Sooni Taraporevala’s Little Zizou is busy making the rounds of film  festivals and will hit Mumbai theatres soon, reports Shanaya Lalkaka

Sooni Taraporevala’s directorial debut Little Zizou has done well at all the film festivals in which it has been screened so far. Come February 2009, Mumbaikars will get a chance to watch this film when it releases in the city.

Sooni says, “We have shown the film in New York, Italy, Washington DC, Goa and Singapore. Next we plan to screen the movie in Delhi and Kerala, which would be followed by its release in Mumbai.”

Often thought to be a chronicler of the Parsi community, Sooni says, “I have been a screen writer for about 20 years and have written about 20 scripts, out of which only six got produced. Of those six, except for my book and Such A Long Journey, there has been no Parsi content. So I won’t say that the subject is something that I concentrate on.” 

The movie talks of themes like love and tolerance, something that Sooni believes is relevant in today’s time. She says people who knew nothing about Parsi’s have been roaring with laughter. “But,” she continues, “The responses so far have had nothing to do with the religion so much as with the story.” 

Sooni is all praise for her cast and crew who have made her directorial debut a dream come true. Even her son and daughter, Jahan and Iyanah Bativala who debut as actors in the movie were very supportive. “The kids were the easiest part of directing because they knew I did not want any artifice and they were comfortable in front of the camera.”
Busy studying on the eve of their exams, the children receive good news. Both Jahan and Iyanah have been nominated for best actor and actress at the Singapore’s Asian Festival of First Films.

Thirteen-year-old Jahan is up against Farhan Akhtar for his performance in Rock On. But Sooni is quick to cut short any questions on a future acting career for the children as she says, “This was just a one-off thing. This is not a career option for them, atleast until they grow up and are able to make their own choices.”
l_shanaya@dnaindia.net

Her stories dredge up the darkness in society, yet her storytelling isn’t dark . There’s drama and humour that helps connect with a wide audience. Perhaps, that is what has made Sooni Taraporevala one of the most acclaimed Indian screenplay writers. Her Salaam Bombay, a story about the street children of Mumbai which Mira Nair made into a film, won an Oscar nomination.

Her Mississippi Masala,which exposed the rampant yet subtle racism among Indian immigrants in the West (also directed by Nair), was actor Denzel Washington’s first hit. Her last screenplay, The Namesake, which explored the cultural clash between first and second-generation Indian immigrants in the US, won critical acclaim too.

This time though, Taraporevala turns director with Little Zizou, a comic flick which revolves around the dilemmas of a 11-year-old Parsi boy, Xerxes Khodaiji (played by debutant Jahan Bativala). The film is a satirical take on two Parsi families, one headed by an extremist out to “cleanse” the community of inter-racial marriages, the other by a liberal rationalist running a sinking Parsi daily. In the background is a Parsi community’s lingering fear of extinction.

The film stole this writer’s heart with its crisp narrative and deceptively simple context. At last month’s Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival held in New York, it won two awards-the Best Director and the Best Screenplay.

What compelled you to make this movie?
I have been a scriptwriter for 20 years and in all those years, all my scripts have been commissioned. This was the first story I wrote on my own and for myself. I had an adrenaline rush to direct. And I had such a good time. I finished writing the film in 10 days-after which it took seventeen drafts over the next two years. But it’s very much a film that came from within. As I was writing it, I would meet people and come across situations that would work themselves into the script.

Can you give us an example?
The flight simulator is one. My husband’s friend had actually made a flight sim in a disused maternity home in Bombay. Then, I met someone at a party whose face I really liked, and that is Tknow Francorsi, who plays Tino Fellini in the film. I had no idea whether he could act or not, and found out much later he could.

Evidently all of them could act. Was making the kids act challenging?
Actually, that was the easiest part of making the film-because they were totally natural in front of the camera. They knew I didn’t want any artifice or filmi nakhras. They got that and were so good at improvisation. In one scene, Jahan is picking his nose and sticks the snot to the refrigerator. That came from him.

Were some of the scenes candid?
My crew was most wonderful and made the kids feel at home. The kids loved, not only, what went on in front of the camera but also what went on behind it. That also helped. They were all friends around the sets. Nothing was candid though. It was just that all of them felt very comfortable in front of the camera.

Clearly, the theme is a comfort zone for you, since you’re Parsi, familiar with the dilemmas of the Parsis in Mumbai?
Yes, I am comfortable with the milieu that I come from, because I know it very well. For me, though, I don’t see it as a Parsi film alone. It is set among the Parsis, but these are themes and issues that exist in communities everywhere. It’s an allegory. You have the crazy, lunatic fundamentalist, and you have people who stand up and speak up for what they think is right.

