Nagesh Kukunoor: ‘The beauty of Hyderabad is undoubtedly in the old city streets and the true authentic Hyderabadi food

Nagesh Kukunoor believes that the beauty of Hyderabad lies in the old city and in Modern Love Hyderabad we get to see a fair amount of both the old and the new. In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, he mentions that there is no comparison to the Hyderabad he knew way back in 1997 when he shot Hyderabad Blues versus the Hyderabad now. He wanted to give the rest of India a true sampling of the top twenty dishes of Hyderabad through Modern Love Hyderabad.

Excerpts of the interview:

How much of Hyderabad do we get to see in Modern Love Hyderabad?

I would say a reasonable bit. In any anthology you have about thirty odd minutes and I think we were clever enough to pick six different stories which allowed us to showcase as much of Hyderabad as possible. But I wanted to show some of the iconic locations in Modern Love Hyderabad. I think you will get to see a fair bit of the old as well as the new. We did a reasonably good job of covering the old city. My parents still live in the same house that I was born in. Everything about the place is extremely similar and I still walk the same streets today. So, I am still a Hyderabadi boy.

How much has your Hyderabad changed since your Hyderabad Blues?

There is absolutely no comparison to the Hyderabad I knew way back in 1997 when I shot Hyderabad Blues versus the Hyderabad right now. Its dramatically different mainly because the city has exploded on all the peripheries- east, west, north and it’s ironic that a lot of people who come to Hyderabad and the Gachibowli and Kondapalli are such fabulous places still.

For most people Hyderabad is all about Charminar, how much importance does Charminar hold to you?

Charminar and all the older parts of the city that I grew up in and obviously there has to be some nostalgic ties otherwise the audience are not going to appreciate it at all. But again modern Indian cities are all alike. There really is no distinguishable feature.

What are the changes that happened with the split of Andhra Pradesh to the city of Hyderabad?

There was not much monstrous demographic shift with AP splitting into Telangana. But clearly Hyderabad now is slowly sort of regaining its Telangana roots. In a very interesting way the older part of Hyderabad is returning to its earlier Telangana roots that I kind of grew up in. Having said that, the visitors are not going to see any drastic changes in Hyderabad. They will see it as one of the larger metros in India. So, you will get everything starting from the top notch restaurants that you will find in any large city. But the beauty of Hyderabad is undoubtedly in the old city streets and the true authentic Hyderabadi khaana with biryani being one of the pillars on which Hyderabad actually stands.

 On directing three of the short films of the anthology Modern Love Hyderabad…

Since I did the writing along with my co-writers for all the episodes, I sort of have the take and one of these was trying to shoot three of the stories with three very distinctive backgrounds. My Pandemic Partner is the one with Revathi and Nithya Menon and it talks about a mother and daughter who are locked in a Hyderabadi home during the pandemic and how the story progresses. You realise what has happened in the past and how the two of them reconcile their relationship. The best part of the story was actually taking the New York Times article and set it against the Muslim backdrop because one of the cool things in India is that there are a lot of Muslims scattered to every state and they speak the local language fluently be it Guntur, Vijayawada. I was able to use that background and the other very important personal interest I had was the fact that this story completely showcases the Hyderabadi cuisine. I had a blast with the food designers on the sets and the Hyderabad delicacies.

The Hyderabadi cuisine and the relation of food with films. How much do you think that will appeal to the viewers?

Food film is really not a genre in India. Berlin actually has a separate set of films on food and I am generally fascinated by it and have actually written several scripts on it. But nothing actually bore fruit so this was my opportunity to actually helped me work in that aspect. And obviously being from Hyderabad, Hyderabadi food is top on my list. I actually wanted to give the rest of India a true sampling of our top twenty dishes.

Tell us about the famous Hyderabadi biryani.

The Hyderabadi biryani itself is arguably one the most difficult dishes that you can cook and it is the only biriyani that is cooked with raw meat. It is cooked at the same time with the rice and spices. So the dum ka biryani that everyone talks about is kachche gosht ki biriyani. We also had Lukhmi and Haleem of course as you can never escape the Haleem. We had Khubani Ka Meetha and lots more. We also did a lot of the Hyderabadi kebabs. Nithya had turned vegetarian several years before the shoot, but for a couple of days I made her eat some meat. Not that she was complaining, but I made her eat some meat so that the film has the true flavour of Hyderabad.

What is your opinion on the OTT boom?

Think about this the traditional way to become a director or writer in our times was to go through the whole process of you being an apprentice under someone, you work under someone and you spend a good eight to ten years of your life before you get a break.  Once this OTT boom happened, just think of all the kids who got a break right away. I feel it truly democratised the process. It’s fabulous the fact that so many people are getting a chance to direct and finally we see writers are getting their due which were completely side-lined when Bollywood ruled before the OTT came in.

The magic of anthologies in India is generally restricted to film festival viewing audiences. How much has it picked up among the masses?

I do agree that in India, the audience still needs to come a long way in accepting anthologies in movie theatre. In fact, a lot of these OTTs are extremely tentative about giving the go ahead for anthologies. Everyone is testing the waters differently. The difference is that because of a brilliant product like Modern Love Amazon was totally confident of moving this project ahead. But still the digital platform too is also very hesitant about greenlighting anthologies.

Is Bollywood losing its swag to south films?

We always had good films, but it depends on who does the marketing job best and the numbers work out. I mean Baahubali would have been nothing had it not been dubbed properly in Hindi and released by Karan Johar. But once that happened it just opened the doors and people realised that there is a genuine pan Indian audience. Of course before Baahubali the smaller south heroes who were making their commercial films were getting dubbed in UP. It had a very interesting market that was not mainstream, but had a huge audience. I feel trends come, trends go, things survive. Right now the flavour of the year are the south films. There is a tendency to club all the films together in the South as South Indian films. But all the films from the different South Indian states have its very own distinctive flavour which people need to understand.

 What is your favourite Hyderabadi memory?

Every Hyderabad memory circles back to food. So, I will give you one. There was a script that I was writing using the Hyderabadi cuisine as the backdrop and it was good twenty years ago. One of the really old Hyderabadi cooks is a Nawab called Mehboob Alam Khan and he has cooked for Presidents of different countries and is a Hyderabadi food expert. One day I got an invite from him through a friend and I landed up in jeans and T-shirt. But it was a proper Nawabi Dawaat which I didn’t know and I was feeling totally out of place. But fast forward to the main part of the story, the food got laid out and to me that meal ranks as probably the best meal that I have eaten in my life. It had dishes which we have never heard of. There were special recipes which Mehboob Alam Khan had learnt from his mother and there were dishes I had never heard of. That meal to me will probably be my fondest memory.