Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry (31 page)

A
Hindi film set
is a site rich with information, not only about the production practices and work culture of the Bombay film industry, but also about the various social relations within the industry. The most notable expressions of status and hierarchy on a film set are forms of address, since Hindi, like many other languages, possesses both formal and informal registers in the use of second-person pronouns.
³³
In the chapter four sketch, some people are only addressed by their first names and spoken to using the informal familiar address, while others have the Hindi honorific suffixes of
ji
(sir/madam) or
saab
(sir) added to their first or last names—a practice that carries over into English—and spoken to in the formal address. Respect, deference, and intimacy are all encoded into the grammatical structure of Hindi.

Relative rank and power, therefore, are easily discernible by observing conversations. For example, while everyone addresses the producer as Malhotra-
saab
and speaks to him using the most formal register, he
calls almost everyone else by his or her first name, speaking to them with informal address, reflecting his power and position as the boss. That the producer refers to the distributor as Agrawal-
saab
and uses the formal address in his conversation accords with the status of the distributor who, as a potential buyer and financier of the film, is treated with suitable respect and deference. The director is in a more intermediate position in the set’s hierarchy. His assistants, the aspiring writer, the heroine’s mother, and Jignesh (the secretary) all address him as Rakesh-
ji
, indicating their subordinate relationship to him. Others—the producer, dance director, and the veteran writer—address him by his nickname, Rikki, indicating the familiarity that comes with rank (in the case of the producer), seniority and social connections (in the case of the writer), or career-stage similarity (in the case of the dance director).

A set can also be a site for the display of gestures of respect and deference, revealing the reverence for seniority, age, and experience. For example, in 1996, when I was observing the shooting of a song for
Sar
Aankhon Par
at Filmalaya Studios, which featured guest appearances of stars from the 1960s, Sanjay Dutt visited the set to convey his regards to yesteryear’s star, Shammi Kapoor. Dutt walked over from the neighboring set, trailed by a huge crowd of onlookers, went up to Kapoor, and bent down to touch his feet—a very conventional South Asian expression of respect for elders. Kapoor quickly raised him up and embraced him. The two conversed for a few minutes, seemingly oblivious to the huge crowd that had gathered around them. Dutt then returned to his set, again followed by a large crowd. People around me remarked that, despite Dutt’s highly troubled life,
³⁴
his basic
sanskaar
(cultured upbringing) was solid—illustrated by his deferential manner toward the veteran star.

Outsiders who are unaware of the industry’s codes of respect and unfamiliar with its key figures can commit serious blunders. This became very apparent one afternoon in November 2005, when I was visiting the shoot of
Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
(Never Say Goodbye) at the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Tarrytown, New York. In addition to the crew members from India, a number of Americans were hired for the production, since the film was being shot for over three months in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. The film, which was produced and directed by Karan Johar, was quite a high-profile project due to its star cast; thus, a number of men were hired to serve as bodyguards (
gatekeepers
). While the shoot at the country club did not attract any fans or curious onlookers due to its remote location, instances of gate keeping were still occurring on the set. The one that violated the norms of the film industry
was when one of the American bodyguards commanded Javed Akhtar— one of the most prominent, successful, and respected screenwriters and lyricists of the industry, who had been involved in filmmaking since the early 1970s, and whom Johar referred to as “Javed Uncle,” signifying both his respect and long-term kin-like relation with Akhtar—to move away as he was walking toward Johar, who was watching a shot on the video monitor. Though Akhtar good-naturedly took what in Bombay would have been considered highly disrespectful behavior in stride, the Indian members of the crew who witnessed the interaction did not. While one immediately pulled the bodyguard aside and started reprimanding him seriously, the other escorted Akhtar back to the monitor and brought a chair for him to sit next to Johar.
³⁵

Conversations and personal interactions are not the only way to discern rank and status, for even something as quotidian as a chair can reflect materially the hierarchy present on a film set. I noticed that there were never many chairs on a set, and only certain people—generally the producer, director, actors, and their guests—warranted them. I was always aware of, and intrigued by, the circulation of chairs on a set, as they appeared to follow the movement of the principal players: workers regularly shifted chairs to wherever the director, star, or producer was standing at the time. I experienced firsthand the difference that one’s status makes in terms of having access to a chair on a set; as a scholar conducting research about filmmaking, I was treated as a guest on most film sets and accorded a great deal of hospitality—including a chair—but when I became a directorial assistant on a particular film, I found myself standing for hours on end as assistants rarely sat down while working, then never in a chair, and definitely not in front of their superiors. Only if the director appeared to be relaxed while seated did assistants occasionally perch or lean against areas of a set. In the case of a star’s personal staff, they would never sit in the presence of their boss.

