TAKING EVERYONE ALONG

Having recently released his memoir, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra says his iconic films have all been a stage where every crew and cast member has played an essential part

- Karishma Upadhyay

Having made only seven films in two decades, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, it seems obvious, is not a man in a hurry. Even his memoir, The Stranger in The Mirror, took four years to write. Like his films, from Aks to Toofan, the book has no single narrator. Instead, his collaborators—A. R. Rahman, Aamir Khan and Mehra’s wife, award-winning editor P. S. Bharathi—step in to give the reader a sense of his life and work. Excerpts from a candid interview with the 50-year-old filmmaker:

Why was this the right time for you to take stock of your life and write this book?

There’s no right or wrong time. This whole process started four years ago. I love reading books on cinema— autobiographies of writers, makers, actors and other technicians—and it all started from there. There’s always this urge to share stories about your films before you forget all about them.

Why did the title The Stranger in the Mirror feel apt?

Mirrors and reflections have always fascinated me. Subconsciously, mirrors have played a seminal role in all my films. Aks, the name of my first film, means ‘reflection’. In the climax scene, between the characters played by Mr Bachchan and Manoj Bajpayee, in which one is good and the other is evil, they talk about being a reflection of each other. In Delhi-6, there’s a fakir who carries a mirror with him all the time and repeatedly tells people to look in it. In