A young man and a British woman are in love in London. His wife will return soon from India. Before that he has to pack off his lover from his home. But she does not have another place to go to.
The young man is generally laid back. But in the past 24 hours he does everything he could in life for his lover. The wife arrives close on the heels of the lover leaving the house.
Thus goes the story of ‘Black nor White’, a campus film directed by Anjali Menon while she was a student of cinema at the London International Film School. Anjali’s ambition then was to be a cinema editor. She used to write stories for classmates’ campus films. Friends persuaded her to become a director. Bangalore Days directed by Anjali and made at a cost of Rs 6.25 crore is one of the top grossers in Malayalam. And Anjali Menon is on course to becoming the first female director to deliver a superhit in Malayalam cinema, which is completing 100 years!
The tastiest Malayalam movie yet on food is Ustad Hotel for which Anjali wrote the screenplay. As a child you were very fond of food. Was it your mother who was behind it?
Never sitting still at a place, never eating food properly – I was like that. Story telling is the solution that mother found for it. She used to narrate to me stories from the Aithihyamala. Many balls of rice would be ready in the meantime. I had to eat till the stories finished. Often I ended up eating more food than needed. There was a good library at home with over 1,500 books. My father used to precisely tell me that there is such and such story in this particular page of this book. Therefore, I grew up listening to and reading stories.
Childhood in Dubai, education in London, now living with businessman husband Vinod Menon in Mumbai and Kochi. It is the cities that nurtured Anjali Menon…
There is a lake adjoining my Cheriamma’s home in Mattancherry. It has a ferry too. Cars, buses, etc are brought in the ferry boat. This is my memory of Kochi. Dubai has ferryboats – Abra. I used to think those days, is it not a bigger Cadabra that they have in Kochi!
I once asked Cheriamma, why don’t we ask father to buy one of these and head to Dubai via the sea in it?
Cheriamma’s reply was indecipherable to me. It was Kochi slang. I have relatives in Palakkad and Kozhikode. They all get together in Kochi for weddings. Fun is when they all start to talk in their native slangs.
So Anjali Menon is a writer who pens screenplays in Manglish and speaks exquisite Malayalam!
Many of the screenplays being made in Malayalam are in Manglish. Many actors find it easier to read them and therefore like them better. I wrote Ustad Hotel’s story and screenplay in Manglish. In fact, I handed it over after getting someone to convert it into Malayalam for me. During the shooting I found out that someone had transformed it back to Manglish in toto, without leaving out a letter. The reason was that Manglish was easier for the actors.
Director Ranjith used to say – Revathi directs Malayalam cinema without knowing to read Malayalam. Anjali writes screenplays in Malayalam without being able to write in the language...
I write all screenplays first in English. I entrusted my lady friend to translate the script and dialogue of Manchadikkuru into Malayalam. She did a fine job. But I was not wholly content with the translation.
Manglish was something I started using when emailing her my corrections and suggestions in the translation. Words like thavalakkunjungal (tadpoles) I gave her in writing as transliteration. It was convenient for me to write and understandable for her too. Manchadikkuru took ten months to translate into Malayalam. We cant afford that now. Hence I myself have started to make Manglish versions of whatever I first write in English.
Ten months! That’s about the time for a pregnancy and childbirth! Anjali did not take that much time to write the screenplay of Bangalore Days. In fact Bangalore Days the movie is a testimony to Anjali’s two-year-old son Madhavan’s generosity!
The entire screenplay of Bangalore Days was written during the time my son slept. I used to rise every day at 4 a.m. and start writing the script. I would write till 8 a.m. when my son wakes up. Then afternoon from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. – again his nap time. Many people asked me during the shooting, how come Bangalore Days has a lot of night scenes? Then I remembered, well, isn’t that when it was scripted?
I am a bit slow as a director. The reason is the time I take to bring my characters into my actors. My method is separately briefing each actor and then taking the scene. This requires a lot of time. Too many rehearsals will drain the actors of their energy. I do not do that.
How many people who see the movie will recognise that this scene was pictured with this much effort?
