Anusha Rizvi, director of the film and co-director Mahmood Farooqui have been quite disappointed with the way things shaped up during the making of the film. They haven’t blamed Aamir outright but there were a few issues that they felt resulted due to a celebrity tagged to the project.
Starting from the point that the film never went down as a Rizvi Farooqui film, the two had an issue with the acknowledgements meted out. The film took 3 years in the making right from the research, scripting and all the pre-production work and a lot many people helped out. The two wanted to send out thanks to the ones involved but it was never done. Also, there was an issue where the two felt that the producer shouldn’t have the veto in the editing but when a superstar is a producer, what can one really do about it. Aamir felt he had a moral right to edit the film and own it, claimed Rizvi and Farooqui in a National daily recently.
Also, the AD of the film found a village mandali who shot a song for the film called ‘Mehengayi Dayan’. A contract was to be drawn for the payment which never really happened. Not only that, but the song was deleted from the album as it was thought to be boring for the listener. Rizvi and Farooqui claim that they were never consulted on the same. Now that the film is in the running for the Oscars, it goes without saying, if it does win, it will go down as an Aamir Khan movie.
This isn’t the first time that such a thing has spurred on an Aamir Khan production. The star is known to be quite formidable as far as the creative processes go. Amol Gupte’s story of Taare Zameer Par is known, where Aamir reportedly took over the directorial reins from Gupte. Director Abhinay Deo’s Delhi Belly too is complete but is in the cans for a while now. Apparently, it is yet unreleased due to Khan’s insistence on editing the film himself. Abhinay however, has moved on and is busy working on his next film Game starring Abhishek Bachchan and produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani.
At the end of the day, Aamir certainly is the man with the Midas touch and no one can take that away from him. Every genius has his idiosyncrasies. However, looking at the fact that most of his movies manage to make a strong impact, it can’t be denied that the star definitely knows what he is doing.
