Amid ongoing unrest over Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India, filmmaker-music director Vishal Bhardwaj has shared his views on the current political situation, saying the scenario is serious. "The current scenario is grim as people are being divided on the basis of religion, which is not the India I grew up in," Vishal told IANS.
He also took to Twitter to take a dig at the government for imposing Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) restricting the protesters from gathering against or in favour of the controversial law passed by Parliament recently, in several parts of the nation.
"Hillarious. Who knows this might happen too," Bhardwaj tweeted, along with a newspaper cartoon clipping that depicts a boy expressing dissapointment over the situation.
Vishal is a filmmaker who has never shied from expressing his political beliefs in films. Be it Haider or 7 Khoon Maaf or Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola, most of his movies have a political element. Sharing his process of filmmaking, he opened up on how he is inclined towards depicting reality through his projects.
“Films are a mirror of reality. I read a lot and I watch a lot. I wait for ideas to emerge within me. I don’t rush towards creating ideas,” Vishal said, on the sidelines of his musical performance at the fifth edition of Bollywood Music Project.
Talking about his stint as a musician, Vishal started his Bollywood journey as a a music director in the mid-nineties. He has composed songs in films such as Maachis, Chachi 420, and Satya, besides self-directed projects such as Omkara, Kaminey, and Pataakha.
On his musical journey, Vishal said: "I think I have come a long way and I have been changing every year, every month and every moment. The learning never stops. The moment you think you know, you encounter failure. It's like a mirage, you never reach the horizon. It always keeps shifting for you."
Vishal also spoke about how he maintains a balance between music, direction, writing, and production. "They all happen at different stages of the filmmaking process. And as I have said many times before, I became a director so that I could employ myself as a music composer," he concluded.
(Simran Sethi can be contacted at simran.s@ians.in)
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