MUMBAI: After bringing films like Lagaan and Jodhaa-Akbar, with a touch of history, to Indian screens, filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker is ready to roll the cameras for Mohenjo Daro, set in the Indus Valley civilisation. He says he loves the challenge of going further back in time with each project.
In an interview, he speaks about the film, his research for it and about working with its lead actor Hrithik Roshan.
Why did you decide to make a film on the Mohenjo Daro civilisation?
Simply the lack of information about that period, and therefore the challenge of recreating lives about which little is known. There was very little on how they lived, what they ate, how they felt…Whatever information is available on the era is minor and superficial. That lack of information about the period troubled me on a subconscious level.
So you have conceived a fictional story set in Mohenjo Daro?
That’s right. I feel if a story doesn’t have resonance to current times it just doesn’t connect with the audience. I have a love story to tell. The story featuring Hrithik Roshan is fictional. But the period is real. The four walls of the house are real. The people inside the house are fictional. I am very excited about it.
In Jodhaa Akbar you did a historical. In Lagaan you did a fictionalised account of history. Now in Mohenjo Daro, will you fuse the two formats?
Yes, you can say that. It took me three years to piece together the entire civilisation through various cities and then weave a love story into it. Incidentally, I seem to be going further and further back in time with each film. Lagaan was Modern India. Jodhaa Akbar was Medieval India. Now Mohenjo Daro takes me to Ancient India.
Why have you chosen Hrithik Roshan as the lead?
Let’s put it this way. Just by his presence in Mohenjo Daro, he will make the entire city and civilisation believable. Likewise, I may have succeeded in creating the Mughal era without Hrithik in Jodhaa Akbar, but the era would not have come alive without him.
And is Sonakshi Sinha your leading lady?
I don’t know how a section of the media came to that conclusion.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 10th, 2014.
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