Anubhav Sinha on why his film is titled Mulk, working with Rishi Kapoor and if there'll be a Ra. One sequel

Anubhav Sinha is an angry man these days. His resentment stems from the socio-political events that have gripped the county in the past few years. When I meet him at his Andheri office, he seems at ease despite the hate messages he has been getting on his social media platform on the trailer of his upcoming film Mulk, which deals with the trials and tribulation of a Muslim family. The night before was spent penning an open letter to his trollers. At intervals, he fiddles with his phone to check the media coverage his letter has generated. So why has he titled his film Mulk? “It’s titled so because it’s about us and about the country. We have been hearing a lot about nationalism these days and mera desh, mera Bharat have become slogans. It’s very easy to say that I love my country but it means so much more. The title comes from there," says the director. [caption id=“attachment_4865141” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Anubhav Sinha[/caption] Anubhav believes that the connotation of nationalism in the current scenario has undergone a sea change. According to the director, nationalism has now become synonymous with jingoism. Only if you shout louder saying, ‘I love my country’, you are considered to be a nation lover. Will it be fair to deduce that through Mulk that  Anubhav is passing his own comment on the ongoing socio-political scenario? “Definitely yes. It is about how inclusive or not, we are at this point in time. The relationship between Hindus and Muslims is the most debated relationship for years now. We have no other option except to co-exist because nobody is leaving from here and that only means finding a way to live together. We can’t afford to live neither in isolation nor in delusion,” says Sinha. It is interesting to know that the the first draft of Mulk was written by Anubhav in flat three days, which included its story, screenplay and dialogue, extending to 90 pages. The director took three days off from his office on that Thursday and by late Sunday night, mailed the entire draft to his EP. As per the Ra.One director, the seed of the film came from his own experiences. “I grew up in Banaras of the late ’70s and that was also a period when Hindu-Muslim riots were a common phenomenon. By virtue of being a Banaras resident, I was part of the majority and witnessed things from majority standpoint. Nobody I knew ever said that Muslims should be killed but riots were still happening. Later I went to Aligarh to study Engineering and then became part of the minority. Riots still took place. There I saw my Muslim friends, who realising my insecurity, instilled courage in me and assured me saying that we won’t let anything happen to you. So the fact is neither Hindus nor Muslims ever wanted riots, it was someone else who wanted it and they are still wanting it.” [caption id=“attachment_4189415” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Rishi Kapoor in a still from Mulk[/caption] After the heady topics of nationalism and saffron Hinduism, it is surely time to switch gears and what better way to ask Anubhav about Rishi Kapoor whom many find a difficult actor to work with. “He has a very wry sense of humor which people don’t get in the first instance. I have worked with three Kapoors and all of them have this.” Anubhav reveals that he was scared of Rishi’s refusal to the film as while writing the film, every time only his face had popped up. On the day of the narration, the director received a shocker when he was informed by the senior actor that he has no patience to hear the entire script and only if he could narrate everything in 30 minutes. “Since there was no way I could read to him, I had to abridge the entire film in my head. Finally, he announced that he loved the script and when he queried that there is no hero in the script, my repartee that the script is the hero was a clincher.” With Anubhav, one cannot resist the temptation of asking what went wrong with Ra.One.  “I don’t know but something surely did. I think I got carried away by the Bollywoodisation of a superhero film. Just by the virtue of the star that I had in the film, I felt compelled to cater to the expectations from the star and not the film. I got carried away by this, and this was a huge mistake.” News of a sequel to the film also keep popping at intervals. Will it ever happen? “The amount of willingness that Shah Rukh Khan and I have means it should happen. Every time we meet, we talk about the film. That will only happen when either SRK one day tells me Anubhav, chal picture banate hai  (let’s make a film) or I tell him that SRK, I have cracked a fantastic idea. I am sure in both the cases, the film will start the next day.” It is being said that Mulk is the director’s most honest work till date. How true is it? “This is the first time that something has come straight from heart and I have translated it well, and it’s saying exactly what I wanted to say," Sinha signs off.