Hit or flop, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra always tries to reinvent the process of storytelling. After Mirzya’s unique arrows failed to strike at the box office, Mehra is back to basics. After dabbling in folklore, he is busy shooting a realistic film, Mere Pyare Prime Minister. Recently in the Capital to shoot the final leg of this mother-son story, revolving around the issue of sanitation, he talks about his process and concerns. Excerpts:
What led you to make Mere Pyare Prime Minister, based on an important social issue
I am personally involved in working for this issue since four years with Yuva Unstoppable, an NGO and we made toilets in around 800 schools in Gujarat municipal schools where toilets were non-existent. We did a case study on girl children leaving the school upon reaching the puberty and presented that at various forums and a lot of like-minded people joined us. That was the germination of the story around sanitation in which a son wants to make toilet for his twenty-five-year-old single mother played by Anjali Patil. The four kids shown in film living in the slums of Mumbai in the film are actually from slums and in the film they embark a journey to meet the Prime Minister in New Delhi. Working with children is always a joy as their spontaneity comes naturally on screen as they actually believe in what they are doing. I stayed in slums for six-seven days in a kholi to understand the milieu of the place and I hope to bring out a real story through this.
Do you think there is a change in the cinema if we compare to the times when you started off ?
Indian cinema was always rich in good content and with strong social messages but it went down during 1980s. In the last decade, I saw a change, in which audience were given a chance to choose stories according to their palate but it is still difficult to write stories from where you come as the so-called business module does not recognise those stories. Since Aks to my last film, I found it very difficult to sell an idea and I think it would be the case with others also. It started with RangDeBasanti , in which I decided that there will not be any choreography and lip-syncing of the songs. The industry experts called it suicidal but the film worked and the music worked without actors singing in the film, which shows there is a change.
Your films are always an aural delight with meaningful poetries. What does music means to you in filmmaking?
I look at music as the soul of my film without which it will become lifeless. I always treat it as a subconscious feeling rather than right up front as a performance. I try writing the thoughts in detail for lyrics in my script, if not the actual song, be it Rang De Basanti , which had the idea of a rebel from poet Nazrul Islam and Sahir Ludhiyanvi, whose lines k hoon phir khoon hai, jab tapkega to jam jayega inspired “Khoon Chala” . Delhi 6, which did not do much theatrical business, proved to be a hit, musically. It was one of the highest selling albums of all time which proves the power of music in films.
Mirzyawas also a musical but it didn’t work
I experimented with the format as I was trying to invent a kind of musical taking half a step towards a type where you do not sing but the music tells the story. It was a new narrative format altogether, and obviously, I made mistakes that is why it did not reach out.
Have you developed your own style of filmmaking?
I believe yes, as in auteur theory, cinema is a collective art in which the author is the director and I follow that. The thought keeps evolving in me which eventually becomes a story. Like in Aks, it was about the idea that right and wrong are part of the same coin. In Bhag Milkha Bhag, it was the thought that demons are inside, you have to face them rather than running away from them. I believe in collaboration at the script level but I write the screenplay myself as it is a story told in pictures, different from writing other forms of narrative. Audience's familiarity with actors works like Aamir in Rang De Basanti, but the actor should fit the character, and for that, I give script one year in advance. I treat new actors in the same way as the established ones because once you are on a shoot, you have to be as good as anybody. A debutant batsman will not get a slower ball from a senior bowler; instead he will receive a bouncer (laughs).
Applying the analogy of cricket, how do you see the present state of Bollywood?
We are still in 1969 where the game belongs to the Maharaja of Baroda who is playing with other princes and the villagers are only watching it. They are not even allowed to enter the field. But a cricket team with Munaf Patel, a farmer’s son, a small city player like Raina and a captain from Ranchi has won the World Cup, which shows what diverse representation has done to the game. Unless the same representation happens in all departments of cinema, it’s not going to work.
Are we ready to make internationally viable commercial cinema?
Look at the example of Dangal’s performance in China, it shows that we have to avoid monkey dancing and make content universal and strong so that people cannot ignore it. Internationally, people are more interested in stories from the land than bad versions of musicals. In terms of revenue, we have to work a lot. We have not even touched five percent share of global cinema’s revenue.
This brings us to the idea of India in cinema, which was prominent in Bhag Milkha Bhagand Rang De Basanti...
I love my country and it reflects in my work. As a creative person I have noticed that even after so many decades, we are yet to arrive on a common ground on the idea of India. It came into existence after independence but it didn’t reflect in cinema. South Indians were always portrayed as idli dosa eating comedians but actually they were making some of the finest films in the country. North Indians never knew who Chalukyas, Pandyas or Raja Raja Chola were as they were more interested in Genghis Khan and Taimur.... India is still grappling with problems like corruption, cultural and the religious demarcations and caste system which should should reflect in cinema.
What’s next?
I am producing Fanney Khan. It is based on a Finnish film called Everybody's Famous which was nominated for the Academy Awards. Atul Manjrekar is directing it, whose interpretation and adaptation of the original screenplay is amazing. It is a father-daughter story where father played by Anil Kapoor fulfils her dream of becoming a musician.
Aishwarya Rai is playing a music diva, looking for love, and Divya Dutta is playing Anil's wife.
