In the late 1980s, when Mahabharat brought India to a standstill every Sunday morning, director B R Chopra told its dialogue writer, Rahi Masoom Raza, that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi wanted to meet him.

“Do the dialogues in the serial about janm and karm — birth and deeds — refer to me?” Gandhi asked. “The entire Bhagavad Gita is about janm and karma,” Rahi replied. Then, with characteristic deadpan humour, he added: “If you can guarantee my safety, I will write another Gita for you.” Gandhi smiled.

The brief Rajiv-Rahi encounter features in a dastan (a long oral tale in Persian, Turkic, and Urdu traditions) about the legendary poet and writer that theatre director Mahmood Farooqui has mounted as part of Rahi’s birth-centenary celebrations, which began August 1.

Nearly 35 years after his death, Rahi — who left behind 11 novels, seven collections of poetry and scripts, screenplays or dialogues for around 200 films — risks becoming a name remembered principally for Mahabharat. The centenary is an occasion to revisit the many worlds that made him, and the work through which he helped shape India’s cultural imagination.

Born in Gangauli, a village on the banks of the Ganga in eastern UP’s Ghazipur district, Rahi grew up amid the layered cultures of the Gangetic plains. That inheritance ran through his poetry, fiction and screenwriting. “Rahi writes that he had three mothers — his mother Nafisa Begum; the Ganga; and Aligarh Muslim University. His sensibilities were shaped by all three,” says Darain Shahidi, who wrote the dastan and performs it with Rajesh Kumar.

It was to the Ganga that Rahi turned when he faced one of the biggest predicaments of his professional life. He had initially declined B R Chopra’s offer to write the screenplay and dialogues for Mahabharat. But after Chopra announced his name, he was flooded with letters from Hindu zealots objecting to a Muslim being chosen to script the epic. Rahi changed his mind.

“I am a son of the Ganga,” he declared — and insisted that he, and no one else, would write it. “If Rahi could defend Mahabharat so confidently as an epic embodying our civilizational values, it was because of the forces that had shaped him,” says Farooqui.

What made Rahi’s Mahabharat memorable was not merely the force of its plot or the cadence of its dialogues. Those who performed his words felt that he inhabited the epic’s world.

“When we were shooting the serial, it seemed as if Rahi sahab had written it while watching the Mahabharata war at Kurukshetra,” says actor Surendra Pal Singh, who played Dronacharya.

Singh says he was the only actor Chopra selected without a screen test. But at 24, he was reluctant to play a character he imagined as an old man, fearing it would damage his prospects in Bollywood. It was during a visit to Chopra’s Juhu office that he met Rahi. “Young man, Dronacharya is not an old man. He is an army general. You will not regret playing him,” Rahi told him.

The words proved prophetic. “Even today, people at airports recognize me as Dronacharya from Mahabharat,” Singh says with a smile.

If Mahabharat took Rahi into millions of Indian homes, it was Gangauli that gave him his most enduring fictional landscape. The village and the Ganga form the backdrop to ‘Aadha Gaon (Half a Village)’, his best-known novel. “To him, Ghazipur was not just another town, nor Gangauli just another village. They shaped his imagination, prose and poetry,” says Ather Farooqui, general secretary of Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind).

With help from Rahi’s daughter, Maryam Moonis, the Delhi-based organisation has archived several of his original manuscripts, including those of ‘Aadha Gaon’ and Mahabharat. It now plans to publish his works, including Mahabharat, in Urdu.

Rahi’s native district is also joining in the centenary celebrations. Asif Azmi, director of the cultural organization Maati, plans to organise 100 programmes commemorating him. These include an event in Ghazipur that will bring together 100 prominent people from different fields. Jammu & Kashmir lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha, himself a Ghazipur native, is among those Azmi plans to invite.

Anjuman’s announcement that it will publish ‘Aadha Gaon’ in Urdu has revived an old debate. Rahi was essentially an Urdu writer, yet the novel first appeared in Devanagari, or Hindi, in 1966.

‘Aadha Gaon’ was a landmark work: it brought Bhojpuri into the literary world of Urdu fiction and offered a rare portrayal of Shia life in the 1940s. Why, then, was it not originally published in the Urdu script?

Farooqui traces the answer to the politics of AMU’s Urdu department in the 1960s — and to the hostility Rahi faced over his marriage to Nayyar Jahan, a granddaughter of Sahebzada Aftab Ahmad Khan. She had previously been married to Lt Col Sahebzada Muhammad Yunus Khan and had three children.

The marriage unsettled sections of the entrenched elite on the otherwise quiet AMU campus. It is believed that a senior Urdu professor, who had earlier worked at a college owned by the nawab of Rampur, ensured that Rahi’s position as a lecturer was not confirmed.

