Today's Edition
KUUMAR SHYAM (ABU DHABI)
"I am an open book", said Indian film director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra at a Masterclass event on the sidelines of the three-day Indian International Film Academy Awards held in Yas Island.
When Mehra said that at the Yas Creative Hub, the two hours that he held forth on so many topics and revelations never known about his hit films, proved to be an actual masterpiece for the audience of aspiring filmmakers, visual production students and professionals of all hues from Abu Dhabi and the region.
An ad filmmaker initially, Mehra sprung into the spotlight when his debut film "Rang De Basanti" (RDB) rocked the film world, broke all charts and became a cult classic. So did his other films "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" (BMB) and "Delhi-6."
These films have put him already in the class of a genius, one who comes with his own eccentricities.
Mehra, who came up with a film last in 2021 and has a limited filmography, conceded with a bit of humility and yet counter aggression.
"Maybe I am a slow cook, but I prefer it that way", said Mehra in a conversational style question and answer session with reality television host Mini Mathur.
"I have to be 110 percent assured that I have got my ingredients, mainly my script and the research, and once I know I have it, the film can take hardly 3-4 months."
"People tell me we are in the show business, but many films today have become a business and then make a song-and-dance show around it. I am not here in the numbers game; my survival does not depend on how much business in crores [Indian term for money where 1 crore means 10 million] it makes, but rather I want to tell my story – based out of my life experiences again – as I see it."
"I was born in 1963, not far away from 1947 when India and Pakistan were partitioned to get independence from the British. So my stories have a heavy influence on the things happening around then."
His first film RDB is based on young loafer students finding a purpose in life and get martyred in protesting against the government taking inspiration from stories of Indian freedom fighters told by the daughter of a British jailor.
When RDB released in 2006, it triggered waves of protests in actual life and led to the rise of candle marches, so much in vogue now.
His other film Bhaag Milkha Bhaag became very famous as a biopic in public perception about Milkha Singh, an Indian runner in the 1950s who ran barefoot and was christened "The Flying Sikh" by former Pakistan president General Ayub Khan.
Since many did not know about Milkha Singh, especially as years have gone by, despite his exploits for India, the personal story and the role performed by Farhan Akhtar, a director himself, received all the attention.
But Mehra, for the first time probably, shared his vision behind BMB.
"I was telling the story of partition again through the eyes of Milkha Singh. His whole childhood was a struggle, his sister brought him up amid lot of difficulties – for me, she is the lead female actor [played by Divya Dutta], not his girlfriend – and he hated Pakistan for all his troubles."
"Yet, it was Ayub Khan who gave him the title of 'Flying Singh' and he got so much respect in that country. Across the border on either side, there is so much hatred for what happened, even now, even though there also many stories of love. When Milkha Singh saw the rushes of the film, it was just three of us – Farhan, me and him – at the end of it, he clutched my hand, wept for five minutes and said to me 'I always hated Pakistan; but no longer' and that was my ultimate satisfaction."
"I want to tell my story how I see it. How it is accepted and taken is not mine. My films are no longer mine once it is out. I am just a spoke in the wheel."
When Aletihad asked if he felt hurt that his partition story became a biopic in the eyes of millions of fans, he explained with the analogy of a painter.
"I did this painting with how I saw it. I used a colour to my taste and how it goes with the story, but in the eyes of the beholder it may take a different meaning, and yet he may like it. As I said, once I have done it, it is no longer mine. That's the power of cinema."
Mehra's answer was similar to another question on what mattered to him the most and the biggest part of film-making according to him was… the script.
"The hero of my film is the script. One needs to keep writing. It is always okay to write a bad page. Eventually, if you keep writing and finesse it, it will turn into a good book or script. If I give one book to 50 people out here, each one of you will read it and imagine it in 50 different ways."
And Mehra practises what he preaches. After nearly two decades, Mehra said that he was sharing for the first time what he did the day after it became known that his debut film "Rang De Basanti" was a runaway success.
"There is a guy who is like a guru in screenplay writing and has written many books, has one or two workshops in a year... his name is Syd Field. The evening of the day after, I called him up and said 'I wanted to learn from you'."
"He refused, then tried to avoid my calls with his wife coming on the phone to say he is not at home. But I kept calling. Then he said, 'Join his next workshop but I said not only could I not wait but I wanted one-on-one coaching. Then he said, 'you cannot afford me son, and then I told him that I got my film released just now. And I have the money now. I may not have it later. I think that it what convinced him."
"I went to the US, stayed in his garage, made him coffee and slept on the couch. We became good friends", said Mehra thus underlining the importance of scriptwriting and his humility to learn even in his career's best moment of spotlight.
