At a time when the lines between mainstream and independent cinema continue to blur, casting choices have become a key point of debate within the industry. Actress-producer Richa Chadha has weighed in on the conversation, questioning the growing tendency of independent films casting commercial faces even when they can’t guarantee box office or add meaningful value on the festival circuit.

Highlighting what she sees as a contradiction in the way indie projects are being mounted today, the actress says, “If an actor isn’t opening a film theatrically on a Friday and doesn’t add any real weight at festivals, then what exactly is the advantage of casting them in an independent film?”

Richa, who backed the Indian- French co-production Girls Will Be Girls which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, also points to the economic reality behind such decisions.

She says, “I am not suggesting anything, but with trained actors, you are at least assured that performance quality will be maintained. There is a commerce behind indie films too. Some stories don’t need big faces to pull crowds. It is more economical to sign on an actor who brings credibility without creating a huge hole in the budget. Without taking away from any actor’s ability or worth, if indie films are to truly survive in 2026, we have to understand that audiences want quality stories with credible actors, and filmmakers do not want to put a strain on the budget.”

Drawing from the past, she adds, “In the 1980s, we had a thriving indie cinema movement, and actors like Farooq Sheikh, Amol Palekar and Shabana Azmi were stars in their own right. That space has disappeared today. If the industry continues to wait for a nod from a handful of top male actors, on whose already tired and busy shoulders films are mounted, all the best to you. There won’t be enough output.”

In an industry fixated with figuring out what the audience will opt for next, director Aanand L Rai insists that the real crisis isn’t of misreading the audience, but of diminishing honesty and genuineness from the filmmakers. It wasn’t the audience that changed, he says – it was the filmmakers whose conviction began to wobble. From his learnings from the success of Raanjhanaa and Tanu Weds Manu, and the failure of Raksha Bandhan, to the coming full circle and trying to reconnect to his middle-class grounding, the director opens up about an internal battle that many artists face, but few admit to.

The audience has become very – how do I put it – woh thodi se bhi beimaani ab nahi le pa rahe hain storytelling mein.

Nahi, I think woh toh aise hi thay, hum (filmmakers) beimann ho gaye. Humko lagne laga, achcha, unka yeh emotion exploit kiya ja sakta hai. Iss tarah ki kahani, uss tarah ki kahani unko pasand aayegi. But in all that, joh ek cheez chali gayi in filmmaking, woh thi conviction – jo ki ek Pushpa ya KGF ya Kantara – inmein hai. They have proved that conviction works.

Our approach to the film was just to please the audience. Their approach was to tell a story. There is a huge, huge difference between the two. I can speak for myself – kahani hi banayi thi na Tanu Weds Manu, kahani hi banayi thi na Raanjhanaa. But jahan mujhe laga ki audience ko yeh pasand aayega – Raksha Bandhan – nahi! It didn’t work for anyone.

My conviction was that they will like it.

​When I was shooting last in Delhi, over a year back, I was staying near Nehru Place. And early morning I was on my way to the shooting location when I asked my driver to take a short detour to Sadiq Nagar. Our family stayed in Sadiq Nagar, government quarters – a Type III Quarter – that was allotted to my mother. I stayed there till my Class XII and then went to do my engineering. So on an impulse I told my driver, idhar le chal, main zara dekhoon Flat 152, Sector 1, kaisa dikh raha hai. Maine neeche khade ho kar dekha.

I remembered all those days. Roz wahin se nikalna, peeche bus stop se bus pakadna, uss window pe baithna, 2:45 pe ek ladki ka wahan se cross kar ke jaana, school uniform mein…that was such a memory. Maa ka chale jaana pyaaz ki rotiyan bana ke. Mera ghar aana, fridge mein se chhachh ka jug uthana…But if I don’t go there, all this is not happening to me. Main toh bhool gaya tha. Maine woh detour liya toh sab mujhe yaad aaya.

No. Even if I make a film that I want to make, there is no assurance that it will work – but at least ek jana to khush hoga! Doosre tareeke mein toh dono hi khush nahi hain. This theory is easy, the practical – not so much. But when I think like this – mujhe mazaa aa raha hai – I can see the difference in how things go when I change the approach.

