Filmmaker Devashish Makhija said : He still doesn’t know where his next salary will come from
Devashish Makhija, who has directed films like ‘Ajji’, ‘Bhonsale’ and ‘Joram‘, has been in the film industry for more than two decades. He talked about the difficulties of maintaining a career.
He recently said that it took him 14 years to release his first feature film. If someone had warned him that it would take so long for his career to take off, he would have packed his bags and returned to his hometown Kolkata. Even in two decades of working in Mumbai, he has not been able to secure himself financially. The filmmaker said he still doesn’t know where his next salary will come from.
Talking about his struggle on Long Live Cinema YouTube channel, Devashish Makhija says, ‘Even today when I call any actor or anyone else to meet, they ask – Where is your office? And I say- I don’t have any office. So you tell me where you are or we’ll meet at a coffee shop and I’ll tell you which coffee shop, because I can’t afford most of the coffee shops in Versova.’ He further says, ‘I am still in the same place.’
He further said, ‘I am called for a meeting at the studio and the executive calling me tells me where to park my car. I say- I don’t have a car. I don’t even have a two-wheeler. So they ask me how I will come and I tell them I will come by auto, or if it is far, by bus. As I go to those meetings, they think of me as someone who travels by auto and bus, so they talk to me in the same way.That hasn’t changed for me in 20 years and 4 feature films.
He said that he still lives with this insecurity and his latest film Joram has ‘financially ruined’ him. He said, ‘I have accepted the fact that this is not going to change for the rest of my life so should I change then?I don’t know if I’ll be able to pay my cook next month or not, all these things are running through my mind… My insecurities are real and they have grown to such an extent that the consequences will be felt tomorrow, two Not after a year. I have to keep working, because I don’t know where the next cheque will come from’.
Makhija said that the world changed forever after the 2008 recession. Many of his projects were put on hold, so he took care of himself by writing subtitles and children’s picture books. He said that he does not know what his next film will be, because it is not in his power to give the green signal to it. He says, ‘I am working on 8 stories simultaneously, because I don’t know which story will get the green signal…’
