Uma Ramasubramanian (MID-DAY; August 19, 2021)

Even as he was making Toofaan with Farhan Akhtar and Mrunal Thakur, another idea was sprouting in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s head. The filmmaker has long been keen to bring the plight of Indian farmers to the big screen. “I have been living with the idea for several years. But you can only do one thing at a time. When I get into a film, I tend to completely lose myself in that world and forget about [other concepts],” he says, admitting it’s high time he put pen to paper and gave shape to the story.

Over the past year, India and the world at large have been witness as the country’s farmers have vociferously protested against three farm acts that were passed in Parliament. Quiz Mehra whether his movie is inspired by the recent movement, and he says, “I have been working on the idea for the past five years. The film is not about farmers’ protest. India has predominantly been an agricultural society, and yet we haven’t seen movies that are based on rural India. For our cinema to become global, we will have to tell truly Indian stories, and not just present popular ideas to the world.”

However, he remains non-committal whether the drama will be his next as he signs off with, “There will be a time when I will tell that story.”
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Navneet Vyasan (HINDUSTAN TIMES; August 19, 2021)

Like many others, National Award-winning filmmaker Rakyesh Omprakash Mehra, too, didn’t expect the pandemic and lockdown to drag on so long. “The lockdown was announced just after I finished shooting for my last film Toofaan. Initially I was not sure how long it would stretch out. There was so much left to be done. But we somehow managed. After the completion of our work, there was a lot of time left for me,” says the 58-year-old.

This is when he went back to doing what he loves best — reading. “I love reading books about movies and that is what I did,” he says, adding, “Since I was a kid, I loved reading screenplays and stories on how films were made — be it Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil or Bengali. But whenever I looked around for books on my favourite Indian films, I could never find them.”

This was one of the many reasons he decided to come out with his memoir, The Stranger In The Mirror. After a two-decade long career, was it something he owed himself? “More than myself, I feel I owed it to my audience,” he says. “I would like to believe there is a connection I have made with my audiences. With every film, I have tried to have a conversation with them. More often than not, the audience has taken the film home with them, and the story and characters have entered their consciousness,” he adds.

Mehra, who made his debut in 2001 with the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Aks, gained immensely from this effort. “I was able to relive memories of my initial days,” he says.

Yet, in this age of relentless transformation, isn’t there more to be done? “Yes...but I’ve realised that no matter what...the backbone will remain storytelling,” he adds.