Perhaps what clinched it was that the jury recognised the universality of the story. An old American lady came up to me and told me that there are very few things that give her joy in her life, and Little Zizou was one of them.

How do you weave characters into the script? The dialogue sounds casual and real, so was this a losely scripted film?
In terms of scripting, for example, Boman Irani’s role was the most under-written. He brought in a lot of nuance and texture, a whole of lot of subtext. The film was tightly scripted. The trick is to write a tight script and then give freedom to your actors . As a writer-director-you can do what you want with the script. I gave the actors the freedom to improvise and the result is that the dialogue has a very casual feel.

It’s a child’s narrative, isn’t it? For example, his father is shown as this grotesque and burlesque, comic-book-like character.
Yes, it is. The first time Xerxes is shown in front of his father, there is a comic-book effect to the scene with the exaggerated figure of his father looking down at him, when the child is reading a story from his brother’s comic book. I also felt that if a character like Sohrab’s (Ardeshir, who plays Xerxes’s father) was not shown in a comic-book style, with the kind of theme we have he would have become too heavy and villainish. This film is not about that. It’s a feel good movie and for once in my life, I think I am allowed to make a film with a happy ending!

Who’s your audience for this film?
The world!

Original article here.

By Prachi Sibal

“It’s laced with a flavour of mint and coriander, and a little hint of other spices that go into our regular cooking,” he explains with careful attention laid on every spice, its procurement and the means of cooking. Chef Kaizad Patel, who was in town to start Jashn-e-Khordan, the Parsi food festival at GRT Grand, pays no less attention to details in his food than an artist to his piece of art.

Into the fourth generation of catering Parsi food in the family, he has a degree in culinary sciences and a background of having worked in the orders of The Trident Oberoi and The Ritz. “Ive tried all sorts of cuisines, and I always knew I’d come back to Parsi cuisine,” he says, proud to be taking his cuisine into a land he has never been to before. “This is the first time I have come to Chennai and I like the response I have received,” says Kaizad.

Having lived a passion in cuisine, Kaizad decided to go back to his roots and join the catering business his family has run in Mumbai over generations.

In Chennai with a team of three cooks, he has managed to create an elaborate spread, while the chefs at Copper Point watched in amazement. Seetharam Prasad, director- Culinaire, GRT Grand admits, “We have a lot to learn from him. He is only 31 and driven towards his passion. The festival has been an experience for the entire team.”

Parsi cuisine is a hefty main course with a variety of meats. A vegetarian himself, he has taken Parsi cuisine into being a delight for fellow vegetarians.

“Parsi food is all about the flavours, sweet, sour and rich, all interwoven, and has its inspiration from all the cultures Parsis have been influenced by,” he says.

Perfection being his forte, he insists on supervising every creation and keeping it authentic, minus the little twists in the way its being served. “I let people take their freedom with the way my food is being presented. Custard has probably never been presented the way it’s been done here, with carved grapes and a piece of kiwi fruit on top of it,” he says with a laugh.

The Pakistani artist and humanitarian is in Dubai for an exhibition of sixty-five limited edition prints of his paintings, which will be showcased at Avari Hotel, Dubai, from May 22 to 24.

He was born on August 13, 1954 in Pakistan to a Parsi family and turned to professional art in 1976. He paints on a variety of themes including architecture, landscapes, philosophy; what won him acclaim nationally as well as internationally was his paintings on the 1947 partition that led to the creation of Pakistan.

Jimmy is a peaceful crusader for the oppressed, disabled, impoverished and unfortunate sections of society and has adopted a novel way of creating awareness about causes close to his heart - walking. His walks have taken him over the length and breadth of Pakistan in pursuit of diverse objectives in the context of promotion of human rights and human dignity and enhancement of the quality of life.

In 1988 he became the first Pakistani artist to win the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts Award, USA.

Many of your paintings focus on the 1947 partition that led to the creation of Pakistan. Why did you choose this subject?

