In a conversation, Khalid Mohamed draws out the eventful life and film adventures of writer-actor-director Amole Gupte, exploring his creative roots, artistic influences, and lifelong commitment to children’s cinema, storytelling, and the evolving landscape of Indian filmmaking. 

In this revealing interview, Khalid Mohamed engages in an intimate and expansive conversation with filmmaker, actor, and writer Amole Gupte, tracing his extraordinary journey from theatre and fine arts to cinema. Known for Stanley Ka Dabba, Hawaa Hawaai, and Saina, Gupte reflects on his creative influences, childhood, partnership with editor Deepa Bhatia, and his passion for nurturing children’s stories on screen. Rich with anecdotes about Smita Patil, Mirch Masala, and his time at FTII Pune, this conversation offers a rare glimpse into the heart and mind of one of Indian cinema’s most humane storytellers.

Once, he tells me he had dropped in with Ketan Mehta at The Times of India. We’d had tea in the canteen. That’s a blank to me frankly, because he was a slim, peppy young man who could well have become an actor. That he did, with TV series, brief roles in films and after adding on mirth-girth and wonder of wonders, a menacing screen presence, enacting the bad fella in a fistful of prominent films.

I’ve watched him relate with children at workshops – from all sections of income groups – revelling in their gift of being natural-born actors. When I needed some key footage of such moments of one of his students, Shadab, for a documentary, Little Big Children, it was sent over without asking half a reason.

That’s Amole Gupte, who’s not into self-promotion at all. So it took a round or two of telling him, “Awww, come on, I’m not going to asking you about your sex life…or any uncomfortable questions.”

Here, then are excerpts from an actor-writer, director Amole Gupte:

Roots, Mentors and Early Influences

Could we start with your backstory?

Right, my father Mr Sudhakar Gupte was a first generation computer software engineer and consultant, working for ICL, the British competitor of IBM, the American computer giant.

My mother, Anjali, served LIC for 40 years in its electronic data processing department. Dad moved around India and England, setting up computer systems while mom brought up my younger brother Atul and me, in a gated community of 11 buildings housing 188 families – at Bimanagar (Andheri) –with more than 600 sociable children on three playgrounds, trees to climb, gutters to fish from, indoor club with table tennis tables and carrom boards.

I’m here, please continue.

It was an idyllic childhood mentored by dad taking us to Indian classical music mehfils and stunning Marathi theatre - musicals, avant-garde, experimental and popular. He introduced me to cinema of Prabhat Studios helmed by V. Shantaram, Bhalji Pendharkar, S.Fatehlal and V. Damle, Gajanan Jagirdar and other masters of the cinema renaissance.

As Gabriel Gacria Marquez would say, “It was inevitable”, a pint-sized public speaker, then a teenaged theatre actor under enfant terrible Mahendra Joshi’s mercurial mentorship, belting out Tom Stoppard and Samuel Beckett, Madhu Rye and Satish Alekar, at the newly opened experimental stage of Jennifer Kapoor and architect Ved Segan’s Prithvi Theatre.

What next?  

Acting in the cinema was the next step. I travelled to the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune at the age of 19 to play Chandu in N. C. Thade’s student diploma film, Chakker Chandu Ka Chameliwal, which won a National Award.
And it was you who described me as an unhappy cross between Manoj Kumar and Kumar Gaurav!
I stayed on at the FTII campus from 1981 to 1993 and acted in more than a 100 student films, wrote, dubbed, did all that I could to be on campus for a daily fix of watching at least three masterpieces.

Simultaneously I acted and assisted in Ketan Mehta’s Holi and Mirch Masala and worked as Kundan Shah’s and writing assistant on Kundan Shah’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa and Circus along with Aziz Mirza, and Saeed Mirza’s Naseem.
That sums up my tread into my 30s, before I began showing my black-and-white pen-and-ink etchings and living off their sale at solo exhibitions at Prithvi Gallery under Sanjana Kapoor’s supportive and benevolent gaze.

Can you recall some anecdotes from your initial days as an assistant director and actor?

In Mirch Masala, my job included costume preps too but without a dress-man, spot-boy or other mandatories of Bollywood. At room 101 Hotel Mohit in Rajkot, shared by art director Ashish Lakhia, production manager Raj Zutshi and I, we dealt with filming 24x7. There was no respite from ageing, bleaching and ironing costumes for the next morning’s shoot.

A happy midnight knock always was that of Smita Patil, the Mother Teresa of my life. She would rescue me and was a buddy in the endless pressure of readying costumes of Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri (he wore my Bengal Lancers’ military shirt), Suresh Oberoi, Raj Babbar, Deepti Naval, Ratna, Supriya and Dinaben Pathak, Paresh Rawal, Mohan Gokhale… exhausting! But with Smita Tai by my side, I was blessed.

Can you tell me about the films and directors, books, and theatre which have influenced you? And what’s your take on a kiddie favourite like Finding Nemo?

The biggest influences on my life have been Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I had made a pilgrimage to St Petersburg in my 20s and lost my drunken mind at the banks of the Neva river. Then there were Honore de Balzac’s Old Goriot, Splendours and Miseries of Courtesans.

The theatre and cinema of Vijay Tendulkar impacted me as much as Fatehlal and Damle’s1935 masterpiece Sant Tukaram. The films that changed my life continue to be Dada Ritwik Kumar Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara and Subarnarekha.

Of course I was stirred by the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy and Yasujiro Ozu. That was because of 12 years of feasting on the masters in the temple of cinema – The Main Theatre at the FTII. And of course, the indelible mark of Cain was etched on my forehead forever by my ‘aaqa’, the master… the inimitable Kamal Swaroop with whom I travelled the seven seas during the filming and dubbing of his cult classic Om-Dar-Ba-Dar.

About Finding Nemo, it’s my family’s absolute favourite. We even had a four kg. Nemo Cake for my son Partho’s third birthday. It impacted my parenting philosophy. Thank you Andrew Stanton and all the dadas at Pixar.

Children, Cinema and Creative Collaboration

You’ve been drawn towards children’s film and interacting with them at workshops. Is there any child actor who could have developed as a fine adult actor but couldn’t because of circumstances?

My first emotional encounter with children’s cinema was on black and white Bombay TV. It was Acharya Atre’s winner of the first President’s Gold Medal, Shyam Chi Aai, based on the life of Sane Guruji. I wept inconsolably.

There was Honey and Daisy Irani’s Zameen Ke Taare… same effect!

Then Rajshris’ Dosti, Master Sachin and other tots in Bhappi Sonie’s Brahmachari, Ramesh Sippy’s Andaz and much later, Shekhar Kapur’s Masoom.

As far as a child actor whose full potential couldn’t be exploited as an adult—that’s Partho Gupte. This son of mine sitting on a gold mine of awards received as a child, my Stanley refused to party as an actor once he got the taste of writing and directing. What a loss! 

Over to your stint at as chief of the Children’s Film Society of India. Should it have been dismantled as it has been of late?  

Tragic! The dismantling of a fabulous institution, the last bastion for children’s cinema. As its chairperson from 2012 to 2015 I tried hard to create distribution systems for CFSI content and brought in children-friendly working undertakings for a non-oppressive shooting hours ecosystem.

What was the germinating point of Stanley ka Dabba, and comments on the National Award which went to your son Partho. Were you more over the moon than he was?

Stanley and his dabba germinated through the cinema studies workshops at the Pali Chimbai Municipal School where Partho was a five-year-old Saturday partner to begin with and stayed on in the module even after Stanley ka Dabba and completing Hawaa Hawaai as a teenager.

In fact he was the cue actor during the Taare Zameen Par rehearsals for Darsheel Safary. I was of course over the moon when Partho won the National Award for Stanley ka Dabba, a Filmfare citation, Star Screen, Big Star Entertainment Awards and even the Best Actor at Schlibgel Film Fest in Chemnitz, Germany, among the 50 odd international films in competition. I got way more kicks out of his awards than he did.

Family, Film and the Future

What are Partho’s plans now that he has completed his studies in film abroad. Besides his short films, does he plan a feature?

Now that Partho has graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles, his goals are to write and direct and even photograph his future films.

He’s already shot his first feature, Good Afternoon Good Evening Good Night, in Los Angeles and is doing its post-production here in Mumbai. No false pride but he is the most lettered cinephile I’ve encountered in recent times - vastly well-read, musically honed, philosophical and knowledgeable.

As an actor you have been largely cast in baddy roles. Which films did you enjoy acting in? And why have you stopped now?  

Ha Ha! I loved doing Kaminay, Stanley Ka Dabba, Phas Gaye Re Obama and recently Riteish Deshmukh’s Raja Shivaji. I play Adil Shah and Vidya Balan plays my wife, Sanjay Dutt plays my chieftain Afzal Khan, to Riteish and Abhishek Bachchan playing Shivaji and elder brother Sambhaji respectively, their father Shahji Bhosle played by Sachin Khedekar. It’s been fun.

How do you look back on Sniff and Hawaa Hawaii which went under the cracks?

All my babies have a digital life extension. I keep getting calls from back and beyond, especially for Hawaa Hawaai, Saina and of course, Stanley ka Dabba.

Your biographical film Saina on the badminton player… were you creatively satisfied with it?

All I can say is that I wish I could remake the film with Shraddha Kapoor.

What has been the role of your wife, Deepa Bhatia, a reputed film editor, on the final print of your films? Where did you meet her first, did you have to wait for years till she agreed to marriage?

Deepa Bhatia is not only the finest editor in Hindi cinema and OTT but also the director-producer of Nero’s Guests, winner of the FIPRECI Best Documentary Film Award, 2009. She also helmed First Act, a six-part documentary series on children in the media and its blatant anomalies.

What does Deepa mean to my work? Well I have never considered it my work alone ever. Be it Taare Zameen Par and all the films that followed, Deepa has been my senior partner, the ghost in my goshta (story).

We met in 1994 and married in 1996. I was writing TV shows for Prochi and Surinder Bhatia (Deepa is Surinder’s cousin) and thus we met - jab we met, tab we met.

You could have easily got into web series. Have you purposely chosen not to?

Let me tell you that web series is a different animal. What to feed this animal and how much, the owner decides. That’s the lord who’s put a collar around this animal’s neck, and who holds the leash.

What kind of films appeal today to the Gen Z kids, who are either mostly stuck to video games on smartphones or American cartoons?

I feel like Old Man Moss sitting by the fireside telling stories. Phantom is out of fashion, Mandrake can’t do his magic anymore.

What are you planning now?

A film titled Underbelly with the tagline A Food and Sex Postcard. It’s with Arshad Warsi, my favourite actor.

How much of the child that you were lingers on within you?  

I’m 63 now and living in the 1960s and ‘70s. Memory has no sepia tones, it’s as if it all happened only yesterday.

Chhilar Party was the last children’s film of some quality from Mumbai cinema. Are there any others you’d recommend?

Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dhanak, Nil Madhab Panda’s I Am Kalam, Vishal Bharadwaj’s Makdee and Blue Umbrella, and on a lighter note Haathi Mere Saathi which we went mad as children, then.

Are you positive or not so sure about the arrival of Artificial Intelligence?

Frankly, I don’t have any thoughts about it.

Any parting shot?

Let me think. How about - if you want to make films, just do it? Satyamev Jayate!