While a film’s director is commonly characterized as the “captain of the ship” by members of the industry and accorded the most deference on a film set, each department and task contains its own hierarchy and chain of command. For example, camera attendants defer to the main camera assistant, who defers to the director of photography. Almost everyone is in a position of being a superior or a subordinate relative to someone else. Even among workers within the same department, a hierarchy is established based upon their age and years spent in the industry. By noticing who yelled at whom, I quickly discerned the various pecking orders. Ranking at the bottom of the hierarchy are the “spot boys” (
Figure 9
). This
term refers to the men who do all forms of miscellaneous work, but who primarily take care of the most domestic of duties on a film set, such as bringing and moving chairs, serving drinks, setting out the food, cleaning up, and running errands. At the other end of the spectrum are the stars, who represent the apex of the film industry’s hierarchy.

FIGURE 9
Spot boys cleaning the set of
Kuch Na Kaho
, Mehboob Studios, Bandra (western suburb of Bombay), 2000. Photo by the author.

Spending time on a Hindi film set, it is hard to miss the stark contrast between stars and everyone else around them, especially the way stars are accorded a great deal more basic comforts than the rest of the cast and crew. My first encounter with a star was in February 1996, when I observed Juhi Chawla, a popular and successful actress at that time, on the set of the film
Daraar
(Chasm). I had finished interviewing Omar Qureishi, the editor of the film magazine
Stardust
, and he asked me if I would like to accompany him to Mehboob Studios, where he needed to meet Chawla for an upcoming issue of the magazine. I readily agreed, as this was to be my first visit to a film set. A song was being filmed with Chawla that day, and the set was what in Hindi movie parlance would be known as a “cabaret”—a combination restaurant/bar/nightclub, with space for a dance performance. The shooting floor was extremely hot and stuffy and constant attention was paid to keeping Chawla comfortable. When she was on the set, a fan was directed only toward her and not others. If she had to wait for a shot to be set up, she sat outdoors on the studio lawn while the other participants sat indoors in the heat.
While the chorus dancers were made to practice their dance steps continuously by the dance director, Chawla spent her time outside speaking to an assortment of film journalists. She rehearsed her steps just a few times before the sequence was filmed. Furthermore, by being seen with Chawla, Qureishi and I were accorded a fair amount of hospitality as well—without asking, chairs were brought for us and cold soft drinks were placed in our hands.

The physical space of a Hindi film set, along with its accompanying production venues like the old Bombay studios, reinforce the status differences between stars and others in a number of ways. Basic amenities, such as toilets, makeup rooms, air conditioning, seating areas, and shaded outdoor spaces, are all in short supply at the main shooting studios in Bombay, so while stars have access to such comforts, the rest of the cast has to make do with less or nothing. Chorus dancers and extras— referred to as “junior artists” in the film industry—often do not have access to makeup rooms or even bathrooms. If a shoot takes place somewhere other than a studio, air-conditioned trailer-vans equipped with bathrooms are hired for the stars, but not for others. When an outdoor shoot lacks areas with shade, individual stars are shielded from the sun by men holding umbrellas; everyone else is left to their own resources (
Figure 10
).

In August 2007, the Federation of Western India Cine Employees (fwice), an organization consisting of 22 unions representing a variety of trades working in the film industry, issued an ultimatum to Filmistan Studios and Film City—popular shooting and production venues in suburban Bombay—to improve their basic amenities. Citing the lack of drinking water, changing rooms for junior and character artists, and sanitary or even functioning toilets, fwice demanded that the two studios rectify the conditions by September 1 or it would issue noncooperative directives against the studios, which would mean that no producer would be permitted to shoot there. The manager of the state-owned and-operated Film City requested two months to carry out the necessary upgrades. Despite such assurances, no progress was made on the issue and almost a year later, on July 19, 2008, workers went on a four-hour “flash” strike to protest the lack of basic amenities such as clean toilets and changing rooms in Film City. The strike was called off when filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt intervened, assuring workers that he would bring the issue to the Maharashtra minister of culture’s attention. On August 1, the management of Film City once again assured a delegation that the demands of workers would be fulfilled, adding that facilities would be provided for
technicians, junior artists, and actors as well. As of January 2009, however, according to trade periodicals such as
Film Information
, these promises had yet to be realized.

FIGURE 10
Kajol, Juhi Chawla, Aamir Khan, and Ajay Devgan shielded from the sun on the set of
Ishq
, Film City, 1996. Photo by the author.

The disparity in working conditions is taken for granted and often reinforced by producers. During my visit to a film shoot at Mehboob Studios in 2000, I noticed that there were trailers parked in the studio compound, an unusual sight since the studios had makeup rooms, bathrooms, and other standard amenities. Upon inquiring, I learned that since the makeup rooms at Mehboob were not air-conditioned, the producers procured air-conditioned trailers for the
stars
. When I mentioned to the director’s sister, who was assisting him on his debut film, that such trailers seemed to be a new development compared to my previous trip to Bombay, she complained about the arrogance of the background dancers—because they were demanding makeup rooms with air conditioning as well. Indignant about their attitude, she kept asserting that she would like to do a “judo-chop” to them.