No artist can paint the partition unless he or she is motivated or spiritually guided. In 1973 I started dreaming about massacres, bloodshed, burning trains, burning villages and people being killed. I did not understand at that time. But I am the follower of Sufi Barkat Ali, one of the revered Sufis, who passed away in 1996. He was a friend; I used to sit and talk to him and he told me it’s something to do with the partition. So I said, why am I getting all these dreams? Then he said, ‘Maybe nature wants you to portray them on canvas.’ So in 1974 I started my first painting of the partition, and I realised that as I painted I would feel very relaxed. As soon as I left painting and went back to sleep I would again get those visions. From 1974-1981 I used to get these visions and I made about eight to ten paintings on the subject. I had no intention of creating any ill-feelings towards any community. Through these paintings, I wanted the younger generation to understand the extent of suffering that took place - whether they were Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs, they all suffered. I wanted them to understand that this is what happened and we should move forward. Nature inspired me to paint them, and it was through nature, not any conscious effort of mine, that these paintings began to be seen everywhere - in newspapers, magazines, in documentaries etc. It was a tribute to all those people - the men, women and children, who lost their lives during the course of this partition. One more thing I would like to mention is that these paintings are not gruesome, they also portray hope. It was a very challenging subject, which I never actually saw with my own eyes, and it wasn’t easy.

Your architectural paintings feature many structures taken together as a group, or blending in with each other. Why did you use this technique and what does it signify?

I believe that art has to be creative - you have to do something unique, something other people haven’t done before. I essentially put these structures together to show unity. When architectural examples from different countries are put together it shows unity of building. If there can be unity of building there can be unity of people also and this is my message. For example in the painting of the tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam - it is one tomb but multiplied - I have tried to show that the voice of Sufism is spreading. I believe that paintings should touch the viewers in some way. I think my paintings speak for themselves. Everything depicts hope and unity, even the ones about war and partition. There’s one called ‘Humanity bleeds War or Terrorism’ - in everything I show some kind of hope; I don’t believe in hopelessness, because I interact with nature. Most of the time my energy comes from nature. I’m not listening to outer voices; I’m listening to my inner voice.

Tell us about the social causes you support and the awareness programmes and walks you have organised. What is the purpose of these walks?

In 1994 I walked 4700 kilometres in one year - I visited villages and towns all over Pakistan because I wanted to understand the poverty and suffering of people by seeing it with my own eyes. How can one alleviate these sufferings, I wondered? I also wanted to discipline myself by living like that. I met a lot of people and I came to understand why people are suffering. Help does not reach the poor. Hospitals and schools are made in big areas. Now for these people in the rural areas it’s not easy to travel. So they get no help. Through this walk I promoted awareness of the concepts of mobile schools, mobile hospitals. Reaching out to the people is important - you have to reach out to the sufferer, you can’t expect the sufferer to come to you. Walking is significant because even in biblical and historical times, when people wanted to spread a message, they walked. I help orphans, children in jails, widows in jails, special children of all kinds. I visited many institutions for special children - mentally and physically challenged - and I realised that just being there was not enough. I wanted to change their lives. Some people found being seen in public with special children embarrassing, even if they were their own. I wanted to do away with this ‘embarrassment.’ In 2001, I launched ‘Fun and Food for Special Children’, and took about 150 blind children out to a restaurant in a village in Pakistan, and was very encouraged when I saw their happiness and the fact that they were enjoying themselves. In seven years I have done more than 110 programmes for special children, my objective being to encourage awareness of these children. One of my walks that was very important was in 2001, when during tension at the Indo-Pak border, I carried the flags of India and Pakistan on my chest and walked from Islamabad to the Wagah border to promote peace. At that time I said, ‘Friendship will come between India and Pakistan when our hearts and minds are pure.’
Do you think art can be used as an instrument of social change?

Art can motivate people provided it is inspirational. Most of my works are inspirational. I want to inspire the younger generation to do big things, better things and encourage an overall attitude of positivity. With art you can inspire a whole nation. Till today I have never exhibited or sold at commercial galleries, I was not dependent on art critics or anybody, and yet managed to establish myself because I am dependent on nature. I am in tune with nature, that’s where my energy comes from.

What are your views on censorship in art? Do you think an artist should be restricted in any way?

I wouldn’t say there is any censorship, only fanatics - in every country. In the USA, I have seen people burning paintings. The other issue is, why should people use religion to hurt other people’s feelings? An artist is free to do whatever he wants to do, but he should be prepared for the consequences. Sometimes artists for example Salvador Dali and Picasso use drama to create a kind of sensationalism. The artist has a right to create, but he should be prepared for what comes next - the effect could be positive or negative. Many artists use sensationalism without the slightest idea of what the consequences could be - and in the end they are sad at having done it because they understand that living in their own country is more important. An artist should be sensitive to people’s emotions also. I could have also painted the partition in a controversial manner but I didn’t. It runs both ways - the people should try and understand artists as well.
What do you think of Dubai’s burgeoning art scene?

