The actor says that Jagmohan Mundhra was always sad that despite doing movie like ” Provoked” and ” Bawandar”, he still couldn’t lose the stupid tag

Actor Rohit Roy is shocked with the news of Jagmohan Mundhra’s sudden demise. The actor, who was directed by Mundhra in “The Apartment”, said, “It’s so sad and sudden. He was one of the nicest and most cultured guys I’ve met. All of us who have worked with him are stunned.” But what has really shocked Rohit is the way the world tried to thrust the image of being a director of semi-porn movies to Mundhra. “That was utter crap. He is a graduate from MIT who has made so many thought provoking films like “Bawandar”, “Kamla” etc. He was anything but a semi-porn filmmaker.”

In fact, Mundhra himself was very upset with his tag that was thrust on to him. In an earlier interview, the director had emphatically said that he had never made a single porn movie. “Most of my erotic thrillers have been R rated and are based on solid 95 minute screenplays with a few scenes containing tasteful nudity. All were shot in 35mm with well known TV actors and with a professional crew over four to five weeks of shooting schedule. Porn films don’t need all this. When a film directed by me called “Night Eyes” for Ashok Amritraj became a massive hit on the video circuit bringing in a return of $30 million on a $1 million investment; I got pigeonholed in this genre and was flooded with offers to direct erotic thrillers. For someone who was turned down by American producers in late 70s saying you are Indian and a Ph.D., how can you direct an American film, you should be only doing research; this was quite a vindication,” the director had said.

In fact, this impression was so detrimental that there were times when parallel film actors in India shied away from working in his films because this tag. “Most people in the media who named me as such had never seen my English films. One person’s tag got carried on by others and no one cared to verify anything. Not just parallel film actors, all actors in India who mostly know you by what they read about you were skeptical. Most famous Bombay directors would tell me in private how much they envied me and wanted to visit me on my sets in LA. In public, of course, everyone had their ‘holier than thou’ attitude, undermining my film work in America as insignificant. Except for Deepti Naval and Shabana Azmi, who had worked with me in “Kamala” in 1985, most had forgotten that I came from the realistic cinema school. I made “Bawandar” to remind people what I could do as a filmmaker. I am quite proud of my body of work. A good film according to me is one which tells its story effectively and efficiently. If the story is about sex and seduction and the character’s action is motivated by desire, then my job as a story teller is to involve my audience in that character’s plight and dilemma. If as an audience you are offended by genre of films such as ” Fatal Attraction” and “Basic Instinct”, it doesn’t mean those films are bad. All it means is that it was not intended for a prudish audience like you,” the director had said in the interview.

Recalling his association with Mundhra, Roy said, “It’s sad that a prolific filmmaker like him got labeled in such a fashion. He had a lot more to offer and always sad that despite doing movie like “Provoked” and “Bawandar”, he still couldn’t lose the stupid tag. Having worked with him on “The Apartment”, I can say with authority that he enjoyed telling stories of human conflict involving serious social issues.”