticking the camera in their faces.”
uditaj@gmail.com