I think the rulers of this country have taken a good step by setting up museums and cultural centres. People from all over the world enjoy coming to Dubai and they tire of malls and shopping sometimes. But they should feature more artists from all over the world, instead of just focusing on local artists.
How do you plan to change people’s perceptions of your country?

I have started travelling a lot, and I do shows all over with my limited edition prints, as well as giving lectures at universities - all to change perceptions. I believe that the Western media is very unfair because they do not portray our cultural activities, poets and writers but concentrate on the negative aspects. It’s a sad thing. The knowledge Westerners have about us is very limited - in fact of any of the Asian countries. They don’t know that our cultures are old, vast, qualitative and diversified.

Tell us about your upcoming exhibition in Dubai.

In this exhibition, there are 65 prints of my original paintings, out of which around 30 are of architectural paintings. I have done architecture from India, Uzbekistan, some of the Middle Eastern countries, China. This exhibition has taken me eight years to complete. I always strive towards excellence. I still consider myself to be a student. I am a pupil of nature till today. This is my philosophy; I’m still learning. I would like to thank Byram Avari for hosting my exhibition at the Avari Hotel.

11:00 am

Wake up time! I love to sleep as late as possible on a Sunday. My idea of a terrific Sunday is to laze, eat and spend time with my family.

11 am -12.30 pm

Play with my dog Sprite (a gorgeous golden Labrador) and have breakfast with husband Ronnie (Screwvala) … akuri and toast!

12.30 pm - 2.30 pm

Lunch at my ma-in-law’s place - there’s brillaint Parsi food! (Sprite also eats his lunch there!). P.S. Saturday lunch’s with my parents.

3:00 pm

Chill at home, sip tea, read a good book with Sprite at my feet (while Ronnie works!), enjoy the tree outside my window, fill the house up with flowers, eat large quantities of my mothers amazing chocolate cake or strawberry torte! Happiness itself!

5:00 pm

Meet my 2 best friends for tea (sadly not every Sunday but sometimes).

7:00 pm

Go for a movie and have dinner with Ronnie or chill and watch a movie at home. Just watched an amazing movie called ‘The Lives of Others’ - absolutley exquisite. Or watch TV and catch up with the competition.

10:00 pm

I plan my week, I’m actually at my most prolific By sunday nights & I send out atleast 20 emails on sunday night so my team is charged up (hopefully) with all the stuff they need to get done!

12.30 am

Sleep!

Image copyrights bharat-rakshak.com

Wg Cdr Patel recollected the days when he joined the Indian Air Force. His primary education was in a village school in Nargol, Gujarat from where he went on to college in Bombay. Good conversational English was a prerequisite before joining the Indian Air Force as an Officer. Since he was poor in this when he was called for the interview, he was told that he may not get into the IAF as an Officer. Without much deliberation, Wg Cdr Patel asked to join the IAF as an Airman. Flt Lt Aspy Engineer who was on the interview board, dissuaded him from Joining. The story is continued in Wg Cdr Patel’s own words:

Sqn Ldr Mukerjee was the head of the Interview board at that time. Flt Lt Aspy Engineer was also there in the interview and he said, “Hoshang, don’t join the ranks, Parsi boys from Bombay cant take the tough life there”. Meanwhile a skinny Malayali corporal came to him for some signature or something. After he left I asked, “Who is that man?” “He’s corporal so and so..” was the answer.

I said to them “Will you ask him to wrestle me, run 100 yards dash, or a 1 mile race with me? I will beat him in all, and I mean it!”

“So You still insist on joining?” said Aspy.

I said “yes”

“You promise never to blame me? Because all the Parsi boys who have signed up are blaming me saying that I promised them heaven,” asked Aspy

I agreed - and I found myself in the ranks in the Indian Air Force.

Check out more pictures and read the entire interview here

CASTING about for someone to run a big family firm when a successful tyrant is due to retire is usually a troublesome business. When the firm is still controlled by the same family that founded it back when John D. Rockefeller was gobbling up refineries in Cleveland, it becomes still more daunting. Add the fact that the ruling family are Parsees, a small Zoroastrian sect who have been intermarrying in India for over a thousand years, and the odds of finding someone who is up to the job lengthen again.

