I was elated to read that Sai Paranjpye is at Nagpur for the programme ‘Darval’, (Cityline October 4). A Padma Bhushan awardee, her father Youra Sleptzoff was Russian, while her mother Shakuntala Paranjpye acted in Hindi and Marathi films. Sadly, they divorced soon and Sai as a tiny tot was raised mainly by her mother and grandfather R P Paranjpye, who was a mathematician, educationist, and later a career diplomat. He was the Indian High Commissioner to Australia. Sai did her early schooling from Canberra.

 

Though as a filmmaker Sai did not make many films, all her films during the Golden Era were content driven, and have left indelible impressions with societal messages. Her films fell into the category of parallel cinema which had its best of times in the 1970’s and 80’s. I was first impressed by her film ‘Katha’ (1982), a romantic comedy based on S G Sathye’s Marathi play ‘Sasa Aani Kasav.’ An entertainer to the core, this film harped upon the realities of chawl life, with an added love triangle in the modern day adaptation of the Marathi play. Sai’s thoughts about population explosion, that was well depicted in her film ‘Disha,’ (1990), starring Nana Patekar, Shabana Azmi and Om Puri. The filmmaker’s clarity of thoughts on many topics, including artificial intelligence vis a vis human relations, migration to cities and economic hardships faced by commoners are quite appreciable. These are ground realities. The lady is 88 years plus young. We wish Sai Paranjpye good health and happiness.