Naseeruddin Shah returns with a new film on relationships and second chance at happiness

Director Naseeruddin Shah with spouse Ratna Pathak Shah and son Vivaan Shah, who star in his new short, Man Woman Man Woman, at their Bandra West residence. Pics/Pradeep Dhivar

In the early noughties, when filmmakers were successfully experimenting with ensemble casts and multiple plot threads, Naseeruddin Shah, with a reputation for being sagacious in his choice of films, joined the fray with his directorial debut, Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota (2006), a 9/11 hijack drama that was a collage of four inter-twined stories. We meet the 73-year-old at his Bandra West residence, on a day when the sun and rain clouds are playing hide-and-seek. Shah is dressed in a multi-coloured checked shirt and was only minutes before our interruption, deep into a book; he looks back at the film as a mixed bag. "I was hurried into it [making the film]," he remembers, "And I didn't get the time to consult anyone about the screenplay." In hindsight, he says, "I should have." "I should have waited," he repeats, "But the producer kept this carrot on a stick in front of me, and said, ‘we'll launch it on your birthday'. I got tempted by the idea, became rather sentimental. It was released on my birthday… Not that it lasted very long at the box office." If there's any disappointment, Shah coats it with his dry humour.

Several years followed, during which theatre, and big and bit roles in the movies served as Shah's creative fuel. "I was nervous about making another film," he says. "I preferred [directing for] theatre, which is a living thing. You can keep adding to, subtracting from, improving upon, and it keeps evolving as you keep rehearsing and performing. Whereas a film is fixed in stone. Once it's out, you cannot revise it."

But Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota never really left him. "I have been thinking about it a great deal. It did not turn out quite as I had hoped." Shah says the movie fell short on many scores - he had wanted to make something more "cohesive" where the four stories overlapped, and where characters of one story would appear in the other. "The Irrfan [Khan] story I was particularly most unhappy about, because there was so much more I could have given a great actor like him to do. I realised that you can't have a central character do nothing; that's exactly what he was. Lucky for me, Irrfan didn't hold it against me." He sums it up: "I was not really well prepared enough."

Actor-singer Saba Azad plays Ratna Pathak Shah's daughter in the film

While the film had left him with a terrible sense of frustration, Shah confesses he always itched to get back to direction. Dissatisfaction with some of the movies that he had acted in drew him to it in the first place - "I would try and think about how I could repair some of the absolutely ghastly scenes that I was forced to enact."

The opportunity came recently with Man Woman Man Woman, which is also theatre company Motley Productions' first short film production, with Trigger Productions and Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films. Starring spouse Ratna Pathak Shah, son Vivaan, Saba Azad and Tarun Dhanrajgir, the 25-minute film is a tender story about relationships and second chance at happiness. It released on Large Short Films' YouTube channel on Friday.

Shah says he was more prepared this time around, with Ratna and Vivaan contributing with suggestions to his script, and older son Imaad taking the reigns as associate director, helping with everything from the screenplay to the music, which he composed with Samar Grewal. "There's [just] one song in the film… I am not averse to songs, I am just not too fond of Hindi film music," shares Shah.

When Ratna, who has joined us for the interview with Vivaan, first read the script, she found it "charming and simple". "It was also a story that required the actors to behave in an utterly natural and comfortable manner… those are things that Naseer is really good at. And there were lovely parts for each one of us. They were short and brief, but the scenes had enough meat in them." What helped a great deal, she says, was that everyone on the set were either friends or family. Sanah Abbott was second assistant director; Anil Mehta was cinematographer, and Hina Saiyyada, editor. "We've known everyone for years. It was really a carry forward of the way we do things at Motley, where the work is done in a collaborative fashion… eventually, it's a bunch of friends making a film together." Actor-singer Saba Azad, who plays Ratna's daughter in the film, she says, "is practically daughter to me". She and Imaad have been musical partners for years as electro funk duo Madboy/Mink. At this point, the doorbell rings. It's Saba who rushes to hug Shah and Ratna - her ‘Baba' and ‘Mama'. They break away briefly from talking about the film to discuss her recent freezing cold holiday in South America. "The transfer of affection doesn't have to be underlined there," says Ratna reeling us back in, "These are the kind of moments that came naturally to us when we were performing."

Saba, who has been looking for material that challenges her as an actor, says she was drawn to the film because she found it to be an "inclusive love story". "It's also unusual… we don't often talk about older love and sexuality."

The challenge for Shah was to translate that idea on screen in a shorter format, and "getting rid of the flab". Film, as a medium, makes tremendous demands of a director. Shah describes the role as more "organisational and exhausting" than creative. Ratna says that while Naseer has been successfully directing theatre for several years now, to put those lessons aside and re-learn and re-invent for film was a hard-fought experience. "It was more traumatic for him, than it was for us; we were frankly having a party," Ratna laughs. Saba adds, "I think theatre functions in a more controlled environment than films; there are so many more variables on a film set. I remember the first scene, the rain came down on us, and it happened again and again." She says working with a meticulous director like Shah was an experience. "He knows exactly what he wants from the actor. I don't know if this is something that comes from years of directing for theatre."

The entire script was written keeping Ratna, Vivaan and Saba, in mind, except the elderly man, says Shah. "I was certain I would not play the role," he says. Shah offered it to well-known actors, "but I realised they bring too much baggage." Ratna suggested Tarun Dhanrajgir, whom they knew from their early years as theatre actors. "We hadn't met for close to 40 years. He was a slim lad back then, who had turned into a portly, personable, white-bearded, handsome gent. I had faith in his acting because we had worked together in two plays way back in 1982 and '83." Dhanrajgir, who is based out of Hyderabad, joins us over a call and says he was a bundle of nerves because he hadn't faced the camera in years, except for short roles in Telugu movies. "But it was an emotional moment for me… going back and working with Naseer and Ratna after all this time."

Vivaan, who aside from acting in theatre and films, has also been writing novels (his third novel, The Forsaken Wilderness released earlier this year), says he and his father are great collaborators. "So much of my immersion in literature is thanks to what I have learnt from my parents. Baba is a brilliant storyteller. I remember, as a kid, when we used to go on these long car rides, he would synopsise the entire plot of Shakespeare. That's how I was first exposed to Merchant of Venice and Macbeth," he says, "Another very interesting thing about him is his ingenuity as a dramatist. That really harks back to all his theatre work." Vivaan says his father's adaptation, restructuring and re-formulation and of pre-existing literature for the stage, sets him apart. "That's really what great screenplay writers do. It's wonderful to witness Baba apply the same ingenuity as a dramaturge into this film."