Raja Krishna Menon: Casting Akshay Kumar for 'Airlift' was a no brainer

Raja Krishna Menon

Mid-day. com introduces our series-Director's Diary, where your favourite filmmakers open up about their journey like never before! Join in as their recall their highs, lows and everything in between. This month we have Raja Krishna Menon, who prefers calling himself "a genre-agnostic director" join us.

I grew up in Bengaluru with absolutely no connection to Bollywood. My mother a single parent, looked after my sister and me, under difficult circumstances. Those were tough times and I took up any odd job I could get. I would broker someone who wanted a college seat, or real estate, find somebody an apartment, I would buy and sell second-hand bikes. I knew my way around and was considered as someone who could get things done.

A friend offered me a job to work with an ad-film production house, probably the only one in Bengaluru at that time. A gentleman called Radha Krishnan and his partner Sanjeev Khamgaonkar offered me the job of a production runner. My job was to ensure the shoot went smoothly and speak to people in Mumbai and organize things. On the second day of my job, they were shooting a commercial for HMT watches, in the middle of MG road. It was chaotic, we didn't have permission and I was trying to placate the cops and control the crowd. I looked at the monitor- we used to shoot with a Beta setup those days. It was ethereal, just this one man running on the street towards the camera! That's when I decided- this is what I want to do. It was a tough decision but I knew I had found my calling.

I was working double jobs at that point, during the day with Radha and Sanjeev and at night with a gentleman called Philip, who made miniature sets. So, I was working 24 hours. That gave me the opportunity to come to Mumbai often because that's where all the post-production happened. I came to Mumbai and started realizing what the industry was all about. Years later Radha and Sanjeev split up and Sanjeev wanted to return to Mumbai, I took that opportunity and moved to the city because I realized Bengaluru was too small an industry for me to find and learn, continue to grow. It was a tough decision to leave my mother and sister behind, I was helping them not just financially but also their moral support. My mother was clear that if this is my calling, I should move to Mumbai.

In Mumbai, I started working with Sanjeev's production company, Looking Glass films that made commercials. It opened my eyes to the industry and the amount of hard work people put in and their passion. Not much to do with Bollywood even then! It was a hard first year, I disliked Mumbai and wanted to return to Bengaluru. After a year I magically knew I would never go back! I ended up setting up my first company early in life around 1996, with a friend Blasco Andrade, who worked with Mukul Anand. I got to meet Mukul Anand and we really bonded, he taught me a lot about life and I still have great respect, it's sad he went too soon. He was a great cinematic brain, he suggested we do something innovative with trailers. We started making trailers for Bollywood films which became quite successful and more people started coming to us. We started with a film called 'Army' (1996.) Things got better financially and I realised I had a lot of stories that I wanted to tell. I was tired of telling brand stories, which was more about execution rather than imagination and my imagination was running wild.

I ended up writing 'Bas Yun Hi' (2003) that was made on a shoestring budget, 80 lakh rupees that we strung together from friends and other people. We shot in 23-24 days, one of the hardest cinematic experiences of my life but it helped me grow. I didn't have time, money or experience. The film did alright, it got sold but as a filmmaker, I knew I hadn't achieved my objectives, I had made what I believed the audience wanted to see. I was the producer, director, assistant and runner because I didn't have money. I went back to the drawing board to think about where I had gone wrong and if I'm capable of directing a commercial film.

I took five years to think about this before making- 'Barah Aana'. 'Barah Aana' came from the heart- I saw how people were treated in our city and country, how the social construct was not allowing people to grow. My friend who had come from the US, asked me over coffee one day about why millions of poor don't rise up in revolution and take what the one per cent of the rich have! I realized it's not about money but about dignity and with that in mind I wrote 'Barah Aana'. We had a studio that was interested but we decided to go independent because I wanted to make an honest film. I wrote the script and Rajkumar Gupta polished it with some wonderful writing of his own.

It was a difficult casting and Vijay Raaz was the easiest one who came on board after hearing the script. With Naseeruddin Shah I was scared because it was a part that didn't have dialogues. I was at a tennis court in Bandra gymkhana and I suddenly found Naseeruddin playing right next to me! I thought I should go up to him but realized that would be a horrible thing to do but still saw it as a sign! I reached out to him and narrated the script. He said he would read the screenplay and if everything I said was in there he would do the film. Few hours later I get a call and I couldn't believe my years- He said it was the best script he had read in years. Then came Tannishtha Chatterjee an old favourite of mine. I had invited Aamir Khan to the screening and he sat with me discussing the film for hours, he also suggested I give the film a positive spin at the end. That was life changing for me, the realisation of how you want to impact an audience and leave them with hope. The film went to all the festivals and got acclaim internationally but it didn't do well domestically. That meant going back to the drawing board for another five years.

I had been working on 'Airlift' for a long time but I didn't believe India would be excited about watching that story but I still believe the story had to be told. Very few events in the country make us more proud, than what India did for its citizens on that fateful day. I met Nikkhil Advani and Vikram Malhotra and they seemed to love it. Casting Akshay Kumar was a no brainer, Vikram is close to him and Nikkhil had worked with him. We spoke for half an hour and Akshay said he was doing the film. I told him how I work and he said that isn't his style but he was nice about it and said let's try it out. We spent 5 am to 8 am every morning for a month, discussing the script and its nuances. I hadn't done anything of this scale yet. I found the best technicians, a phenomenal team. I found the best production designer in Mustafa Stationwala. Priya Seth, one of the best cinematographers in the work. Debashish Mishra, the sound designer and Hemanti Sarkar, the best editor in the country. Nimrat Kaur had just come from The Lunchbox and she loved the role, a solid role for a female lead that doesn't happen very often. The film did well and it opened the door as a filmmaker but it also puts you in brackets you are expected to make the same film each time.

'Chef' again was a story that was very close to me. I was going through a lot in life at that time. I wanted to explore my relationship with my son and that's how 'Chef' happened. I wanted to move away from big action films that I was being offered at that time and Vikram gave me 'Chef'. We discussed the story and I wasn't interested in a remake but we agreed on reimagining the story of an Indian father and son. I'm proud of that film, I had a phenomenal crew. Saif was a revelation and Pradmapriya was wonderful. The film wasn't promoted as much and people didn't know when it came out, it didn't work at the box office. Even now a lot of people around the world reach out to me after watching the film and being impacted by it. We travelled to seven different cities, on the road and everyone went crazy over Kerala's food. We shot in New York at -10 degrees, then there was Goa and Amritsar, the travel was fun! The production designer Anu did a great job with the bus.

I consider myself as a genre-agnostic director, hopefully, I won't get stuck to one genre. I also produced a film called Upstarts which my assistant Uday Pawar made. After which I wrote and directed a web series that I can't talk about yet. Then there's 'Pippa' based on the 1971 war. Ishaan Khatter, Priyanshu Painyuli, Mrunal Thakur, Soni Razdan and others are the leads. I loved working with this young bunch and the lengths they go to get things right. We release the film this December and I'm very excited. It's nuanced and has a great family story. It's exciting to make a film with my friends and of course Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur.