There may be some people in the younger generations in Pakistan who may not be that familiar with Muzaffar Ali’s name, but there would be hardly any desi cinephile who would not have watched the Rekha-starrer Umrao Jaan (1981), the magnum opus of the iconic filmmaker of India.

It may sound like a cliché, but Ali really impacted a whole generation of filmmakers and viewers. He went on to win the Filmfare Award as the best director for Umrao. The legendary composer Khayyam had bagged the Filmfare Award for the best music director for the film while Muzaffar Ali also won the National Award, along with Rekha (for best actress) and Asha Bhosle (for best female playback singer).

Before Umrao, Muzaffar had registered his banging arrival on the cinema scene with the Farooque Shaikh- and Smita Patil-starrer Gamaan (1978), which also won three National Awards. In 1982, he produced Aagman. He later made the Farooque Shaikh- and Shabana Azmi-starrer Anjuman (1986). The film has got special significance as Muzaffar Ali turned Shabana into a playback singer for the film.

Muzaffar Ali was in Lahore to be a part of the Faiz Festival this year. Icon had a chance to have a chat with him in his hotel a day before he returned to India.

Poetry has a strong presence in all your movies, including Gamaan, Anjuman and the unfinished Zooni, on the life of Kashmiri poet Habba Khatoon. What’s the reason for it? Besides poetry, pure Urdu language has been used in your movies. Is it due to your background of Aligarh and Lucknow?

Muzaffar Ali: The atmosphere of the films and their worlds are the same as that of Urdu and Hindustani. Had it been the world of English, it would have been the English language. The English part [of my films] is limited to the technical aspects and convenience. We write our screenplays in Roman Urdu, too. But our characters, whose pain is portrayed, are from that region of the world where Urdu is spoken. My creative upbringing happened in Aligarh where there was a milieu for poetry. Lucknow has also been a centre of poetry too, but Aligarh brought about modernism and freshness to it.

The legendary Indian filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, the director of classics such as Umrao Jaan, Gamaan and Anjuman, among others, was recently in Lahore to be a part of the Faiz Festival. Icon took the opportunity to talk to the man who has impacted a whole generation of filmmakers and viewers

Both Gamaan and Anjuman can have Marxist interpretations as they depict the plight of workers. Do you believe in cinema as a tool for social change?

MA: Whether you call it Marxism or just a new way of thinking or empathy for the masses, I took up the case of humanism and equality and took up the cudgels against exploitation of humans by other humans. I observe the world and feel strongly about it. Perhaps Marxism deals with it to some extent. However, humans don’t abstain from mischief regardless of ideology. I have just presented my case and the contrasts of life before the world to see.

Muzaffar Ali’s films look like recreating a dying culture, as is evident from their sets, whether it’s Anjuman, Umrao Jaan or even Gamaan. What do you say about it?

MA: You can call it a dying culture or a real life of that era. To portray any society, one needs truth, reality and beauty [husn]. If one witnesses a contrast or conflict anywhere, how can one present it without aesthetics? It would look odd. It’s necessary to portray the beauty of a culture whose fabric is breaking down. There are certain things that you can read on the faces. It’s a real pleasure to put such faces in a certain atmosphere and give them expressions, a voice and words.

There is a famous letter that Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote to you after watching Gamaan. He called it “a poem in visuals”. This rings true about all your films though.

MA: If Faiz speaks, he won’t speak in clichés. An artist recognises another artist. He must have felt that whatever he saw in Gamaan would be present in all my films. Faiz’s own imagery and scenes [including those in the film Jaago Hua Savera] are different. The imagery of two artists can’t be the same, their ideology can be the same but not their expressions, which would be individualistic and distinct. But if both of them feel for each other’s works, it’s called respect and etiquette. It’s the respect that makes a sensitive artist.

There is an underlying theme of displacement in all your three big movies, Gamaan, Umrao and Anjuman.

MA: Displacement is a huge human tragedy. May nobody face it. It is another case if somebody gets displaced due to his own choice, but may nobody come across such a situation that he has to be displaced. There is displacement in Umrao and Anjuman [it’s also there in Gamaan]. Displacement has many side-effects.

How did you make a shift towards composing music that resulted in collaboration with Abida Parveen in the form of the album Raqs-i-Bismil?

MA: There is a spiritual mould in which everything related to husn and ishq falls. Poetry brings its own music and pathos along with it. There is a meditational process that puts them into the mould of the heart, which can be related to mysticism, the end result of many psychological conditions. Music and poetry can be written in the same manner. Every artist is blessed by God with an insight to understand it and, if one has not got the insight, they are compensated for it in some other way. If God has not given me the voice to sing, he has given me ears [knowledge] to listen to it. I myself abstained from writing poetry to understand it properly. A friend once said to me: “If you keep getting good poetry to listen to, never write poetry yourself.”

Can films such as Gamaan, Umrao and Anjuman be produced under current conditions in the context of Indian cinema? Or has time changed?

MA: Time has not changed. In the West, the best period films are being produced one after another. I like old [period] films because one learns from the past e.g. what it was like in a certain time period, how people used to live and how things looked like. It’s fun.

You have turned more towards fashion designing. Is there any chance of you getting back to films?

MA: I would definitely make films if I get a chance. But now I don’t run after chances. I do painting and it’s connected to my aesthetics. I do translations from Persian into English. It’s better than taking unnecessary pains [sar-dard].

Published in Dawn, ICON, March 27th, 2022