Midnight’s Children, written by Salman Rushdie Options

[Sharmila-Sweet]

Midnight’s Children hits floors in December
Roshmila Bhattacharya, Hindustan Times
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Mumbai, September 12, 2010First Published: 12:23 IST(11/9/2010)

Shabana Azmi refuses to divulge details about her role in Deepa Mehta’s screen adaptation of Midnight’s Children. But admits that she’s thrilled with the script. “When I read Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel, I thought it would be impossible to film. But Deepa and Salman have come up with a crackling screenplay and I’m impressed,” she exults.

Azmi is excited at the prospect of working with Mehta again after the aborted Water. Nandita Das and she had to step aside after Mehta was told that distributors wouldn’t touch her film if it featured the two actresses, following a shoot in Varanasi that was disrupted by angry fundamentalists, forcing the unit to move to Sri Lanka. Lisa Ray stepped in for Das and Seema Biswas for Azmi.

“We believed in the film and the issues it raised. And agreed that the fundamentalist forces had to be defeated. We were vindicated when the film was nominated for the Oscars,” asserts Azmi.

Midnight’s Children flags off in December. Before that, in October, Azmi will be touring the US with her one-woman play, Broken Images. “I’ve received another exciting movie offer but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it since I’m committed to this tour,” she says. “I’m looking forward to it since the play works differently with different audiences.”

Written by Girish Karnad and directed by Alyque Padamsee, Broken Images is a psychological thriller revolving around a Hindi short story writer who becomes famous overnight after writing an English bestseller. She goes to a TV studio for an interview and on the way out, her on-screen image starts talking to her and has us wondering whether it is her, her paralised younger sister Malini who used to write in English or her conscience speaking.

“Technically, it’s a huge challenge because I’m not enacting two characters but two facets of the same character. The TV image lasts for 42 minutes and is a single-take effort. The lines have been pre-recorded and I have to react to them on stage, so timing is crucial,” explains Azmi.

She was in Rothak for a show recently and an hour before it was to start, she was asked by the organiser if she could speak more Hindi since only 20 per cent of the audience understood English.

“My image had to speak English but I reacted to what she was saying in Hindi, translating my lines live on stage, without any rehearsal,” she recalls. “I don’t know how I did it but when the show ended, the organiser was in tears and the audience were up on their feet applauding.”

[Sharmila-Sweet]

After Irrfan Khan opted out, Ronit Roy came on board for Midnight's Children
By Subhash K. Jha, April 13, 2011 - 14:54 IST
Ronit Roy is back being the bad dad. In Udaan, he roughed up his 16-year old screen-son (Rajat Barmecha) so bad the boy finally runs away from home. Now in Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children, a role Ronit flash-stepped into, just like Udaan where he was a last-minute replacement-he hits his screen-son (Darsheel Safary) so hard the character goes deaf in one year.

The musical chairs in the casting for Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children continues. Now it comes to light that Udaan's multi-award winning actor Ronit Roy has suddenly replaced Irrfan Khan to play the pivotal role of Ahmed Sinai, the protagonist Saleem Sinai's father.

Apparently, Deepa was keen that Irrfan do the role for two reasons: she had never worked with her arch-rival Mira Nair's favourite actor before, and more importantly she needed someone with a good command over the Holy Quran.

Says a source, "Irrfan fitted the bill perfectly. However, his dates clashed with two other international projects Spiderman and Life Of Pi. So he had to reluctantly back out. That's when Deepa's search for Saleem Sinai's father started again. Someone recommended the man who played the father in Udaan. Deepa ordered a copy of Udaan and she was immediately convinced Ronit was right for the part."

Ronit Roy, heady with all the adulation and awards for Udaan, was looking for a challenging role to take him ahead of Udaan. That's when he stepped in to shoot for Midnight's Children in Colombo.

When contacted Ronit says, "I am really not at liberty to talk about this. But yes I've been shooting out of the country away from my family. That's been tough on me. I don't like to take my wife and daughter on location. It's a torture for them and a distraction for me."

Apparently, Ronit has been studying the Holy Quran for the role. "Like I said, I can't really talk about this," he ends.

Interestingly, Ronit was again the last-minute replacement for the young father's role in Udaan when the first choice Kay Kay Menon suddenly opted out. Maybe this role too would prove lucky for Ronit.