Professor Shafey Kidwai, director of AMU’s Sir Syed Academy, offers a qualification. “It is true that Rahi’s marriage to Nayyar Jahan earned him considerable hostility on campus. But, sensing that the lecturer’s post would go to someone else, Rahi did not apply for it,” he says.

The rupture did not diminish AMU’s influence on Rahi. He earned his MA and PhD there, and the university became one of the ‘three mothers’ to whom he acknowledged his intellectual debt.

Filmmaker Muzaffar Ali first encountered Rahi at Aligarh. “Rahi had a magnetic pull for us. He was our main attraction in the Urdu department, where I spent hours even though I studied geology,” recalls the ‘Umrao Jaan’ director.

By 1967, however, Aligarh had become too difficult for Rahi. He moved to Bombay, where cinema embraced the prolific writer. Yet, Ali says, Rahi continued to feel “underutilised”.

His literary ambitions always stretched beyond the screen. Among his works was a long epic poem on the uprising of 1857, celebrating the heroes and rebels who rose against British rule. Ali now wants to build a ballet around it.

Rahi died in Mumbai in 1992, two years after Mahabharat completed its enormously successful run. He had wished to be buried near the Ganga, but was laid to rest in the Santacruz graveyard, not far from the Arabian Sea.

When Muzaffar Ali’s ‘Umrao Jaan’ released in 1981, its poetic storytelling, the enigmatic Rekha, Asha Bhosle’s unforgettable songs, and the stunning set and costume design made it an instant classic. Over 40 years later, Ali, Rekha, and Bhosle reunited in Mumbai to celebrate the release of the film’s beautifully restored 4K version in theatres.

Alongside the remastered film, Ali also launched a limited-edition coffee table book with photography stills that captured behind-the-scenes of the film’s making. “My background in advertising and painting has made me aware of the power that images hold. I thought a book would help in keeping the film’s stills zinda (alive) for a long time, along with the different layers of truth that go behind a single scene in the film,” Ali says.

To collect the stills for the book, Ali called up Neha Kamat, daughter of Vidyadhar, the film’s official photographer who captured not only the tragic beauty of Rekha but also the pre-colonial world the film evoked. The archive yielded not only the stills he sought, but also a treasure trove of memories from the shoot— like a black-and-white image of Ali by a lake, explaining a scene to Rekha and the late Farooq Shaikh. He also found rare photographs depicting scenes that never made it to the final edit preserved in the archives of the Kamat Foto Flash, which Ali calls an “institution” in itself.

This story of this institution dates back to 1945 when it was set up by Neha’s grandfather Damodar Kamat. Though he passed away long before she was born, the fascinating world of still photography in Hindi films that he built via his studio went on to shape not only her father’s life, but also hers.

“Most children in India grow up wanting to be engineers or doctors. But I grew up surrounded by reels, negatives, and photographs — of film sets, muhurats, promotional stills, and action shots,” says Neha. By the time she turned 18, Neha knew she had to digitize the vast archive she had inherited to save it from decay. The collection included over five lakh negatives, capturing behind-the-scenes moments from nearly 800 films, some as early as ‘Gajre’ (1948).

Most were taken by Damodar himself, a Belgaum-born photographer who discovered his love for cameras in his teens. In the 1940s, he travelled to Kolhapur, then a thriving photography hub, to work as an office boy before moving to Bombay to work briefly at Bombay Talkies. Soon after, he founded Kamat Foto Flash in Mahalaxmi — unusual in an era dominated by freelance photographers. The studio soon rose to prominence, earning credits in landmark films from ‘Pyaasa’ (1957) to ‘Sangam’ (1964). This journey was cut short after Damodar’s sudden death in 1967, when his son was just 13.

When Vidyadhar was a little more grown up, he took over the studio, not only continuing his father’s legacy, but taking it into a new era. After the transition to colour photography, the studio began keeping two negatives for each still: a colour one for the producers, and a black-and-white for publicity materials. Production houses like RK Films relied on the studio for its still photography. At its peak, Kamat Foto Flash had a team of over 40 photographers, capturing the moments that made a film, like brush strokes in a painting.

Today, the studio has moved out from its Mahalaxmi office into Goregaon, and much of the archive has been digitized — at the studio’s own cost, covered largely through rights sales, says 41-year-old Neha. Directors like Muzaffar Ali, pop culture researchers, film scholars, and even reality show producers regularly reach out to Neha with requests. Each is carefully searched from boxes of chronologically numbered stills, capturing stunt scenes, dance sequences, glitzy premieres and star-studded parties.

