RGV : I love capturing strong sexual women

From genius to psychopath Ram Gopal Varma has been called everything over the years. Karthik Pasupulate tries to decode the real man behind the façade, and fails miserably!

“I’ve answered this question 294 times in this year. I don’t think it will make any difference if I answer it for the 295th time,” I heard him respond to a question posed by an attractive young TV journalist, as I was walking in. Pretty women usually tend to bring out the best out of men and I couldn’t help wondering, Ramu might not be so charitable with dumb inquiries, coming from a bearded male journalist at that…

The Mayuri Distributors office was teeming with TV crews eager to get their piece of Ram Gopal Varma, in Hyderabad to promote his latest film, Avvaham. I’d get my fifteen minutes once he’s done with the folks from TV, his manager informs ushering me into a waiting room. In the pecking order of celebrity interviews the monthly magazines usually figure last, so no hard feelings there.

For the next forty minutes, I sat contemplating interesting questions to ask while pondering when and if I would get my chance. He had a press conference to attend in an hour, followed by his flight back to Mumbai. Yes, uncertainty is the charm of the game.

It was finally my turn and Ramu walked in wiping the sweat trickling down his forehead. Giving interviews nonstop can be a tiresome proposition indeed. Well the air conditioning wasn’t great either. So was there anything to ask about Phoonk-2 that he hadn’t already spoken about? “You can ask me anything you want,” he replied. He seemed to be in a rather good mood.

“I have always been a huge fan of the horror genre. The fact that you can instill scare using sound, camera and performances sure gives a big kick, you know,” he shares.

It was in 1992 that he made his first horror flick, Ratri. Eighteen years on, wonder if it’s more difficult to scare people. We seem to be living with a lot of fears already? “I don’t think you can look at cinema that way. At any given point cinema is essentially dealing with a certain emotion - love, anger, horror, humour etc. It’s just the technology that changes with time. The emotion of fear is what horror is all about,” he contends.   

Point taken but the horror genre, many feel does not quite have the same aura it had in the last century. Maybe we have seen a few too many of them. “I don’t know. A camera slowly coming behind someone will be scary whether 1960 or 2010. At a fundamental level, the idea is that there is something coming behind you. It is timeless in a sense because fear is a basic emotion. Fear is not to be confused with the story,” explains Ramu.

It seems fear has a lot to do with feeling and believing. Imagine a haunted house for example, he implores.  “We have all heard stories of haunted houses, the weird sights and sounds and the likes. That is fear. You can feel it. It is not necessary that you’ve seen it before. If done properly it will scare you again because it is transporting you to a place where you believe it is happening for real,” he says.

Pausing for a brief while, reaching for the glass of water he continues, “Do gaz Zameen Ke Neeche, made in the early 70’s scared people. Similarly Bhooth scared in 2003. We have better sound reproduction, cameras and much better Vfx support now. In essence Bhooth is as less or more scary as Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche at the end of the day. Even Phoonk is an adaptation of Exorcist that was made 30 years ago.”

Hmm! So horror films by default are limited at the story level are they? “It’s all about feeling the fear. There if you pack in a new story could be counterproductive. It’s best not to tinker with the story too much.”  

Having spoken so much about fear, we couldn’t help asking what scares RGV? “Nothing,” he says without even twitching a facial muscle. Wow! We all have our fears don’t we? “Fear comes primarily from two things. One is we are scared of losing something. I don’t want to posses anything. Secondly, I think so cinematically about everything. Even if I come across something that is potentially fearful, I get so technically analytical about it that I lose my fear completely and get into studying it,” he explains.

We are not ready to buy that especially considering he is a 48-year-old, well to do man with much to lose.

“What I am or not is a different question. The thing is I do not care about it. See if I care about people thinking I am a good director then I would automatically be scared of losing that title,” he sticks to his guns. “I am not scared about losing anything, money, property, relationships or fame,” he adds.

Ramu’s even game to share some earth shattering details about his experiences with fear.  There was a devastating earthquake that rocked Gujarat three years ago. The tremors shook Mumbai as well. “My first instinct was to get up and run. But it would be too late to run because I live in the eighth floor. I just sat on the bed and completely lost my fear and all I was curious to see what sound the building will make when it breaks down,” he takes the pains to clarify.

He should perhaps be in the Ripley’s (Believe it or not)! “I have completely no fear. It’s something very strange. I have not met anybody who has no fear at all,” he goes again. Guess when he says he lives away from himself this is what he means.

Either he’s a monk or well just doesn’t like to admit his fears. “Contrary to what many people feel about me and my ego and arrogance, I do not take myself seriously at all. For that matter I don’t think there’s anything special about anybody except for what they think about themselves,” he argues.