My self-education is that when I was telling stories fearlessly, and at the same time, main apne pe kabhi successful film ka pressure nahi le raha tha, sirf kahani sunane ka pressure le raha tha – achche se sunane ka – tab tak meri duniya theek thi. Jab mujhe laga ki there are these growing expectations from this director, and I should go bigger – I started faltering.

Haan. At the end of the day, we are human – but at the end of the day, artiste jitna apni fakeeri mein reh jaye, utna achcha…

Aa jaata hai! Mujhe khud ko hi lagne laga ki bolta rehta hai middle class, middle class, but it doesn’t reflect in your work anymore – but it used to, earlier.

Achanak se sab badal gaya. So you keep talking about middle class, middle class, but you didn’t nurture the middle-class sensibility inside of you. My holidays changed – I began holidaying in Europe. I’m not saying that is wrong. If God has given you that success, you have to enjoy, there is nothing wrong with that. But it is a professional hazard – this profession makes you lose touch with your roots, and you have to understand that, and to hold on to it, if you want to remain in that space.

Midway nahi hai yahan. Ya toh aisa kar lo, ya toh phir udd jao. Be clear ki main toh aaya hi paise kamane ke liye tha. That is a different direction, a different track. But if you want to tell the stories that are inside you, then you have to stay grounded, stay in that world, and tell your stories.

Yes, I feel I am coming back to my world, jahan mujhe maza aayega.

I think if I am evolving, I should try to have my audience evolve with me. I will never be scared of telling an old story in a new way. I think the man-woman relationship was not depicted as an equal one for a long time. Many filmmakers got it wrong, and I need to make it right – that is my learning. Shayad main Tanu Weds Manu ya Raanjhanaa ke waqt iss tarike se nahi sochta tha, lekin ab sochta hoon.

Yes, yes, and I took it. I understood. Ho sakta hai ki mere kaam mein going ahead you will see that I understood.

I don’t disagree that many of the hits have a strong male perspective, they are very macho, and all that, but at the same time I think we cannot be the masters who decide beforehand what the audience should or should not watch.

I disagree with the thought that if we show them a lot of aggressive, macho male characters it will reflect in their behaviour. Because the reverse does not happen, does it? If I make films on Swami Vivekananda tomorrow, will all of them start doing sadhna? If they will not emulate what he does after watching a film on him, then they will not emulate the macho aggressive character either, will they?

Now you have seen me with my success and failures and trajectory. Obviously, success and failure matter, but at the end of the day, I enjoy the process. I am trying to not be afraid. I am trying to experiment. When I was making Raksha Bandhan I was thinking we don’t make enough cinema for the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. I thought I had it all clear in my head. But my judgement was wrong.

Staying connected is very important. Meri zameen chhoot jaati hai, phir mujhe pakadna padta hai, phir mai apne penthouse mein chala jaata hoon, phir mujhe yaad dilana padta hai apne ko Tu woh Dilli ka ladka hai, teri aadhi zindagi unn peele gharon mein guzri hai. Teri apni kahaniyan woh hain! Tu soch kyun nahi raha hai!

Obviously (laughs)! The problem is that, fortunately or unfortunately, even when you have failures, so to say, your bank balance does not change dramatically. Your lifestyle does not change. So, you feel ki theek toh chal raha hai sab. After a point you have to realize that it does not matter how much you made or how much you lost in a project. You need to sit down and introspect and see how far you have drifted from your original path. If you don’t do that then even failure is teaching you nothing.

Right now I am enjoying myself. I am also relishing making films for other directors as a producer. I can’t compete with the big houses, but I will try to pick the stories that others won’t. I will search for an identity, something that is original, not a copy of anything ‘successful’. I have not reached a 200-crore movie ever. But I ask myself, what is a better option? To make something that I have fun making and have something that is still not a bad return, or to chase that number? I am not chasing that number. I am not chasing any number. I will keep my middle-class approach. Mujhe khana achcha chahiye, lekin mujhe chaandi ki thaali nahi chahiye.