But most interestingly, the stills are also home to many untold stories of the filmy world, including how Dharmendra was replaced by Raaj Kumar in Kamal Amrohi’s musical blockbuster ‘Pakeezah’. The few scenes he shot are etched in memory, thanks to the Kamats. There are also promotional stills that Ajay Devgn and Shah Rukh Khan shot together for ‘Kayenaat’ — before Ajay was replaced by Salman Khan, and the movie became ‘Karan Arjun’.

The Kamats’ fascinating legacy has travelled beyond India. A few years ago, it featured in an exhibition in the UK curated by Rajinder Dudrah, professor of culture studies and creative industries at Birmingham City University.

“We wanted to showcase the stills but also the art that is inherent in the visual imagery. Hand painters turned some of them into billboards outside single screen theatres,” says Dudrah. Neha believes the stills serve a deeper purpose, capturing the often-overlooked contributions of those behind the scenes — technicians, light boys, choreographers, and assistants. “It’s their stories I want to preserve, as much as the stars.”

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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Muzaffar Ali’s unreleased film Zooni (1988), starring Dimple Kapadia and Vinod Khanna, which revolves around the 16th-century Kashmiri poet Habba Khatoon, is set to be restored by the Film Heritage Foundation. Due to financial constraints and various other reasons, the film was halted midway in 1988.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, director FHF says, "I received a call from Muzaffar Ali last year, and he mentioned that he has two reel cans of Zooni, which could assist us in saving and digitizing the film. These films are in a severely deteriorated condition. We also received photos and the script of the film."

Whenever Muzaffar Ali shoots, he always has a photographer who captures the people and environment so that he can integrate those shots in the film. These stills will help in restoration of the film. Due to financial constraints and various reasons the film was halted midway in 1988.

Muzaffar Ali says, "I have great hope and expectations for Zooni. It was lying in the lab, and the lab didn't know what to do with it. As they were closing the celluloid section, we took the negatives and gave them to Shivendra, who has been meticulously working on film restoration. I think it's a wonderful job that FHF is doing, and that alone gives us hope. I can only say - ummeed ki tooti hui deewar se lag kar sau baar jo socha tha wohi soch raha hoon."

He adds,"I am quite impressed and amazed at what they are doing. I hope something beautiful will emerge, maybe not the real film but the essence and passion behind the film."

Muzaffar Ali recently weaved magic with his words at a literary festival in Kolkata. From sharing why Kolkata is significant for him to what went into finding his Umrao Jaan and why he is staying away from filmmaking, the 78-year-old actor-filmmaker-poet-designer touched upon topics close to his heart. Excerpts from his session and a chat with CT:

I got my first complex, cultural and professional exposure in Kolkata. Wherever I go, I go with a clean mind and when I came to Kolkata, I came with nothing but just Ghalib’s famous quote – Kalkatte ka jo zikr kiya tune humnashi, ek teer mere seene mein maara. I slowly began discovering the many layers of Kolkata, which I have never found in any other city. I got exposure to a more practical world, a world trying to make a difference through commerce, politics and at the same time helping me find myself. Kolkata in that sense became a significant place for me. Mumbai was as astounding as Kolkata, but one must come from Kolkata to understand Mumbai. And here I am not talking about the Bombay of business people, I am talking about the Bombay of the soul.

Kolkata is and was history in the making. It is a culturally rich city; it has always had a sense of poetry and appreciation for art, which still continues. It is a revolutionary place, and one must live here to understand the essence of the city. I have lived here for two-three years, and the city gave me so much. Kolkata is a place that challenges you, probes you, makes you think and makes you do things. Coming to its food, I don’t think there is anything like the kathi rolls of Kolkata. I first had them in the 1960s at a famous food joint in central Kolkata.

The ecosystem in Mumbai currently is not conducive for filmmakers to make movies; boycott culture comes much later in the scene. Me staying away from filmmaking has got nothing to do with boycotts. People should respect your taste and not think that your work isn’t commercial enough. Art is commercialized in India. The way money is handling art is not the way art should be handled. More than censorship, what is important is the freedom of art. The artist needs to feel a sense of elation with his art and expression.

Casting of Rekha was another phenomenon. It was not easy to find Umrao Jaan, but I was lucky to find some photographs and after seeing them I was sure that Rekha’s eyes were the eyes that could tell the story I wanted to. However, transforming a woman into a character that could rule over the hearts of many was not easy. A lot of effort by many people had gone into bringing out the sensitive grace that Umrao Jaan needed – it required patience and creativity.

Arab ki Sarai at Delhi’s Humayun’s tomb was immaculately dressed up for the Jahan-e-Khusrau, an annual three-day Sufi music festival held to commemorate the death anniversary of Amir Khusrau. The year was 2001. Illustrious artistes joined the magnificent musical company of Pakistan’s Abida Parveen, Iran’s Rumi Group and Tunisia’s Lotfi Bouchnak, to regale an audience that sat in the open gardens under moonlight. Little did festival founder, filmmaker and Padma Shri awardee Muzaffar Ali know that 20 years later, just under 25 km away from this venue, a lifetime worth of work would see a “pani phir gaya” moment.

Kotwara Farm, Ali’s home in Gurugram’s Gwalpahari, sits in a nasheb (Urdu for slope) as he puts it, with the beautifully rugged Aravali mountain range in close proximity and a pond behind the residence. This beauty, Ali realised, now comes at a price since the area has seen a burgeoning urban township spring up. Ali says much of it has to do with ASF Infrastructure, a private firm, developing an Information Technology sector-specific Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the area. 

“There are high-rise buildings here now. Water from the pond and the storm water drainage that passes right next to our house, is blocked by new construction and the hillock made by TERI [The Energy and Resources Institute] in the name of a golf course,” Ali alleges.

Like always, the rainwater should have followed its course into the foothills of the Aravalis. As per the records at Delhi’s primary weather station, the Safdarjung Observatory, 16 per cent excess rainfall was recorded in Gurugram in just 24 hours, on September 23. Other weather stations at Palam, Lodhi Road, Ridge Ayanagar and Pusa also recorded heavier than normal rainfall during this period. The 36-hour rain spell made this September the second wettest in a decade.

Like with several other commercial and residential premises, Ali’s home saw water flood in. “In just about an hour, there was three feet of water in my home office. All the archival tapes of original music from the Jahane-e-Khusrau festival from 20 years ago, and master tapes of my films, were swimming in muddy water. Sab sarabor ho gaya hai; I don’t know what to do,” he says helplessly.

Not just the tapes, a number of costumes from the festival and his films, old newspaper cuttings that were stored in a trunk, issues of the coffee table journal by Rumi Foundation, HU-the Sufi way, which document the Sufis of Kashmir, Punjab, Awadh etc, exquisite durries made in his hometown of the erstwhile royal estate of Kotwara, and his personal curation of music, lie ruined. “These tapes also housed the sound tracks of Anjuman (1986) and Gaman (1978),” he says of his films, “The tapes contained the originals.”

Music for Anjuman was directed by Khayyam while Gaman won Jaidev the National Award for best music direction and the National Award for best playback singer female (Chhaya Ganguly).

The damaged lot includes quarter-inch tapes that are no longer in use; music cassettes that replaced these, and CDs that came after. “I am still trying to wrap my head around how much is lost, what can be redeemed and what will be history now,” Ali says, who together with architect-designer wife Meera Ali, has putting the material to sun every morning.

Ali has filed a complaint at Gwalpahari police station in Gurugram to report the loss of “rare and valuable archival records of my films and festivals” that have been destroyed. “Due to the criminal negligence of ASF and TERI, this water was let loose by ASF and not allowed to move out by TERI. This created a flooding situation resulting in huge financial loss and damage to life and property. From time to time, I have been warning the MCG [Municipal Corporation of Gurugram] about this.” Ali says he has not received any support from the film industry or the Haryana government. “I have credibility attached to my life and name and they [the administration] should understand the problems a person like me is facing. Why would people want to settle here?”

“On his complaint, we have asked the MCG to clear out the drains. TERI has also been reached out to and they say off-season rain has caused damage to them too. But we will keep Muzaffar Ali’s maan-samaan and resolve the issue soon. FIR can’t be lodged as this is a non-cognisable offence,” said Gwalpahari police station ASI Prem Chand.

Ali says he has shifted his archives between locations over the last few years—from Mumbai, a city long lashed by the rains, to Lucknow, and finally Delhi. “I still have a lot of original photographs and archives at my Lucknow residence. Artistes and filmmakers tend to have valuable documentation which needs to be preserved and shared. My father [erstwhile Raja of Kotwara] also kept records till his death in 1990, and I have tried to safeguard them. He gifted some of it to the Amir-ud-Daula public library in Lucknow, opposite our home. I am not sure if they will be interested in safekeeping my archives too,” he tells mid-day.

With climate change a reality, Ali wonders if there is merit in considering the setting aside of a budget for the creation of a dedicated space that can serve as an art and cultural archive that’s air-conditioned and moisture-free.

Out of fashion quarter-inch tapes, cassettes, CDs with original music from some of Ali’s best films lie in slush

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.