Shahi AJ

Shahi A J is a filmmaker based in Kollam, Kerala. He is a literature graduate from T K M College of Arts and Science. He passed out from the Film and Television Institute of India in script writing and direction in 2012. He is currently working as the faculty of film direction at L V Prasad Film Institute, Trivandrum, and as a lecturer in St Joseph College of Communication, Changanassery. He is also engaged in scripting and adapting to the screen, short stories of the noted Malayalam writer P F Mathews; and in the pre-production phase of a collaborative documentary with the theatre artist and painter Gopalan Adatt.

With this grant Shahi wants to make an experimental film combining animation sequences with documentary footage, on the architectonics of Lucknow. With the working title Letters Unwritten to Naiyer Masud, Shahi wants the film to delve into the fictional universe created by the Urdu litterateur. Imagined as a visual letter, a travelogue, speaking to Naiyer Masud, about the city of Lucknow that is ubiquitous in his fiction, Shahi is proposing a movement from the exteriors of the city to the interiorities in the universe of the stories of Masud. This will be done through tracing the architectural mnemonic terrains Masud has weaved into his fiction. One snippet that Shahi has highlighted is the family insignia of Masud in his fiction titled Mahi Maratib. In reality it is the motif of Lucknow itself, which is the symbol of the fish as a sign of honour. Shahi’s primary impulse is to juxtapose the city of Lucknow depicted in Masud’s fiction and the real city in the present. The dilapidation of the erstwhile aristocratic cities in North India, is also the story of a transition in sovereignty from Islamicate monarchies to brutalities of the British Raj, and the chaos of post-Independence democracy. Shahi says that, “...the inherent differences between the Lucknow depicted in Masud's story universe and the real contemporary one…the latent tension and the potential it always had, of spilling onto the streets can be glimpsed directly in stories like Ganjefa or in Dead End ­ in the rest of his stories, Lucknow gains a certain allure, and an image distils in the mind of the reader after reading him.”

The anxiety of the urban condition, that Shahi wants to communicate is deep-rooted in diagnosing a decay in the polity of North India. This is most acute, when juxtaposed with the calmness that one could read in the Persianate architectonics in Masud’s fiction. This tension can be gleaned, when Shahi says, “With our exploration of the correspondences between the real and the fictional, we want to understand the mechanisation by which Masud has turned the map of the city of Lucknow, with its unique architecture, its intertwined lanes, its still standing skeletal of monuments ­ not just to reanimate historical memory, but to transcribe alongside it, fragments of personal, the fictional and the political.” 

As for the form of the film, Shahi is intending to pursue an epistolary form with the imaginary letters presented as text and voice over, alternately. The mood of the visuals would determine, if the imaginary letters would be text or voice over, and the letters will be interrupted by the voices/ presences of the people closest to Masud like Muhammad Umar Memon, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi and Professor Abidi who had intimately acquainted themselves with his work. The critics and friends of Masud would also be sharing their insights into the dialectics of the imagined and real city that Shahi is trying to explore. The imaginary letters would be interwoven with animation sequences, beginning with the first letter forming the fictional Adabistan, the imagined house of Naiyer Masud with all its curios, symbols and insignias. In the structure of the film, the viewer will be referred back to Masud’s house again and again, alternating unevenly between the real and the animated. 

Shahi is anxious about how the production of his film would turn out to be, considering the restrictions to travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a filmmaker based in Kollam, Kerala, there is considerable travel for him and his team to reach Lucknow to carry out the filmmaking process. The anxiety is heightened by the fact that most of the people that Shahi wants to engage with, in relation to the art and life of Masud, are octogenarians, the age group that is most vulnerable against the COVID-19 virus. These interactions are crucial for Shahi as a filmmaker who is reflexive of the fact that he does not read and write Urdu and Persian. Shahi and his crew are hoping that the pandemic situation will be brought under control, so that they can complete the film within the year and half of their grants period.  

Shahi’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be a high resolution copy of the film on a hard disk, along with the script, footages, production stills, film deck and publicity materials.

This grant is part-supported by Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company.