Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is out to beat the cynic in us — one tragic love story at a time.
Scoff at saccharine terms such as “eternal love” and “soul mates”, and he will stroke his beard and sagaciously brandish his labour of love — Mirzya, out in the UAE this Thursday — like a weapon.
Even the news of the world’s top celebrity couple Brangelina’s break-up doesn’t make him doubt the concept of timeless romance.
Starring Anil Kapoor’s son Harshvardhan and Tanvi Azmi and Shabani Azmi’s niece, Saiyami Kher, Mirzya comes with the tagline “Dare to love”.
“Who are we to say what works and what doesn’t? We are not the lawmakers of love,” said Mehra.
He’s fully aware that break-ups are common place and in the worst scenarios, that decision is communicated on social media such as Twitter.
“But making Mirzya has filled our hearts with a deeper understanding of love and that one moment of strength in love is bigger than your entire lifetime. That moment can stretch forever,” said Mehra, whose hits include Rang De Basanti and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.
His discoveries share his sentiments with feverish intensity.
Kher describes herself as an eternal romantic, while Kapoor claims he’s been witness to an enduring relationship at close quarters, which has propelled him to believe in happily-ever-after endings.
“My parents have been married for a very long time and that says a lot. I think eternal love is possible. I was never sceptical about the emotion behind love,” said Kapoor. His parents have been married for 22 years.
Mehra’s Mirzya stemmed from a Punjabi folk tale, Mirza-Sahiban. The director saw a play based on the legend 25 years ago in Punjab and the idea to make a film about those two star-crossed lovers sprung up. There’s romance, deceit, betrayal and passion.
“I ran out of people and passengers on a plane whom I could share my grand idea with … A musical Shakespearean tragedy is the closest way I can describe Mirzya.”
This film, which swings between a love story between Adil and Suchi, a modern couple, and a parallel warrior romance, boasts heavyweights including Gulzar, who returns to script writing after 17 years, Polish director of photography Pawel Dyllus and National-Award winning editor P S Bharathi.
“We [Gulzar and Mehra] started talking about love in today’s fast-paced times and I remember [Gulzar] telling me, ‘no matter how fast-paced your life gets, the speed of [the] heart racing when I love remains the same’. I loved his approach … But the question remained... why did Sahibaan break the arrows?”
His last question is an answer that has eluded everyone. The Punjabi legend has it that Sahibaan, the village chief’s daughter, eloped with Mirza, a top archer. But she breaks his arrows in the night, leaving him defenseless when Sahibaan’s well-connected relatives hunt them down and make them pay for their insolence.
So does the audiences get closure after watching Mehra’s Mirzya? The folklore ends with a dying Mirzya looking soulfully into Sahibaan’s eyes questioning her as to why she broke his arrows, leaving him vulnerable.
“That question will remain forever and ever. Why do we hurt the people whom we love the most? This thought has been there for the longest time and nobody has been able to answer this. To say that my film will answer that would be a stretch and arrogant.”
While such grave questions about love and its fallacies may go unanswered, the director was the go-to person for his actors for all else.
Mehra claims that both his discoveries got the role out of merit and not out of influence or industry connections.
“Harsh and Saiyami got their roles out of their sheer hard work. We had months of audition and workshops. I remember speaking to Harsh once as we sat on the sofa in my office. I told him it doesn’t matter if it is your first film, tenth film or your 100th film, when you face the camera, it doesn’t know if it’s your first film or not. All the camera will ask you is: Are you an actor or not?.”
While Kher was bitten by the acting bug in her college, her co-star was looking in another creative direction for most part of his life.
“There was a phase where I wanted to be a writer and director. I studied writing in America for four years. Somewhere between 18 and 21 years of age, I decided I wanted to get into acting,” said Kapoor.
Was it a whim, then? Before Kapoor could answer, his mentor Mehra jumped to his defence.
“He got it totally on his own merit and his approach has been his own … They personified Adil and Suchi in my eyes. When they come together, it’s beautiful. Almost magical,” said Mehra, adding that they both took horse riding lessons and spent months attending acting classes and learning diction and dialogue delivery.
The three seemed like a tight-knit group with Mehra leading the charge. It’s Mehra’s first attempt at a grand love story.
“So once you enter the film sets, a director is relating to an actor and an actor is interpreting the role. The actor is looking into the director’s eyes for reassurance. That’s the relationship we share,” said Mehra.
He’s known to extract the best from his actors. Think of Farhan Akhtar, who transformed himself as an Olympic athlete in the National Award-winning feature Bhaag Milkha Bhaag or Aamir Khan belting out an endearing performance in the politically charged blockbuster Rang De Basanti.
Although Mehra had some of the biggest Bollywood actors on speed dial, he chose to stick his neck out with new faces because his protagonists were young twenty-somethings in love. Plus, he also knew that new actors would have the liberty to put aside months for his dream project.
“It was all of us who had to unlearn … I didn’t want to burden Mirzya by repeating myself. I wanted to re-invent myself here,” said Mehra. Understandably, he was a troubled soul during the making of this romance.
His ambition is to make Mirzya into the greatest love story ever told in Bollywood. It’s not an easy feat because Bollywood is renowned for its love stories.
“Mirzya can be likened to Romeo and Juliet or Heer-Ranjha … In Punjab, when you are hopelessly in love, you are reminded ‘Mirzya mat ban, tere teer toot jayenge’ [Don’t be a Mirzya in love, your arrows will be broken] … I want that legend to echo and reverberate in today’s contemporary times ... There’s something about tragedies that elevate the idea of love and takes it to a new dimension,” said Mehra.
Don’t miss it!
Mirzya is out in the UAE on Thursday.
QUOTE UNQUOTE
“We are all destined to do what we do. In my case, I have never made a movie, the movies have made me ... There will always be a part of me in my films,” says Mehra of his career and work philosophy.
