Ketan Mehta spent three years finalising the script and six months fighting court cases for his latest film Manjhi-The Mountain Man, which is set to release later this year. He talks to Iknoor Kaur about his strict shooting schedule and Nawazuddin’s extraordinary performance
Dashrath Manjhi didn’t build a monument for his wife or walk through fire to prove his love. Instead he chiselled his way through 360 feet of mountain creating a road 30 feet wide over a span of 22 years, in order to prevent others from suffering the fate of his beloved wife. His homage may not be the eighth wonder of the world, but it inspired Ketan Mehta to break his sabbatical. His latest docudrama, Manjhi–The Mountain Man is finally set for release by the end of the year, after six months of legal struggle.
August 17, 2012, was the fifth death anniversary of the Mountain Man. Mehta announced his film then. However, this year when it was all set to release, there was a stay order passed by the Patna High Court in response to the petition filed by producer Sanjay Singh. As it appears, Singh bought the rights to Manjhi’s story from his son and claimed that he had “exclusive” film rights. Mehta, whose film was in the post-production stage, didn’t give up. He saw “light at the end of a dark tunnel” earlier this month and felt relieved. “It took a lot of time battling the case. I am extremely proud of this project and I couldn’t have given up on it easily. People on global media platforms have read Manjhi’s story. So, nobody can say that they have exclusive rights to it.”
While Mehta was shooting for Rang Rasiya based on Raja Ravi Varma’s life in 2007, he came across numerous obituaries about the “man who moved a mountain for love” and instantly made his decision. “There was a lot written about the man and his feat. When I read all of this, I realised that there was a good cinematic experience that lay beneath the story of this man. So I took time off after Rang Rasiya to research on him. Apart from seeing documentaries and reading books, I, along with Mahendra Jhakkar, went to meet his family and tried to understand the local mentality and behaviour. It has been a journey of pure amazement and enlightenment,” he shared.
The 60-year-old director didn’t want to keep any loose ends. Thus, he shot the film at the place where Manjhi lived — a remote village called Gahlore in Bihar. Mehta says it’s one of the toughest films of his life. “It has been one of the harshest film schedules I have ever had. We would all wake up at 3.30 am, travel for one and a half hour and climb a mountain to get to the village. We started shooting in October and were done by December.” “The story goes beyond love,” he adds, “It is not about the man’s feat, but that he did it for love.”
The film features Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Radhika Apte in lead roles. According to Mehta he needed someone who was dedicated. “I required actors who didn’t have other things occupying them while shooting. There was a need for 100 per cent commitment and these two actors were great. Nawaz fitted the role physically and had the essential intensity and versatility to pull it off. He had to grow from 20 to 60 years and he has done it with par excellence.” Other members of the cast are Tigmanshu Dhulia, Prashant Narayanan, Pankaj Tripathi and Rachna Shah.