It’s not just directors, though, is it?
Amol Palekar, Farooq Sheikh – they played some very relatable, everyday; then paused and said: Main dhoond raha hoon Vinod Mehra in this character. Tu mujhe bana ke de raha hai Vinod Khanna. If I do that, the character itself will change and you may not be the right fit for that version of it! Some directors complete the circle, like we were discussing, and come back to a more grounded version. But actors, if they do the same, wapas aa hi nahi paate hain. They reach a point of no return and sometimes they are neither grounded, nor superstars either.

Bilkul. Woh chala gaya, phir bhi aaj bhi kahaani bolte-bolte aap ruk jaate ho aur kehte ho, ‘Irrfan sahab hone chahiye thay…’ (Pauses) Bahut kahaniyan directors ke andar maar gaye woh. Ab aap suna hi nahi sakte, unke bina.

Yes (laughs)! Yeh ajeeb sa circle hai! When you talk about great makers – and when I say great makers, I mean Hrishikesh Mukherjee or Bimal Roy, names like that – they somehow never lost connect with their roots or their storytelling. Even the Hollywood names who have taught us things about filmmaking – they have kept a consistency in their storytelling. I hope more of us can do that.

Come next week, Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan will be back in theatres, 44 years after its release. On June 26, ahead of its premiere in Mumbai, the veteran filmmaker will launch a book dedicated to his celebrated film. In a conversation with us, the filmmaker takes us down a nostalgic path as he revisits his timeless classic. Excerpts:

Umrao Jaan is a serious tragedy, a tale of entrapment. The story revolves around a woman’s helplessness and, at the same time, her resilience to face reality. When she wipes a mirror in which she sees herself, she comes to terms with what’s happened to her. It’s about the realization of losing yourself. The whole Lucknow ambience was so compelling and romantic that it gave birth to the persona of Rekha.

Only Shahryar (lyricist) and I were from Lucknow. Farooq Shaikh was Gujarati, and the legendary music director Khayyam was Punjabi, yes. I wanted to break this myth of who’s from where. They belong to the world. When I chose Rekha, I realized that there was this resilience in her eyes which could make her fall and rise in the same moment. She can be broken and not defeated. I couldn't see that in anybody else. I found in her a sense of total surrender. For this film, she knew something organic was taking place in her system to become what she could never become otherwise. Had she been reluctant about it, she wouldn’t have reached where she did. She flowed with the wind. She was weightless. Asha ji and I had a lot of discussion, and she asked a lot of questions. Shahryar (lyricist) would complain, ‘why do you make me do women's poetry’? Mushkil nahi hai, kuch bhi agar thaan lijiye. He created that kind of optimism for a woman who was abducted from her home. That was special.

A lot of our imagination is based on truth. So, Umrao Jaan, for the writer, Mirza Ruswa, was also a compendium of many characters he must have met in life. Coming from Awadh, I wanted to tell the story of this region. I realized that many people who've come from Awadh have got lost in the ocean of Bollywood. They had these beautiful nuances, words and cultural imagination, which became a part of someone else's agenda. So, all these rich minds that went into Bollywood, they were not themselves, you know what I mean? Particularly the poets. Even Sahir Ludhianvi was not himself, in that sense. All these people probably had as rich an imagination as mine, and that imagination needed freedom. So, for me, it was that liberated mindset, which could create an authentic artistic statement. I wanted to tell the story of Umrao Jaan the way I felt it. Be it Umrao or the protagonist, who’s a taxi driver in my film Gaman (1978), the latter doesn’t realize that he would go to Mumbai and drive a taxi with no freedom and reason to come back to his village. Umrao was also trapped in a situation where she couldn't get out of it, and she then was also unacceptable in her own home. This was many people's predicament in Bollywood.

