Inside the real world of Rajkumar Hirani
It’s really hard to dislike a Rajkumar Hirani film. The writer-director-editor can tickle you as well as immediately draw tears. He throws in romance and drama. While there is no blood-soaked violence and flying cars in his films, there is always some tension and surprise. There is so much goodness in Hirani’s world that he convinces you that even bad guys have a humane, humorous side. Simply put, Hirani knows what audiences want to watch. It’s what makes him the envy of filmmakers such as Anurag Kashyap and Karan Johar, who in interviews have expressed how they want to have the mass appeal the filmmaker enjoys.
Only three films old, Hirani is a brand in himself. He has perfected the art of making clean family entertainers, a genre popularised by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manmohan Desai and Basu Chatterjee, whose cinema Hirani grew up enjoying. Hirani is in no hurry, making a film once in every three to four years. He uses the time to work on his story and build his characters. He doesn’t stick to formulae. What he does cling to is a team of trusted professionals including producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra, writer Abhijat Joshi, actors like Boman Irani, composer Shantanu Moitra and cinematographer CK Muraleedharan to help him realise his vision.
Taking a break from a sound edit of his fourth film, PK, Hirani sits down for an extensive interview to discuss his journey from selling calculators in Nagpur to wowing audiences all over India.
All of Hirani’s films have been hits, his last 3 Idiots (2009) was the first Hindi film to cross the coveted Rs 200 crore mark. Hirani says that there is no formula he religiously follows while writing a film. “The formula for what you call a successful film is that there is no formula,” he says. He recalls an anecdote when working on Munna Bhai MBBS (2003), which convinced him that staying away from the expected, tried-and-tested way was one of the golden rules of filmmaking. “A filmmaker met me on the set and later said, ‘Are you mad? What’s wrong with you?’ I asked, 'Why?' He said, ‘You have taken Sanjay Dutt, who is supposed to be an action hero, and you're doing a light-hearted, feel-good film. And the story is set in a hospital, and you are not shooting your songs in Europe or Switzerland.'"
When I went back home that night, I actually thought for a while and wondered, ‘Am I doing something wrong?’ Then I told myself, ‘This is what you don’t have to follow.’ When somebody first shot a song in Switzerland, it was a unique thing. Somebody else saw it and said, ‘Aah, it worked because of that’ and decided to ape it,"' he says.
Explaining his creative process, Hirani says, “The idea is to write for yourself. You really can’t judge what audiences will like, especially in India where the literacy rates are so variable. You just say, ‘This is something I like. It makes me cry and laugh, so let me make this’.” Hirani considers himself fortunate that his films have done well at the box office too as “it gives us courage to make what we want to make rather than fall into the trap of tropes like item songs". Not that Hirani’s films have never had an item song. Only they will be rightfully placed in a story as “Seekh Le” (Munna Bhai MBBS), which unfolds in a hospital.
Given the way his films have resonated with audiences, whether it is popularity of Gandhigiri in Lage Raho Munna Bhai or "Aal Izz Well" in 3 Idiots, one wonders does he think of audiences while making a film? He doesn’t, comes the quick response.
“If you start thinking what they like, you will fall flat on your face. The audience is very intelligent. We assume based on the success of some stupid films that 'this' is what they like. The truth though is that we unfortunately live in a country where when a weekend comes there is little to do, barring eating out and watching a film. Look at Europe, cinema is not working there because people there have so much to do. We have nothing. Here, families see a poster with a big star and are like 'Let’s go and see'. Filmmakers think the film works, so they say, 'Chalo aise hi dekho doosri'. It is a vicious cycle. We dumb the audience down which is what television is also doing now with saas-bahu shows. If at all, it is the stupidity among the people making cinema. They are making movies for success. Do it from your heart, everything will work.”
Hirani adds: “The idea is to do what you believe in. When you write, you need to write about something that you really know about or you deeply connect with. I have made films about social issues but I have not made it for the sake of it. These are issues that I feel strongly about. The moment you fake it, you will fail. The stories have to come from within.”
One way Hirani’s films leave an impression is through memorable characters – from Circuit [Munna Bhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munna Bhai] to Chatur and Professor Virus [3 Idiots]. Hirani says, “Stories are always about people. Without them, there is no story. Your character has to be highly loveable or even unlikeable. We do work very hard on the script itself. There is a method to the whole madness. And there’s patience. Making a film is all about patience. It takes a year and a half to write a film, and then the same [time is needed] to make it.”
In his forthcoming film too, it’s a character which has increased the curiosity of the viewers. Hirani and his creative team have come up with someone who stands out from the crowd with his set of quirks. Essayed by Aamir Khan, PK loves to eat paan, doesn’t blink his eyes and runs without his hands moving. Hirani wants to let audiences know that there is a reason behind all of it apart from adding “colour to the film”. And he speaks Bhojpuri. “I love languages,” says Hirani. “I feel India has so many of them that we should use the flavour of them.”
Another noteworthy aspect of Hirani’s films is that there is always a social message interwoven in the narrative. “I have never consciously done that,” he says. “Your ideology seeps into a film. For instance, Madhavan’s story [in 3 Idiots] was similar to mine. I was a terrible student. I couldn’t do engineering or chartered accountancy. The moment I went to the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, my life changed. Suddenly I was getting scholarships and everything right was happening. When something interests you, you excel in it, and you conventionally succeed in it all. Success is all about being able to do what you want to do. You have to honestly write a story, a script and characters and try to make it constantly entertaining. You sugar-coat your social message.”
The success that Hirani has been greeted with has resulted in people eagerly looking forward to his fourth film, PK, which comes after a gap of five years. Ask him if he feels the pressure of living up to the lofty expectations, he says, “Yes, I do feel it, especially if I am living up to the expectations of making a good film. Every time you are battling against your past. Somehow, the past seems better. When I did 3 Idiots, Lage Raho... seemed better. With 3 Idiots, I really strongly felt what have we made? It is such a normal story. I was spent towards the end of the film. I’m going through the same phase now. Though I do feel that with PK, we have a very unique story. But by the time you finish [a film] you lose objectivity. A part of your mind says it is a great film, the other part doubts it. The only consolation is that we have strived to our optimum. If I fail after that, I can’t look back and say, ‘I didn’t try’.” (In part II of the interview tomorrow, Hirani talks about collaborating with Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Aamir Khan, his learning from the FTII and his father’s influence.)