In the 90s and in the 2000 RGV’s production office worked 24 X7 because Varma is an insomniac. Surely there is a life beyond cinema I commented. “Sure, but cinema dominates all. I celebrate my successes and my failures because all of them teach me something. It is only now I realize how rebellious I was during Daud, had I paused and pondered, the film would have fared better. Satya reflects introspection and Rangeela my happy state of mind”.
What does Jungle reflect? “My impulsive nature, I hate being idle, so one afternoon, writer Jaideep Shahani dropped by my office to narrate a subject. Next minute, I summoned my assistant and asked them to start planning our next production. That’s how all my films are born and my team is used to my spontaneous operations. I became obsessed with the idea of turning a forest into a character even though Jungle proved physically an exhausting experience”.
It was shot in one schedule? “We camped for 45 days on location, cut off from civilization, stayed in villages without electricity and with only each other for company. We travelled rough roads in open jeeps, endured insect bites but our spirits remained unbroken. The grass inside a dense forest is four feet tall and it is difficult to perceive what lies ahead of us, once a leopard crossed our path and scared us.”
To be continued