This is a good question because we were all battling between art and commerce at the time. Umrao Jaan is not a box office potboiler. My film was costless; it was the most inexpensive film made at the time. I don’t think expensive, and opulence translates into emotion. Fortunately, I didn't struggle as much because I was working for Air India while making the film. After six months into the film’s making, I myself decided to quit the job because I realized the film will take almost 3 years to be made. Mr. Ratan Tata was gracious and said, “Don't we have employees who play cricket and hockey? Let him make his movie.” I worked for them for 11 years. They were extremely generous.

I didn't watch the remake but saw bits of it and I didn't find anything. I didn't want to disturb my own world of Umrao Jaan. I had no point of reference when I made Umrao jaan. My point of reference was me looking inside. The remake’s point of reference was my film. They had to reinterpret it to make it look originally different and that’s not an easy step. The thing is that people don't understand the kind of layering that goes into a film that’s emotional and artistic. You're telling the story of textiles, the story of sunsets and sunrises in Awadh. You're telling the story of this light going into Rekha's eyes and coming out as a tear, so these are the nuances that the story contains. It is not my story now. I'm very fortunate that it has gone into a domain where viewers are the fortress protecting the film. They won’t allow any contamination. They want the purity of what Rekha could present to the audience. A melody which goes into people’s souls cannot be erased by some limb shaking music.

It's not easy for Umrao Jaan to find Rekha and for Rekha to find Umrao Jaan. There were layers of preparation that went into essaying this role. You must also be the right age. Kareena Kapoor has something. Alia Bhatt has something. They have a lot of magic, but I can't say till I open the book. I think actors today work in shifts. They have too many commitments, they're spread out too thin, so they don't immerse themselves in their roles as much as they should. Also, it's not just them, everybody is in a hurry these days. Everyone’s attention span has depleted.

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She did not have any connections in the industry when she began her career, but Sonali Bendre took up the challenge and carved her own path in showbiz. The actress credits her upbringing for making her the way she is.

Reflecting on it, she says, “I am the proverbial outsider. I come from a family that’s into education. Also, since my father was in government service, the entire family would move to a new city every two years and start all over again. I don’t have childhood friends to go back to.”

This almost-nomadic lifestyle, while unsettling at times, instilled within her a sense of independence. She explains, “Being able to be with myself and not needing people constantly gave me immense inner strength when I entered this industry.”

Navigating through the competitive landscape of Bollywood, Sonali found herself on the outside, which she believes gave her an edge. “On a film set where people knew each other, I was a complete outsider. Even today, when the Behls (her husband Goldie Behl’s family) get together and discuss movies, I still don’t feel like an insider. Goldie asks me for my opinion about a script as he finds that I still have that outsider’s point of view, which aligns more with the audience. Now, with my son (Ranveer) studying abroad, I am getting more involved with our production house.”

The actress has always enjoyed exploring other mediums. Recounting her stint on stage, she says, “While I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, I acted in the iconic Farooq Shaikh and Shabana Azmi’s play, ‘Tumhari Amrita’. I was scared because look at the actors I was going to work with. However, I didn’t want to let go of the opportunity due to fear and regret later. The idea was to learn from the experience of working with a wonderful team.”

Sonali, who made a full-fledged comeback to acting after a break with the web series ‘The Broken News’ in 2022, is candid about her insecurities as an actor.

“I was not trained in acting, and I miss that. I am insecure about not having all the tools as an actor. ‘The Broken News’ was very important for me because I wanted to make a comeback with a certain kind of role that set the tone for my next chapter and that’s exactly what it has done,” she signs off.

During a recent discussion with a student collective, Shabana Azmi spoke about her days at St. Xavier's, her experience at FTII, her first roles, and the lasting impressions her teachers left on her. Shabana shared how in the 50th year of her career, she is once again getting the kind of roles she had never expected: from Steven Spielberg's Halo and Shekhar Kapur's What's Love Got To Do With It to Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani and Ghoomer.

"Meri energy wahan se aati hai ki mujhe zindagi se bahut dilchaspi hai. Mere 50th saal mein ek naya silsila shuru hua hai mere career mein - do saal ke dauran mujhe itne mukhtalif (diverse) roles mile. Pehle main yeh kabhi nahi soch sakti thi ki mujhe itne mukhtalif role milenge. I feel I'm so lucky. I am at that stage in life where I don't need to do any roles, so when I find a role challenging, if I feel if the role is saying something that I believe in, then I do it. Mujhe ek mauka milta hai apne films ke zariye unn subjects ko chhune ka jo aam taur par log nahin discuss karte."

