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

Midday com introduces our seriesDirectors 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 genreagnostic director join usI 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 secondhand bikes I knew my way around and was considered as someone who could get things doneA friend offered me a job to work with an adfilm 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 didnrsquot 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 Thatrsquos when I decided this is what I want to do It was a tough decision but I knew I had found my callingI 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 thatrsquos where all the postproduction 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 MumbaiIn Mumbai I started working with Sanjeevrsquos 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 itrsquos 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 wildI 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 2324 days one of the hardest cinematic experiences of my life but it helped me grow I didnrsquot have time money or experience The film did alright it got sold but as a filmmaker I knew I hadnrsquot achieved my objectives I had made what I believed the audience wanted to see I was the producer director assistant and runner because I didnrsquot have money I went back to the drawing board to think about where I had gone wrong and if Irsquom capable of directing a commercial filmI 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 donrsquot rise up in revolution and take what the one per cent of the rich have I realized itrsquos 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 ownIt 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 didnrsquot 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 couldnrsquot 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 didnrsquot do well domestically That meant going back to the drawing board for another five yearsI had been working on Airlift for a long time but I didnrsquot 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 isnrsquot his style but he was nice about it and said letrsquos try it out We spent 5 am to 8 am every morning for a month discussing the script and its nuances I hadnrsquot 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 doesnrsquot 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 timeChef 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 thatrsquos 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 wasnrsquot interested in a remake but we agreed on reimagining the story of an Indian father and son Irsquom proud of that film I had a phenomenal crew Saif was a revelation and Pradmapriya was wonderful The film wasnrsquot promoted as much and people didnrsquot know when it came out it didnrsquot 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 Keralarsquos 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 busI consider myself as a genreagnostic director hopefully I wont 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 cant talk about yet Then therersquos 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 Irsquom very excited Itrsquos nuanced and has a great family story Itrsquos exciting to make a film with my friends and of course Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur