After a gap of five years, Subhash Ghai is back with Kaanchi. He speaks to Karan Bhardwaj about his obsession with young actors and the ongoing land issues of Whistling Wood International Institute
Be it Jackie Shroff in Hero, Shatrughan Sinha in Kalicharan, Manisha Koirala in Saudagar or Mahima Chaudhary in Pardes, the credit for launching these stars goes to director Subhash Ghai.
He is probably one director who has given maximum number of hits with newbies. Now after a sabbatical of almost five years, the showman is ready with his latest directorial venture Kaanchi, starring Kartik Tiwari and Mishti. It is a story of an innocent young girl who, after all the injustice and tragedies against her family, takes on the entire system. “It inspires youth to fight for its own rights,” says Ghai.
“We have been watching and reading closely what has happened on streets in the last three years. Kaanchi is a young story with a fresh idea. It talks about the power of youth. The protagonist, Kaanchi, will show strength of woman,” he adds.
Ghai is an active filmmaker for last 35 years. “I think I enjoy working with fresh actors. They don’t come with prejudice. I have always tried to explore the unknown territory,” he says. But the gap of five years was inevitable as he was constantly stuck with the land issues of his dream project Whistling Woods International Institute. Though the institute is flourishing in various cities and even collaborating with international governments, the Mumbai campus has been in troubled waters for a decade. He has been asked to return the land to the government.
“Sometimes you become victim of the wrong and harsh judgement. Judiciary is fair enough to allow us to present our argument again as we are the suffering party. But I am still wondering about my fault,” he says.
In 2000, Ghai and Maharashtra government signed a joint venture (public private partnership) for the institute. However, it came under public scrutiny and years of objections and court cases followed. “The court penalised us with rent of Rs 80 crore for the entire land of 20 acres. However, we have only used 5 acres of land after government prohibited us to use rest of the space. The government, which was a partner, admitted its administrative fault before court but we are the sole sufferer in the entire issue,” he says.
The Mumbai campus has over hundreds of students and will be shifted to other campuses if the court doesn’t revise its order by next year.
With pain in his voice, Ghai recalls it was his dream to create a world class platform like this and he now feels disappointed. “Government would never take risks like this and they would also not encourage us. I had first submitted the application in 1992 and had offered that I would invest all my worth to make it a reality. When it finally realised, we were humiliated in this manner,” he says.
The director believes that there is a dearth of fine institutions for cinema enthusiasts. “I am a FTII graduate. I have survived for so many years as a director because of my training. A lot of new directors, writers and actors come to my office everyday but they are not trained properly. Young people want to learn but there are no libraries or good cinema universities,” he said.