No one will. But if a film has to be enjoyable and not boring in three or four viewings, such details are essential. When a viewer watches it for the second time, a new thing should catch his attention. When one watches Bangalore Days again, Fahadh’s character will seem to exhibit a different behavior from the first time.
Before the shooting began, I called Dulquar Salman, Nivin and Nazriya over to my home. I had requested them to come dressed in clothes suited for sitting on the floor. I also told them to leave the footwear outside. We all talked sitting on a grass mat that I had laid on the floor.
Our discussion was on matters unrelated to this movie. What is the origin of the name Dulquar Salman? What does the word Nivin mean? The conversations were interrupted by small games in between. The two were to act as cousins. They should really be close. Not only that, I need to know them and their real life characters. I ensured that Fahadh did not come anywhere in the vicinity of this camp.
Are all these very important for the movie?
It is important for me. In this movie, how many times Dulquar and Nivin give each other hugs! This can be mainly attributed to the bonding that developed in those days. When I was writing the script, the Arjun character was not into bike racing at all. When I listened to the topics that Dulquar delved on at my place it struck me, here’s a man with a humongous craze for automobiles. He loves bike racing and adventure too. I instantly rewrote the Arjun character. Knowledge of Dulquar's tastes was what that brought in the bike race. It even became the film’s climax.
Fahadh and Nazriya fell in love away from the sight of Anjali, who ironically was observing her actors through the microscope..
That was not in my script! During the shooting I used to call Fahadh aside and tell him, agreed Nazriya has Fahadh’s wife’s role in this movie, but do not show much affinity to Nazriya at all.
Theirs were characters that needed to act indifferently to each other. It they conversed a lot or something on location that closeness would unwittingly show in their acting. That is not needed. Fahadh fully complied with that during the shoot.
The first scene pictured with Fahadh and Nazriya was the scene in which the former comes to meet her as a potential bride. That time they were not even talking to each other. That lack of familiarity helped the scene. Their first night scene was shot the day after that. Those days as soon as a scene was over Nazriya used to stick around with me calling me ‘chechi’. She would not talk to Fahadh at all.
It was interesting to see a chemistry evolve between them. I tried to keep them apart in the movie. But then chemistry is about every action having an equal and opposite reaction!
On the wedding day, Nazriya, unable to bear the tension is shown smoking a cigarette. Do girls do things like that? As a director when Anjali gets tensed up, what does she do?
That is a scene where the bride is supposed to show anxiety. How else will I portray that! Anyway, I do not smoke. I have a set of friends to call when I get tensed up. One midnight I woke up a friend and told her: “I am in a crisis. I urgently need a puppy”. She thought it was for my home. Do you want one which bites thieves or is it enough if it just barks? She shot back. It was a puppy found in this manner that Fahadh lays on his lap during the scene when he comes to meet her first. Luckily the dog did not bite him! Whatever the tension during shooting, it all vanishes when I go home to my son. He will tell me all about his day. I have to listen to that. I have to bathe him, tell him stories. The moment I reach home, my role as a director is a left behind.
Wherever I stayed at shooting locations he was also there with me. Sometimes when I said ‘action’ a baby voice from somewhere echoed it with ‘aag-shan’. This is him coming to the set occasionally. Then tension sets in. Cables and wires are aplenty there. What if he trips on them and falls! My focus will be gone. Shooting can resume only after he is taken to the room.
When Parvathy’s wheelchair bound character yells to Dulquar for stalking her, the reply he gives is today’s hit romantic dialogue...
“I don't want to follow you, I like to walk alongside you.” I do not know to write gargantuan Malayalam words. Hence it came naturally to me. Initially that dialogue was not there either. Nazriya’s character at first was just Divya. The nickname Kunju came about during the shooting. It was an amalgam of the names of Divya’s cousins Kuttan and Aju. Even that is not there in the script.
More than Kuttan and Aju and Kunju, Anjali Menon has an extra affection for the wheelchair bound Sera. Anjali has met Sera in person…. in Baby Fatima. This girl who moves around only in a wheelchair goes to the Institute of Palliative Medicine in Kozhikode and tends to patients free of charge.
Anjali has seen numerous people forget their pain when Baby Fatima comes to their side. Fatima’s is the sweetest smile that Anjali Menon has seen in this world!