Talking about her co-stars, Shabana remembered Farooq Sheikh. Shabana shared that when she enrolled at St. Xavier's College, she found that there was no Hindi theatre program in the college. So Shabana and Farooq Shaikh decided to form the Hindi Natya Manch. Talking about her friendship with Farooq Shaikh, she said, "Farooq se meri behad dosti thi. Woh St. Xavier's College mein mere saath thay." 

Later in their careers, they worked together in the play Tumhari Amrita, directed by Feroze Khan, which they performed across various countries. She recalled, "Jab aakhri show hua Tumhari Amrita ka, toh humne usey Taj Mahal ke backdrop mein kiya. Maine kaha ye play hum 22 saal se kar rahe hain, ab humein iss play par parda gira dena chahiye. Farooq ne poocha, kyun? Hum 22 saal se kar rahe hain, agle 22 saal tak aur karenge isey."

She added how just 14 days after this, Farooq passed away. “Ye baat mere sar mein constantly ghoomti hai. Woh itni young age mein guzar gaye ki mujhe aaj tak ajeeb lagta hai ki itni jaldi zindagi ne use kyun chheen liya humse? It's a huge pity."

Shabana also shared other anecdotes from her career. When Shyam Benegal offered her two roles together for the first time, she told her mother 'koi fraud director hai'. And when Satyajit Ray offered her a role, “main khushi se pagla gayi.” She told the students how these directors appreciated her craft and the nuances of acting that she learned from them.

She is Deepti Naval, the actor, to the world. But she is also a painter, filmmaker and writer. However, when it came to compiling her recently-released memoir, A Country Called Childhood, she chose to write about Dolly (her nickname as a child).

“I’ve lived life on my own terms. Most of the time, I’ve behaved non-practical, impromptu and spontaneously. When people label me the sweet, girl-next-door, I don’t [relate to it since] I’ve no such self-image. My self-image is completely contrary,” asserts the 70-year-old, known for critically acclaimed films such as Chashme Buddoor (1981), Leela (2002), Listen…Amaya (2013), among others. But, if there’s one thing she’d wish to go back in time and fix, it’s “running away from home”. “I would never do such a stupid thing!” she says.

Her writing has been appreciated in the past as well, wherein she experimented with poetry and short stories. Before publishing, she recalls making late Farooq Sheikh — with whom she has worked in numerous films — her sounding board: “I’d run the final version of the short story by Farooq. He was happy to see my growth as a writer, and had said, 'Pehle bhi padhi thi tumhari nazmein, but this is far ahead'.”

Ask Naval, who was last seen in 2021’s OTT series Criminal Justice: Behind Closed Doors, if she would like to see any of her work of writing on screen, may be in the form of a web series, and she says, “I haven’t thought of it yet, but now that you bring it up, yes, why not? I know that my book is very visual.”

This is one of the most colourful memory that I have of Farooq Sir. It was the second day of shooting for our film, Listen Amaya, in the crowded Paranthey waali gali in Old Delhi. The signature Delhi heat had made its appearance, and the narrow lane was chock-a ­block with onlookers. Clearly word had gotten around that the beloved veteran actor was shooting in Purani Dilli. Having stuffed ourselves with paranthas, we were making a brave attempt to shoot sync-sound a long scene. The set-lock had been relaxed, and the crowd was free to come and go as it pleased. Two men, with their arms thrown around each other, hollered, “Abey yeh Farooq Sheikh hai kya?“. The other one countered - “nahin yaar, yeh kaise ho sakta hai“. This went on for a while. Finally one of them walked up to Farooq sir and blatantly asked, “Abey tum Farooq Sheikh ho kya?“ “Haan bhai sahib, hoon. Maaf kar do, agley janam mein yeh galati nahi karun gaa!“ Farooq sir replied apologetically. Grace, dignity and wit in any situation, these were some of the telling facets of Farooq sir.

