‘I have relived my life through my memoir’
LI would like to believe that there is a connection that I have made with my audiences. RAKEYSH OMPRAKASH MEHRA, Filmmaker
ike 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 Toofan. 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 any 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 twodecade 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.