Now, it has turned 'full filmy' style -- With Gajendra Chauhan proving his Yudhishtrian-powers by ensuring that even without stepping inside the campus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), he can keep it virtually shut down for nearly three months and the students remaining on strike, things have taken a turn for the worse. A director shut inside a room, students heckling, police swooping down on the campus, arresting students in the middle of the night, no one is left unconvinced on either side of the picketing line about one thing -- FTII is seriously in a bad shape. This episode of DALEEL with SP SINGH brings you two illustrious alumnus of the FTII to understand how the problem is much more complex than just Gajendra Chauhan, scraped arguably from the bottom of the barrel in the industry. DALEEL brings you celebrated and award winning NISHTHA JAIN, who hit limelight in 2008 with her film on a film maker's relationship with her domestic help - LAKSHMI AND ME, later a film on a stampede at a sari-distribution camp for the poor - 6 YARDS OF DEMOCRACY, and then hogged national headlines with GULABI GANG, the story right from ground zero of women fighting gender violence, caste oppression and corruption and making Sampat Pal a household name but choosing a medium much better than BIG BOSS Indian reality TV show that later featured her. DALEEL also brings you Sudarshan Juyal, also an FTII alumnus, as well as of National School of Drama (NSD), who has spent almost three decades making the kind of cinema that ploughs a lonely furrow in a jungle dominated by Bollywood, and now teaches younger budding filmmakers. Alongside social commentator Dr H K Bali, who also wears another hat of being a leading cardiologist in the region, working with Fortis, and HARISH MEHLA, lawyer and film critic who is the prime force behind Chandigarh Creative Cinema Circle (4C), we pose a question whether the fight on the FTII campus is not actually another frontline against the Modi government. The panelists are also challenged to answer the charge whether there are innumerable fights that the FTII has not been fighting for years. If a huge section of the industry produces completely ignorable films that yield vulgar dividends, then owns the responsibility for not inducing cinema sensitivity among millions -- a function of media, education, health sector, politics of leisure, access to entertainment, regulatory forums and distribution networks, ticket pricing and a thousand other things. This episode of DALEEL with SP SINGH was telecast on PTC News on September 2, 2015. Feedback, suggestions welcome at singh.india@gmail.com. Also, please help spread the word about DALEEL, an effort at cerebral television in times of dumbing down of the news media. Guest : 1. Award winning film maker Nishtha Jain, FTII alumnus of Gulabi Gang fame 2. Sudarshan Juyal, film maker, also FTII alumnus 3. Dr HK Bali, cardiologist and social commentator 4. Harish Mehla, film critic / Chandigarh Creative Cinema Circle
