The Girl With The Golden Statuette
By
Jaskiran Kapoor
Guneet Monga Kapoor
Guneet Monga Kapoor
Post mass communication, Guneet, Prerna, and most of their friends decided to move to Mumbai together and make Hindi films. This was in the year 2006. ‘I moved to Mumbai, and at first, samajh hi nahi ayaa, didn’t understand: I found it shady, all the narrow lanes, and didn’t feel safe. Prerna and I took a house together and had this real ghar ghar life. It soon turned out to be some of the best years, fun and challenging.’
Time flew, and with all three working, Guneet’s family managed to save up money and pick a property in Kailash Nagar, GK 2, south Delhi. ‘This was it. The builder was paid, and in the meantime, we moved to a ground floor house in the same area. I was twenty.’ At that same time, her neighbour, Mr Aggarwal, touched base with her, and seeing that she was into film production, put forth a proposal. ‘He wanted me to help him make videos on and for children. I said it’s a very bad idea, and instead persuaded him to invest the money in a proper film.’
Guneet chalked out a business plan, convinced him to invest about seventy-five lakhs, took the idea and her skills of persuasion to Mumbai, and made Say Salaam India in 2007 with director Subhash Kapoor under the banner of her first production company, Speaking Tree Films, which she started with partner, Harish Amin. However, things didn’t go as planned. ‘The movie was based on a children’s cricket team, and unfortunately, its release coincided with India’s exit from the World Cup. Now I had promised Aggarwal-ji that I will pay back every penny, and a good producer has to account for money.’
The next nine months saw Guneet in full hustle mode, as she reached out to schools for screenings, hired interns from colleges to make the screening possible on a large scale, and within nine months, she was able to recover all the money. ‘One of the young interns is now my full-time business partner, Achin Jain, without whom nothing would’ve been possible,’ she says, spotting this diamond in the rough.
The Inheritance of Loss
From the time Guneet moved to Mumbai, life was happening at a rollercoaster speed. From service producing, to execution, learning the language of the creative process, pitching to actors, Guneet was learning the ropes and working non-stop. It was also the time she was flying back and forth, Mumbai to Delhi. ‘It was 2004. My mother was diagnosed with throat cancer. She was forty-five. That made me more restless. I took on multiple gigs, ads, international work and made fast money to the tune of lakhs. I was also juggling weekly runs to Chandigarh and Delhi from Mumbai, doing three back-to-back films.’ By 2008, she had saved enough to help her parents buy their dream house. ‘I paid in dollars. She passed away in July, 2008.’ In February 2009, her father, heartbroken, too passed away. ‘The song, Meri Maa, from Dasvidaniya, my first film as a producer under the banner, Sikhya Entertainment, was for my mother. My father neither heard the song, nor saw the film.’ Apna ghar was lost. Her family, her cheerleaders, and her safety net were all gone. In an instant. Guneet sold everything, put all the money in movies and never looked back. Delhi had been blocked in her heart. For a very long time.
Many years later, the writer and director Umesh Bist’s brilliant film starring Sanya Malhotra, Pagglait, reflected Guneet’s grief, her reaction to the pain of loss. Produced under the banner of Sikhya Entertainment along with Balaji Films, Pagglait borrows from her heartbreak. ‘How Sanya’s character conducts herself after losing her husband in Pagglait was so close to me. I was like that, numb, indifferent, robotic…just making sure the tentwala had come, caterers were there, the gurdwara was booked, and I asked my uncle to get me a Limca. I went to Fabindia and brought new clothes because my mother always told me to dress properly…’ The film was cathartic, for it brought her full circle with the inheritance of loss.
‘I began Sikhya with my mother. Dasvidaniya was a goodbye to my mother. She was the one who gave me Sikhya. I wanted something English and modern, and thought this was too desi Punjabi a name. But she was so well read and this was so profound that it resonates with everything I attempt and do. I consider it the greatest gift from her. You never learn enough; you are always on a journey. Sikhya means to keep learning, keep growing, and that’s theirs and my legacy.’
Home became rented accommodations for Guneet. ‘It’s a very Indian mindset that we need to own a house, a property, an age-old tradition which I find stupid and meaningless. It literally took my parents away, and I prefer to live on rent and travel. I don’t believe in buying houses, I have a disconnect with this theory and practice. Ghar is family. You make a home with people.’
Cinema, Cinema: Everything, Everywhere, All At Once
After the passing of her parents, Guneet plunged headlong into work so fiercely that she made sure she didn’t have time to breathe or grieve. From working with Balaji Films to Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt. Ltd. (AKFPL) to picking up independent projects, travelling all over India and the world, she kept working. It was a period of a high, from 2009 to 2013, when working relentlessly from the singular point of faith and conviction, and an honest promise to make money for the filmmakers, Guneet went on to produce astounding Indian cinema defining films ─ Once upon a Time in Mumbaai, Masaan, Peddlers, HaramKhor, Gangs of Wasseypur (Part 1 and 2), The Lunchbox, Zubaan, The Girl in Yellow Boots, Monsoon Shootout, Pagglait, the Oscar-winning The Elephant Whisperers and the latest rage, Kill, soon to be remade in Hollywood. In fact, she brought home BAFTA and Oscar nominations and wins for India, with The Elephant Whisperers, Period. End of Sentence (2019) and the Oscar-Nominated short (2010), Kavi, directed by Gregg Helvey, which won the Student Oscar in 2009. She is one of the first Indian producers to be inducted in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Voted as one of the top twelve women achievers in the global entertainment industry by The Hollywood Reporter and among the top fifty Indians changing India by the India Today magazine, she was conferred with the Chevalier des l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