He was also one of the most generous persons I have ever met. He liked giving gifts, like a true nawab, a role which he had portrayed on screen a number of times. Once we were passing a sweet-shop in Old Delhi, he asked, “Swaraji, would you like a gulab jamun?“ I agreed. He bought the entire lot that the shop stocked - a whopping 25 kgs, and turned to the spot boy and said, “Dada, distribute these among the entire unit.“

Working with him was like attending a master class, though his technique was difficult to fathom. He never spoke much about his 'acting process'. He would often read a book in-between shots. Once he was narrating a story to me, he paused in the middle of the narration and said, “An actor can never go beyond the vision of a director. This is the truth of the cinematic medium and it's important for any actor to understand that.“ And then with a telltale gleam in his eye, he quipped, “There - now you have an excuse to shirk hard-work.“

Muzaffar Ali, 70, may be soft-spoken with impeccable manners, but he is also invisibly headstrong. He is fixated to his environment, be it his paintings or his ambience, and wants to have a constant dialogue with it. A painter from his childhood, he is romantic and today has learnt to have a great sense of record. He needs his family and friends to put him together, but he's also extremely clear on exactly what he wants. He may have married thrice, but has been consistent with his commitment to Kotwara. In 1981, he created Rekha as Umrao Jaan. Over two decades later, he has made Jaanisaar. Over an hour-long conversation with Bombay Times, he talks about his best companion his wife Meera, his commitment to Kotwara and why Smita Patil was his favourite muse. Excerpts:

Tell us about your family background?
I was born in Lucknow but my father, Raja Sajid Husain Ali, was the raja of Kotwara. He had become a raja at a very young age and thus, there was an attempt on his life due to which there was a danger to his life. He was packed off to Edinburgh to study. He returned to India as a man ready to take on the world in 1936. The British opened us up to a strange sense of democracy, which later became communalised just before independence and that finally drove us to becoming two countries, India and Pakistan. I was very young at the time of Partition, but remember lot of family friends being separated from us. I studied at La Martiniere Lucknow after which I did my BSc at Aligarh Muslim University, where I got exposed to poetry that became a very important part of my evolutionary process of waking up to the world. Right from my school, I always won the first prize for painting and was always a painter that till today has helped me in my films as I sketch each scene out before I shoot it. I always wanted to do something creative and so moved to Calcutta to join advertising. I worked as the account executive to Satyajit Ray, who was the art director of Clarion McCann. I was very close to him and would go to his house. I learnt from him how you can take your culture to people through your cinema. I then joined another ad agency ASP where I worked with Shyam Benegal and Aziz Mirza after which I joined Air India where I made a couple of films for them and then made my first film Gaman. I won my first Filmfare Award. It also gave me the strength to make Umrao Jaan.

All your films, be it Gaman or Umrao Jaan, had a central powerful woman character.
Yes, for me the lady has to be strong. She has to make a difference and that comes from my mother. My mother's father was the nawab of Moradabad, but while she too came from a princely background, she always put things in perspective for me in a humane and practical way. In Jaanisaar, there is a scene inspired by the real-life incident that took place with her father. Because he was a revolutionary, the prince of Rampur spied on him, got him arrested and the British tied his body to an elephant's feet and dragged him around Moradabad and that is a very hair-raising thought. I loved my mother the most, I lost her to cancer when I was studying at Aligarh. And I still have very strong memories of her.

Talk about working with Smita Patil in Gaman?
Smita was a dream to work with. Like me, she too was a Libran and we were very similar. She could see the aesthetics in everything one was trying to do and she would respond to a lot of things that normally people don't respond to, like music, people, clothes, dialogues. We had great fun together. Asha Bhosle's daughter was her companion and the whole night, we would sit on the terrace in Kotwara and laugh and people would think that some bhoot had come.

