Film-maker Mansoor Khan treads new path
Makers of mainstream Hindi films are hardly known for their intellectual or academic skills. It is not a disqualification so long as they continue to produce and direct films that have cinematic value or at the very least make money. But it's certainly an occasion to rejoice when one of them actually writes a book on a ‘heavy' subject that only trained academics would venture to touch. Mansoor Khan, the director of blockbusters such as Qayamat se Qayamat Tak and Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, took a sabbatical from films and used the break to write a book, The Third Curve: The end of growth as we know it. Mansoor Khan has been known as a ‘brainy' director, and those who know him may not be too surprised by his latest achievement. For the others, the hit director has pierced the glass ceiling and done something that the entire industry can be proud of. It's no wonder that his cousin and star Aamir Khan, himself considered a perfectionist and an intellectual of sorts, is so elated. For Mansoor Khan, the trigger for the book was his observations on economic growth and development, and the incompatibility that he discovered between the two. He began questioning the development model after his land was acquired for the construction of an airport in Mandwa in Maharashtra. There will be many who will disagree with the director's narrative and say that he is taking an unnecessarily grim and pessimistic view, and that the issue is too complicated for a non-academic to grasp. But that would be a mean way of taking credit away from Mansoor Khan, who dared to do something fresh. At least he has invested time and energy in an activity that is far removed from his comfort zone. Surely that alone deserves applause, given that even established directors and actors rarely venture away from their tested scripts. At the very least, Mansoor Khan brings to the issue of development a perspective which is new and not creaking under the burden of worn-out ideologies. For instance, he remarks that it is more important to change the patter of energy consumption rather than merely run after ‘green energy', which, in the medium-term at least, will not be able to meet the country's energy needs. He is not anti-green; it's just that he is a realist.
Mansoor Khan is the rare case of a film-maker who has adopted the world of serious non-fiction writing. There have been people though, from the ‘outside’, who have taken to writing in films. We have, for instance, lyricist-writer Prasoon Joshi, who established himself as a reputed name in the advertisement industry before entering films. Earlier, in the eighties, Amit Khanna, who joined Navketan Films in the production-finance department, became a lyricist too, penning quite a few hit numbers. With production houses being increasingly run like corporate firms and authors finding their books converted into film scripts, the flow of people both ways is gaining traction.