Why did three scholars from the US write a book on Amar Akbar Anthony?

Why this particular film When and how did you discover the film Did the simple practical title have anything to do with it How many times did you end up watching the filmWe chose to write about Amar Akbar Anthony because each of us loved the film loved analyzing it with our students and yet still kept finding parts of it baffling The film is exuberant and the plot is complex but did all the pieces really fit together What made it so popular in the 1970s and still so popular today Understanding the film became a challenge for us as scholars of Indian culture As for how many times we ended up watching every second of this threehour movie More times than we could possibly countWho were each of your favourite characters in the film WhyThe film is full of memorable characters We are even fond of the secondtier villains like the musclebound Zabisko and the sleazy Ranjeet But we donrsquot agree on who the storyrsquos hero is and thatrsquos why our book is structured around a kind of sibling rivalry Andy champions Amar because as the embodiment of the state hersquos the key to making sense of what the film says about the Indian nation William argues for Akbar because of the miraculous power he has to cut through illusion with song itrsquos his prayer that leads Sai Baba to lift their motherrsquos blindness which sets up the storyrsquos resolution And Christian thinks itrsquos Anthony because hersquos the middle brother the middle man the character that links everyone together and holds the center of this whirlwind of a movie Then in a final chapter we let the three contenders offer their perspectives on their mother and give Maa herself the final sayAndy RotmanDid you meet any of the stars who played the lead male roles for better perspective or the fact that they were representing India in so many waysNo but we are hoping they will read this and invite us for vada pav And wersquod be thrilled to meet Shabana Azmi and Neetu Singh And letrsquos not forget Kader Khan who wrote the dialogues and surely has some penetrating insights about the movie and its special mojoChristian NovetzkeDo you believe the filmmakers and scriptwriters were ahead of their times while working on this film Or was it the ripe time to create such a filmAmar Akbar Anthony was made during the Emergency and in many ways mdash as we discuss in the book mdash the story reflects concerns specific to the times Amarrsquos character in particular symbolises anxieties about the police state about the failure of the democratic process and even about sterilization What is really remarkable however is that the film continues to work so well today The starsrsquo charisma is as powerful as ever The hit songs have taken on new life as classics And the film continues to be invoked for its central message of brotherhood across religious boundaries mdash although itrsquos important to note that people find ways to invoke it at all points of the political spectrum We suspect that Desai and his creative team would have been surprised by the enduring appeal of the film itrsquos such a crazy hodgepodge of elements borrowed from other films from literature and mythology But each of those elements is dense with meaningmdashor flavor Amar Akbar Anthony we could say is where the masalas come together in a perfect blendWilliam Do you think after writing this book that todays India would have approached and reacted differently to the film if it was made exactly frametoframeItrsquos very hard to imagine a straight remake of this film because in many ways itrsquos a period piece firmly set in the milieu of the 1970s Perhaps the more interesting question is this How could you tell a story that gets across the same messages mdash about secularism brotherhood the cosmopolitan promise of Mumbai mdash in a contemporary idiom What sort of updated profiles would the brothers have Who would be the bad guys And how could we make room this time around for Buddhists Parsis Jews and JainsBut your question also hints at the reason wersquove written the book In our own way we have tried to reinsert or rerelease Amar Akbar Anthony into the present moment We see the film less as a portrait of the past and more like a lens that refracts the past onto the presentWhat have been your learnings and unlearnings from this filmWersquove learned that modernity and secularism in India look very different depending on the lens through which they are viewed And wersquove learned that our film isnrsquot crazy itrsquos complex itrsquos not baffling itrsquos intriguing and what makes it so is that it gives us three different lenses Amar Akbar and Anthony mdash Hindu Muslim and Christian policeman qawwal and dada mdash each show us a different world even as the three come together as brothers As for what wersquove unlearned howrsquos this When it comes to India complex questions often entail complex answers that become the beginning of new questions