Yet after indifferent early reviews, Ratan Tata has transformed the Tata group, of which he is chairman. When he took over from his uncle, J.R.D. Tata, it was a cumbersome conglomerate with stakes in a huge collection of companies that seemed likely to wither in the face of foreign competition. Now it makes foreign acquisitions and ventures into unfamiliar markets. Tata Steel’s bidding war with CSN, a Brazilian firm, over Corus, an Anglo-Dutch steelmaker, is just one example of the once-staid group’s new boldness. Mr Tata was recently voted Indian of the year by viewers of an Indian television channel, beating both Sachin Tendulkar, India’s greatest cricketer, and Aishwarya Rai, the country’s most famous screen goddess. And he has succeeded partly because he is what his friends call an individualist, and others might call a loner.

Mr Tata does not like publicity and avoids the platforms and applause of conferences. He lives frugally, does not drink or smoke and seems baffled by the idea of time spent not working. Asked what he would do with it, he usually replies that he would walk his dog along the beach near Mumbai. He does not seem to be motivated by money, and talks constantly about fairness and doing the right thing. “I want to be able to go to bed at night and say that I haven’t hurt anybody,” Mr Tata says twice in the course of an interview at a hotel in New Delhi owned by the sprawling group.

Mr Tata became chairman in 1991, just as India’s economy was opening up. His uncle, who had run Tata for more than 50 years, had started Tata Airlines (which became Air India) and was to India what Gianni Agnelli of Fiat was to Italy. He was a good-looking philanthropist with a French wife and held the first pilot’s licence to be issued in India. His shy and unglamorous nephew, in contrast, trained as an architect at Cornell University, slipped quietly into the family firm and was not marked out for the succession even when his uncle was due to bow out.

Despite all the glory that surrounded J.R.D., when he retired in 1991, Tata was a group of companies ill-equipped to deal with the changes about to sweep through India. It earned most of its money in old-fashioned industries that had grown fat during the centrally planned “licence raj”, when the government set limits on how much firms were allowed to produce and protected them from foreign competitors. The stakes held by the family in many of the 300-odd companies in the group were tiny, and the main Tata businesses were run as independent fiefs by men much older than Mr Tata.

They might have expected Mr Tata, who had never held an executive position, to leave them alone. Instead, he retired them, improving their pensions to soften the blow. He sold stakes in some companies and used cash from the sales and revenue from Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest IT firm, to shore up control of those that remained. There are now a mere 96 companies in the group, and Tata Sons now owns at least 26% of each of them. That has made the portfolio a little easier to manage, but it leaves Mr Tata more isolated at the top.

Shortly after he became group chairman, Mr Tata also decided that Tata Motors would make its own cars, even though a joint venture with a foreign firm would have been easier. Critics grumbled that a good truck business was about to be destroyed for the sake of an ill-conceived vanity project. But after a difficult start, Tata Motors is now India’s second-biggest carmaker by sales. “If he had listened to what everyone told him, he would never have done it,” notes one of Mr Tata’s friends.
First, do no harm

Although he has made Tata’s big businesses more competitive and more inclined to look beyond India’s borders—Corus would be just the latest in a series of foreign acquisitions—Mr Tata has also run it in keeping with Tata’s public-spirited tradition. Two-thirds of Tata Sons is owned by charitable trusts that do good works in India, and the firm is known for refusing to pay bribes and for treating workers well. (The children of Tata’s steelworkers were given free education back in 1917.) Foreign investors sometimes wonder if this is good for business. “At first I didn’t have an answer,” Mr Tata says. “But then I asked myself: am I competitive? Yes. And this is the way companies are moving.”

Mr Tata’s latest car project—producing a vehicle that will sell for under $3,000—combines two of the things that keep him from those walks along the beach: securing the fortunes of the family group and pleasing a highly developed sense of fairness. The factory will be in communist-run West Bengal, a state chosen partly because it is in need of industrial development. West Bengal’s government is eager for the investment, but Tata Motors has faced protesting farmers, a politician on hunger strike and, Mr Tata thinks, commercial rivals trying to prevent the birth of a more affordable car. Tata Motors is sticking it out, and expects to secure the land to build its new plant at the end of the month.

Mr Tata, who has no children, is due to retire in December 2012, when he reaches 75. That will leave the group with a familiar succession problem. Meanwhile, he is heading the government’s investment commission, which works to increase foreign investment. And he may be about to create one of the largest steelmakers in the world. Not bad for a shy architect.

Economist Jan 11th 2007

“I am passionate about what’s happening in India where the opportunities are huge. India is a booming market. I wish British businessmen engage themselves more in India,” he said.

The 44-year-old Bilimoria said this at a grand felicitation organised by CB Patel, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar, a bilingual weekly here on Thursday on his becoming the first Parsi to be the member of the House of Lords.

Read entire article here