Greed Is Good

It was his avid desire to tell stories on a wider canvas that brought Bengali director Srijit Mukherji to Hindi cinema with Begum Jaan,

- Raghuvendra Singh

In the 1987 movie Wall Street, Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko gave an insightful speech where he said, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” What he meant was that greed for life, for love, for knowledge… marked ‘the upward surge of mankind’. And like Gordon Gekko, acclaimed Bengali filmmaker Srijit Mukherji too motivated by greed, albeit of telling his stories on a bigger canvas, transitioned into Hindi films with the Vidya Balan starrer Begum Jaan. Produced by Vishesh Films, Begum Jaan, an adaptation of Srijit’s National Award winning Bengali film Rajkahini may not have pulled in great numbers but surely has won acclaim. He insists filmmaking is a director’s medium and he’s ultimately responsible for both the bouquets and the brickbats. “You should own your film. If you get awarded and appreciated, it’s yours. If you get slammed or criticised then also it’s yours,” says the director.

The film spotlighted a brothel run by Vidya Balan as Begum Jaan, which finds itself bang in the middle of the Radcliffe Line that divided India and Pakistan post the Partition. Begum Jaan stays put in this haveli with her sex workers refusing to vacate it. The film endorsed feminism as it did sexual freedom. Bringing to life the same story of Rajkahini, albeit in a different language, must have proved cumbersome in some way. Ask him that and he smiles, “Sanjay Leela Bhansali has always been fond of my work. Even he asked me the same question as to why I made the same story again. He said if someone were to ask him to make Bajirao Mastani once more, he’d shoot that person.”