You created Rekha as the Umrao Jaan. What is she like?
She's also a Libran but she's just he opposite of Smita. While Smita surrendered more, Rekha was more reserved. Smita was more stimulating as a muse. She had a different kind of imaginaion. Rekha has a lot of grace. She has a mystery and a quaint sense of humour. She's an interesting person, but we had a very professional relationship. She was a bit temperamental and knew what she was getting into. She was positioned within the the environment, be it the people, the music and everything else that made her Umrao Jaan.

You also worked with Dimple Kapadia in Zooni and with Shabana Azmi in Anjuman.
Dimple has a very interesting sense of romance in her. If Rekha, Smita and Dimple were ladies with a dream, Shabana is a woman with a cause.

Farooq Sheikh was a part of most of your films.
He was my alter ego. He was a gem and what he did for me, I don't think anyone could do for me on screen. He was perceptive, vulnerable, encouraging and supporting.

You lived in Mumbai. What made you move back to Lucknow and Kotwara?
When my father died in 1990, that's the time I left Mumbai to go back to live in Lucknow. I had to take on the responsibility of sorting everything out. In his will, he had said that he did not want to see anyone hungry in Kotwara. He was a big father figure there. Everything fell in place for me and I too felt that why should they have to migrate for work like in my film Gaman? That was also the time I had married my third wife Meera. The first thing I told her at the time of marriage was, 'You are marrying me and Kotwara.' Kotwara has been an important cultural influence on me and I am deeply linked to the people out there. I have also shot most of my films there.

You fought the Lok Sabha elections several times. What made you do that?
I got into politics due to Ayodhya as for me it was a watershed moment and I felt I had to say something politically. I fought against Atal Bihari Vajpayee and lost but still got 2.5 lakhs votes. I have been fighting all my life. In a way, I am fighting even in Bollywood to make films on my own terms. Now I am not politically-aligned but I like Akhilesh Yadav. I am happy that I have managed to convince him to extend the film subsidy to shoot in UP. I am not only politically aligned anymore but am aligned to humanism and secularism that is why my film Jaanisaar is important for me as it can humanise people.

You have married thrice. Talk about your relationship with Subhashini Ali (mother of director Shaad Ali).
We never divorced and are just separated. She was too much into her politics and I was too much into my own madness and our lives were just not fitting in. The whole period of 1988-1990 was the toughest and lowest for me. Zooni had got held up, my younger brother who lived in Liverpool died, I lost my father. When Zooni was stopped, I lost not just all my money, but also faith in people and politics. After Zooni, when I walked out of Kashmir I didn't know where I would go. First I thought I would just stay in Kashmir only as I had fallen in love with the valley. I had been promised many things from the government as a guarantee for my money, but I lost all my money. I came to Delhi and had to literally stand on my own again. I was living out of a suit case in a small room of a friend. And that's when I met Meera. She came as a breath of fresh air and has since been my best companion and wife. That's also when I got into making clothes as I thought that if I could make Rekha look beautiful, then I could also make other women look beautiful.

What do you like the most about Meera?
That she is very loving and compassionate and very responsible. She likes my madness.

What made you make a film like Jaanisaar after so many years?
I always try and live a film. 1857 is an important period in Indian history. Hollywood has explored the holocaust threadbare, we have done nothing for our history. I made Jaanisaar as I felt that the period of history post 1857 needed to be exposed. There was not a tree left from where there were no bodies hanging and I owed it to my country to talk about the sacrifices that have got pushed under the carpet. And while I don't know the market, I do know what goes into people's bloodstream. I still meet people every evening who fill up my glass with Umrao Jaan. It could be a matter of time but I feel Jaanisaar too will get into people's mental cache.

What did your father like the most about you?
He liked my honesty and that I was straightforward. I didn't hide anything from him though he was not always sure about how responsible I could be as I did certain things in my life that reflected my being irresponsible. For instance, he had a very beautiful Italian Rolls-Royce car that he had brought from England, which I just sold. He had a beautiful stamp collection, which I just threw around. Now I have developed a sense of record and that is also helping me with my work.

Do you wish he was alive to see you like this?
He would not have given me full marks even now. But, I do know that he is marking me.