It’s been an eventful few days for actor Mukesh Khanna who has resigned from his post as Chairperson of the Children’s Film Society of India. Popularly known for playing Shaktimaan on Indian television, the actor is peeved at many things, especially that it took around three weeks for his resignation to be accepted. Here are the excerpts from his interview.
QWhen you joined the CFSI, CEO Shravan Kumar was elated. What went wrong?
Ek se ek gyarah hota hai, but I never found the CEO adding to anything I was doing. At the executive committee meetings, I always found myself alone. But my suggestions are for the betterment of the CFSI. For instance, I feel tenders should not affect the creativity in filmmaking.
QCan you elaborate on these tenders?
There are these old films that we telecast on Doordarshan. There was a marketing firm that came to us and offered us '3 lakh to be the distribution agency. But I was told we have to put a tender out. Because of such reasons, Doordarshan is not popular with marketing agencies. We had four films ready including one called Tennis Buddies, which is India’s first tennis film, and I was keen to get them released properly and we had distributors who were ready to put money into distribution. But they said, ‘You need a tender’. But how do you know that the person who is offering you the highest money is good enough to distribute?
I told them that we are not the Khans that the distributors will come running to us. So, I was told ‘put them on Doordarshan and we will make the films popular’.
QBut aren’t a lot of films like Karamati Coat only made for awards and festivals?
Art filmmakers want to use CFSI to go to film festivals and win awards. The CEO, the chairperson and the director go to Cannes and Berlin. They win awards and the director gets the credit. What does the CFSI get? Nothing! Whose money is invested? The CFSI’s!
QBut did you try to change things?
Yes, I did. I changed the rule that only films that can be released should apply. I fought with everyone.
Q Did you speak to the I&B Ministers? There were three during your tenure — Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu and Smriti Irani.
Jaitleyji and Venkiahji understood my problem and my point. But before they could do anything, they were shifted. Then we got a new minister. So I thought abhi kuch to hoga because she is from the industry. But then even after writing a letter to her, I had to wait for four months and didn’t get a reply. There was no acknowledgement to the letter. As the Chairman of an institution under the ministry, I had to wait in the queue because the concerned minister was busy.
Q So did you decide to quit after watching the ‘battle of Kurukshetra’?
Ha, ha! Something like that. I had around three months left in my tenure and I thought I should protest and resign. And the final nail on the coffin was that they accepted my resignation after 17 days without asking me why I was stepping down three months before my tenure!
QWhat are your plans now?
I am starting my own company called Shaktimaan World of Children though which I would present good children’s films and join hands with producers who are willing to make such films.
