Kissa KJo Ka

Rare hopping across Twitter eventually led me to one of the more refreshing one-on-ones in recent times. Now there are interviews and then there are interviews. If you are unlucky you could chance upon utterly stifling, choking, diabetes inducing interviews that are dipped in the caramel of diplomacy. If you find my words cheesy, then you had better brace yourselves to the interviews I am talking about.

Now, ever since that monster called Kuch Kuch Hota Hai took the shine away in 1998 from Satya and Dil Se, two gems that I have held close to my heart, I have had problems with his cinema. Cinema mind you, not the person, which is what it should be. Slowly but surely his stature grew, and slowly but surely my hatred for his offerings travelled northwards. Nothing could stop him, it seemed, so much so that he and his cinema became a reference point and his brand worthy enough to be derided. We are dealing with India here.

But with time, I realized that here was a man who was comfortable in his skin, totally unapologetic about that, in a right way. While we winced, he seemed to maintain his composure and cool even when his orientation, sexuality which is no Tom, Dick and Harish's business, was tossed up and made an object of national debate and fodder for gossip mills by every Tom's Dick and Harish. He believed in his cinema, knew where his inspiration came from, knew who his idols were, made no bones about the fact that he craved being lapped up by the hoi polloi of Bihar as well as the hoity toity of Birmingham. Whether we took to his tales or not, whether we admired his craft or the lack thereof, his steel was respect worthy. Time and again he acknowledged his cinematic limitations, acknowledged what he could offer, and he could not be what others were. This is all when he needn't have! The TIMESNOW interview where he owns up to his follies, his supposed lack of vision or the ability to take risks makes you respect him a little bit more. You admire his honesty where he mentions there are far better filmmakers than him, whose work he cannot even dream to emulate. Isn't this coming out clean, when there is absolutely no need (keeping in mind your self-respect), heartwarming? Doesn't this make for good television at least from the standpoints of the interview, the interviewer, and the interviewee? Isn't it good when he dodges all those scathing barbs with a smile, unflustered stripping the interviewer of his pants confining all dirty linen to laundries or bedrooms? Doesn't this make it less synthetic, less plastic? Doesn't this make you purge out all that frustration has been bottled up courtesy other celebrities' pseudo-diplomacy, pseudo-chivalry on air into a sigh of relief?

Bring them on more. Whether we like it or not. So what if the honesty seems to be a little selective, so what if this is a pre-recorded programme.

For possessing balls apparently made of pure stainless steel, whether or not I take to or talk of your cinema, Karan Johar, respect!

Rare hopping across Twitter did eventually lead me to one of the more refreshing one-on-ones in recent times.