Ten years after his 2006 cult film, Rang De Basanti, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is set to direct another youth-based drama, titled Lafander. “My production house is starting three movies immediately after Mirziya and I am directing one of them. It is set in the competitive eco-system today's youngsters are released into and left to deal with,“ Rakeysh, who was a key speaker at NFDC's four-day Symposium on Film Tourism this week in Goa, confirmed to Mirror, adding that the second film will be directed by Sanjay Khanduri (Ek Chalis Ki Last Local, Kismet Love Paisa Delli), and the third will be announced next month.

The filmmaker, who took three years to write Lafander and wanted to take it on the floors earlier this year, reveals that his wife Bharathi, his greatest critic, advised him against it. “She greenlights all my films. She always tells me when my script needs more time. When I got frustrated with this one and told her that I needed to start shooting, she said that I needed to go on a vacation, not on the sets, and ordered me to go cook instead, which I love doing. When I'm in the kitchen, I forget everything,“ Rakesyh recalls, adding that the film's script is locked.

His wife wasn't the only woman who had the last word on his new script. “I gave the Lafander script to my 16-year-old daughter to read because I wanted a youngster's opinion. It's a coming-of-age story told through a girl's point of view. She really liked the script,“ Rakeysh says, further revealing that filmmaker Shekhar Kapur is another great sounding board for him. “It's fun to talk movies with him,“ he says. His daughter, Bhairavi, wrote her first script when she was 14 and her director daddy turned it into a four-minute animated short on polio, created for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “She is exploring her options. I feel we put a lot of pressure on youngsters today which stops them from growing into their true selves. My parents never asked me why I left a well-paid advertising job because they did not understand what I was doing here. That was the right thing to do on their part. I intend to continue with the tradition,“ he smiles.

Did working on the Lafander script take him back to the good ol' Rang De Basanti days? “No two stories can ever be the same. Films are not homogeneous products. When you make one film and start another, you have to keep upgrading yourself. Change is the essence of existence,“ the director reasons.

The Bhaag Milkha Bhaag director is quick to point out that his Mirziya, a contemporary take on the Mirza Sahibaan folklore featuring Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher, features a strong woman's point of view too, thanks to writer Gulzar. The film's Rajasthan and Ladakh schedules have been completed. “Shooting has been an exhilarating process. I was learning at Gulzar's feet,“ he exults, adding that he had wanted the noted lyricist-filmmaker to write Devdas for him when he first moved to Mumbai at the age of 23. “That never happened. It has taken me 26 years to get a script out of Gulzar,“ he sighs.

And is revival on the cards for all the films he hasn't been able to complete? “Yes, I want to make all of them. I work with three-four scripts simultaneously so if I reach a roadblock on one, I can switch to the other and work back and forth, till I feel I am ready,“ he explains.