Reincarnating Depardieu

The Last Metro and Danton were in domestic cinema halls. The man international critics were calling “a phenomenon” and a “one man new wave” was giving his one and only press conference at the festival. The room, as I have already mentioned, was packed and heaving with anticipation.

Then came the question: “Mr Depardieu, if you were to be born again as an animal, which animal would you choose to be?” There was an awkward silence before the bemused French star sputtered out the response.

It could have ended there. It should have ended there. This was, after all, India’s showcase festival. The country’s leading critics were in town. The parallel cinema was booming. Talk was all of new directions and the glory of cinema, etc, etc.

But no, the questioner was not quite finished. Which sort of “dowg” would that be? And did Monsieur Depardieu believe in the Hindu theory of reincarnation? It was pretty much downhill after that.

The incident came to mind when I saw reports of Nobel Laureate John Nash’s visit to Mumbai last week. Nash is of course the brilliant mathematician whose work on game theory and struggle with schizophrenia was the subject of the recent Oscar-winning, Russell Crowe starrer A Beautiful Mind.

Pictures showed him fleeing and cowering under a barrage of flashbulbs and questions which reportedly included queries such as: Can game theory solve the Indo-Pak conflict? Did he want to see the Taj? Did he like Mumbai? Would he be sight seeing?

Talk about reducing things to the banal. There are some though who might argue that paparazzi are the same everywhere and have a yen for the trivial.

Maybe. But In India we take things one step further and demand that all our celebrity foreign guests also pay homage to our great land, however brief their visit and fleeting their acquaintance with India.

Not only does this deprive us of the rare opportunity to probe a visiting genius on his or her area of expertise, it also makes us seem like giddy characters out of A Passage To India.

So insistent are we on acquainting ourselves with our distinguished visitors’ opinions on all things Indian that it seems as if only their approval, and their approval alone, will satiate our need to feel good about ourselves.

There is little reflection on how we hurt ourselves in the process. We revel, for instance, in pictures of celebrities laden with garlands and kumkum tikkas or gadding about on elephants, not thinking about the stereotypical and retrograde images they convey of our country.

We are thrilled to bits that the likes of Madonna wash up in Benaras from time to time but never bother to ask them what it is that they are seeking for the purposes of mounting a tourist hardsell. But most of all, we miss out on knowing the world.

I can recall with acute embarrassment watching a televised press conference that was taking place in the United States with the Indian prime minister and the US president a few years ago. The two stood side by side but every question was directed at the US president and not one related to India; the local press was taking advantage of their president’s presence to ask him about domestic and other issues while the Indian prime minister suffered in silence.

Clearly this was not unusual. And it is with reason that people accuse the US of self-absorption. But are we that different? There is little foreign news in our media apart, of course, from the truly big global story, or the one with the India angle. Our neighbours find us overbearing and we, for our part, take little interest in their affairs. As for the visitors, we have already seen what we do to them.

Maybe from now on we could learn to be more circumspect. Do our homework and ask visitors about what they know best. Not seek compliments on our weather, our clothes, our monuments, our sights, our food.

And on no account ask visitors from Hollywood if they have any plans to join Bollywood. That being said… Le Chien Depardieu? Sounds like a strangely plausible name for a film.