Proud of being Un-Bollywoodian

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Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra takes pride in calling himself an “un-Bollywood person”. It is one of the first things he says, as he settles down on his sofa, at his Bandra office, for what he calls his first “candlelight interview”.

Thanks to the electricity that had gone off in the area. Emphasising on the term “un-Bollywood” he goes on to add, “It’s not a conscious effort. My endeavour is not to go away from Bollywood, because I don’t know where that will lead me. All I know is that I belong to the Indian film industry and I want to tell people stories about India. Bollywood is just a monkey term of Hollywood. Being called ‘un-Bollywood’ makes me happy and smug.”
The filmmaker has given the industry some of its most unconventional movies — like Aks, Rang De Basanti and Delhi 6. Ask him to describe his journey and he quips, “The journey has been a blur — exciting, adventurous and romantic. Being a filmmaker in my case was a sweet accident. I come from a middle class family, so my priority was getting a job. But yes, I loved movies. They used to move me like nothing else.”
While his next movie Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is the story of legendry sportsperson Milkha Singh, not many people know that Rakeysh himself has represented India at the Asian Games as a swimmer. He admits that being a sportsperson helped him understand the character better. “I can get under the skin of a sportsperson. While training, we used to hear the folklore of Milkha Singh. It was always in my subconscious mind, and is now coming out in the movie,” he says.
The filmmaker goes on to say that his previous films too have been inspired by personal experience. “When I made RDB, it was about the angst of college students. Certain elements of the film are borrowed from my life and experiences in college.