Unsung khiladi behind shatranj

In the mid rsquo70s when Bengal was going through its peak tradeunionist years it looks like the crew from Calcutta shooting for Satyajit Rayrsquos Shatranj Ke Khilari SKK in Lucknow had launched a civildisobedience movement of sorts arriving late on set Because The breakfast served was no good The actual grouse beingThat theyrsquod been put up in a lesser hotel while those brought down from Bombay for the same shoot had been lodged at the solitary fivestar hotel Clarkrsquos AvadhThe lsquoLord Dalhousiersquo of this Rajlike rebellion was one Suresh Jindal the filmrsquos Delhibased Punjabi producermdashwhorsquod also been accused of being antiBengali based on a few drunken jokes hersquod cracked at a crewparty one of the nightsThe Bengalis in this shoot had been associated with Ray since forever that is his first film So much so that he often said he made a new movie every year also to keep his crew gainfully employedCover of his book My Adventures with Satyajit Ray The Making of Shatranj Ke KhilariThey clearly had Rayrsquos ears Pissed with this alleged discrimination Ray eventually gave Jindal a solid dressingdown in person although in private Upset perhaps feeling humiliated Jindal nearly walked out of his own film Is movies the only industry where depending on power equations the employer neednrsquot be the bossThere were letters back and forth with Ray that Jindal later published as a book My Adventures with Satyajit Ray The Making of Shatranj ke Khilari 2017 It was while reading it that I figured that an unlikely 34yearold had become the producer of Indiarsquos greatest filmmakerrsquos first colour plus Hindi plus by far his most ambitiously budgeted filmmdashthanks firstly to the Bollywood actordirector Tinnu Anand whorsquod been Rayrsquos assistant for half a decadeHowrsquos that Anand tells me he bumped into Jindal through a common friend when this smart ambitious USreturned film buff was ldquoterribly troubledrdquo Hersquod produced his first film Rajnigandha with Basu Chatterjee as director and a practically debutant castOnly that Chatterjee had himself turned producer for his following production and he had no time to spare for the soundmixing of Rajnigandhamdashcausing further delays on the release and indeed Jindalrsquos return on investment Anand helped Jindal out with capturing ambient sounds of Bombay for the movie and finishing off the final mixA still from Rajnigandha PicsTwitterAnand feels Chatterjee or any director making films of a certain typemdashldquoI hate the words parallel cinemardquomdashwould be beyond lucky to land up with someone like Jindal then opening up the moneybag for whatever story the filmmaker wants to tellThey do sound like proudgood parents fulfilling their childrsquos dreams isnrsquot it Putting their personal time and savings into midlow budget indies where economically the expected profits actually arenrsquot high and the risks way higher still Each picture is a startup from scratchConversely Jindal himself got lucky to land with Rajnigandha 1974mdashso equally loved at the box office and in conversational spaces that it was the first movie at Filmfare to win both the Best Film Popular and Best Film Critics awardsWhich is really what Jindal was aspiring formdashas a young producer with his love for intelligent commercial art off the main mart ldquoIf thatrsquos the caserdquo Anand told him ldquoWhy donrsquot you just bloody invest on RayrdquoHe took Jindal over to Calcutta to meet the Renaissance Man who was also coincidentally nursing an idea for a nonBengali feature based on Premchandrsquos short story SKK The other film that Ray made on a Premchand story was a short Sadgati 1981 produced by statetelevision Doordarshan His debut Pather Panchali itself was partly funded by West Bengal governmentSKK a period piece was going to be staggeringly scaled up of course Jindal put his money where his mouth sipping whisky was He worked on the backendlogisticscasting down to enough firsthand research that could ldquoproduce a PhD thesisrdquo Ray by now a global don could attract whatever casttalents he preferred from Bombay for his Hindi film debutThe distributors were in too But they were out soon as the movie was ready Itrsquos not the film they had imagined and betted on Jindal temporarily ran into major debt having also borrowed from private lenders at 50 per cent interest quite common among film producersFor introducing him to Ray and if the film did get made Anand had asked his buddy Jindal to gift him a ldquofirstclass roundtheworld trip for twordquoJindal came good on that deal over a decade later when he visited Anandrsquos place Theyrsquod lost touch Jindal said as per Buddhist philosophy an unfulfilled promise follows you into the next birth Having found a higher calling he had left regular worklife to practise Buddhism fulltime by the late rsquo90s it appearsFor all the love and acclaim SKK sure enough brought home a reasonable profit for Jindal Also he got to know Richard Attenborough playing General James Outram in the movie rather well This is how he got on board as executive producer of Attenboroughrsquos Gandhi 1982 arguably the greatest film ever made in India and a turning point of several sortsSo you look at what all he made happen Rayrsquos SKK Chatterjeersquos Rajnigandha Attenboroughrsquos Gandhi also Sai Paranjpyersquos Katha 1983 among others I first heard the name Suresh Jindal on the day he passed way thatrsquos November 24 2022Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper