A Legacy Doesn’t Help Or Create Pressure, Says Raazi Director Meghna Gulzar
With the blockbuster hit Raazi and the highly acclaimed Talvar (2015) to her name, filmmaker Meghna Gulzar has truly come into her own as a filmmaker. Her next project, the biopic of India’s most charismatic soldier, the war hero Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, looks set to help her scale new peaks.
This success didn’t come easy. While much has been said about nepotism, that word means little to Meghna — all she knows about it is that having two of the most famous people in Hindi filmdom didn’t get her anything on a platter, because “you’re are only as good as your last film”, she says. Meghna is the daughter of actor Rakhee, a superstar in her heydays, and poet-filmmaker Gulzar, who has made classics such as Aandhi (1975) and Ijaazat (1987). Despite this lineage, Meghna struggled to find backers for her first few films.
“Both the assumptions — that having a legacy helps, or it creates the pressure of expectations — are false,” she says. “Had it been of any help, then it wouldn’t have taken me two-and-a-half years to put out my first film, and over five years to put my second and third films together, and then another seven years for my fourth film! You are only as good as your last film, and it does not matter who your parents are. Nobody is going to bet on a losing proposition, one that isn’t commercially viable. People had a slight reservation about investing in me in the beginning,” she adds.