M. Night Shyamalan: Padma Shri Brings Night to Town
The Times of India
May 11, 2008
When Manoj Night Shyamalan heard he’d got the Padma Shri, he didn’t know how to react. Simply because he did not know the significance of the award. But when his friends and relatives from India and the US began to congratulate him effusively, he realised this was something very different.
Today, he confesses, “it feels like a singular event in my life.” Speaking to TOI before he receives the award on May 10, the filmmaker says he’s glad he’s made his home country proud.
“I know my identity begins and ends as a filmmaker. But I have always wanted to make my family proud of what I do. Today, I feel my family has extended to the one billion people of India,” he exults.
So, does he actually think of himself as an Indian, now that the government of India officially bestows the ‘Indian’ tag on him? “The best part of this award is that it recognises me for being an Indian who has succeeded in another system. For presenting a facet of India to the world.
It has reinforced me for being Me: an Indian filmmaker with an unusual balance of ingredients. Personally speaking, I am proud of this eclectic mix, where despite living abroad for so long, the cultural values of India are deeply seeped within my psyche.”
Unlike Jhumpa Lahiri and Mira Nair, Shyamalan’s creative outpourings have never voiced a lament for a lost world, nor articulated a sense of exile in them. “But that’s because there is no confusion of identity within me,” he explains.
According to him, the India quotient does find a reflection in his craft, but more as an allusion to the mysticism that is integral to ancient Indian culture.
“I have grown up on the fanciful mythology of the Panchatantra tales and that magical surrealism does get reflected in my films. But otherwise, I feel my generation truly represents the first global citizens of the world.”
Shyamalan is also all set to release his next film, The Hapenning on June 13. The film, which will be premiered in India too, follows his fascination for the fear of the unknown with a warning against man’s pillage of the environment.
