Coffee with BS: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra on storytelling, India's OTT scene

With his latest him, Toofan, launched on OTT, Mehra says that the platform has given filmmakers and audiences a diverse range of viewing options but some movies are simply made for the big screen

Art often imitates life, they say. As I wait in my Zoom waiting room, a mug of green tea steaming up my screen, I muse that today’s guest can attest that the opposite is true, too. Life can also follow art, or in this case, cinema. A month after Bollywood film Rang De Basanti was released in 2006, a spontaneous public outcry against the acquittal of all nine accused in the Jessica Lal murder case occurred on India Gate in Delhi. Recreating a scene eerily similar to one in Rang De Basanti, thousands of citizens sat in a candlelight vigil, demanding justice for the slain model. Fifteen years later, the film seems just as relevant as it did then.

“I like to tell stories that I genuinely feel,” says scriptwriter, director and occasional actor Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra, who wrote, produced and directed Rang De Basanti, for which he was awarded Best Director at the 2006 Filmfare Awards and the BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was also officially chosen as India’s entry to the Oscars. “But I hadn’t imagined in my wildest dreams that Rang De Basanti would become a call for civic action.”

With a backdrop of a rain drenched Mumbai and a cup of espresso in hand, he looks relaxed for a man who has two big releases out in one month — Toofan, his much-awaited film on Amazon Prime Video, and Stranger in the Mir­ror, his memoir, which hit the stands on July 27.

“Arrey, I’m not very good with the written word; my language is visual,” he laughs when I comment how interesting it is that his memoir is peppered with QR codes, which readers can scan to watch scenes and songs from his films. “What else can a filmmaker do but to tell his story through his movies?”

In the book, Mehra, 58, writes about his early years in Delhi, an affinity he has not forgotten and which is echoed in films like Delhi-6 and Rang De Basanti. He began his career selling vacuum cleaners and making ad films for Indian and international clients including Coke, Pepsi, Toyota and American Express. His tryst with Bollywood began when he directed the music videos of Amitabh Bachchan’s album, Aby Baby. I still enjoy the ground breaking “Eir Bir Phatte” from that album, I say. “So do I,” he says, laughing. “Harivansh Rai Bachchan had written it 40 years ago and we had such a blast setting that traditional poem that grandparents lulled little children to sleep with into edgy hip hop!”

This initial act of subversion seems to have set the trend for Mehra’s films. “I went on to do the same thing in Genda Phool, a song in Delhi-6,” he says. “It is an old folk song from Chhattisgarh, sung in true Bundelkhandi style, which we gave new meaning to.” Has he seen the viral YouTube video of a spunky young sari-clad girl, hula hooping to the song? “Her name is Eshna Kutty,” he says promptly. “I love how she’s reinterpreted the song a decade after it was made.” Great movies and music, like art, the filmmaker says, are those that stand the test of time. But Mehra can’t stand rewatching his own movies. “Once they’re out, they’re out,” he says, sipping his coffee. “Every time I rewatch my movies, there are so many things I find that I would do differently now; I can’t comfortably sit through them!”

He explains how he has used song and sound to extend his storytelling in all his movies. “In Rang De Basanti, where all my protagonists are shot dead at the end, I’d visualised their deaths as their spirits coming to life,” he explains. Composer A R Rahman created the perfect composition which spoke of love, hope and light while the four friends meet in the afterlife, in a surreal mustard field where a young Bhagat Singh plays near his father (played by Mehra). Mehra calls his 2013 biopic on Milkha Singh a film about human spirit. This is reflected in the track Zinda, styled as a rock anthem that exhorts one to live life to its fullest. More recently, when he was researching the Mumbai neighbourhood of Dongre for Toofan, Mehra observed that local youth were all listening to fusion hip-hop. “Those were the sounds that Toofan’s soundtrack has tried to capture,” he says.

It begins to pour in Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, where I am. A slice of apple pie rests by my cup of green tea, while Mehra only drinks his espresso. We wistfully discuss the restaurants we could have been sitting in, were it not for the pandemic. The pie and my expanding waistline remind me of the scenes I enjoyed the most in Toofan — those in which Farhan Akhtar as the boxer Aziz Ali works out. Layers of understated emotion set them apart from the stereotype body transformation scenes one has seen in other films. “The endeavour is to tell the subtext of the story,” he says. “So, for me, Farhan’s incredible sit-ups embodied the building of trust and relationship with his coach/mentor, Nana Prabhu (played by Paresh Rawal).” In a pre-pandemic world, these scenes would have definitely got some members of the audience clapping and whistling, but the film was released on Amazon Prime Video. How has his maiden experience of releasing a film on an OTT platform been like?

“Originally, Toofan was meant for a theatre release,” he says. “When the pandemic came, we tied up with Amazon Prime Video, but our release date fell bang in the middle of the horrific second wave.” While a theatre release might have elicited a more immediate response, Mehra feels that OTTs have given filmmakers as well as their audiences a more diverse range of viewing options. “OTTs give movies longevity and reach audiences across the world,” he says. “But some films are simply made for the big screen — think of the difference between watching Sholay or The Avengers on your TV screen and in a hall.” OTT releases also do away with the notion of box office success, something Mehra struggled with after Delhi-6 performed poorly. “But now it’s on Netflix and I find it’s gradually gaining acceptance,” he says.

Mehra is presently working on three scripts simultaneously. Given his unhurried past record, none is likely to reach the screen — big or small — for the next several years. But he isn’t worried. “Like Farhan’s coach said to him in Toofan, in the boxing ring, the ability to take the punches makes you a winner, not the ability to beat someone up,” he reflects. “You’ve got to be the last man standing.”