'The Roshans', Director, Shashi Ranjan

0:09Jawad MirWelcome back everyone to another episode of Kingdom of Dreams Podcast, the Making of Stories. Today my guest is director Shashi Ranjan, who directed Netflix, The Roshans. I have had the pleasure of the editor of the documentary series, Geeta Singh, on the podcast, as well as one of the protagonists who's also a producer in the Indian film cinema, Rakesh Roshan. Shashi and I talked about a lot of different things from the standpoint of direction, the creativity, the angle, and the rapport he had to build, during the process as well as before, production, just to kind of get to know the protagonists and people involved in the film. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Shashi Ranjan. I had…

0:50Shashi RanjanYes

0:50Jawad Mir... The pleasure of speaking to, Geeta, who, edited The Roshans.

0:54Shashi RanjanI saw your interviews with, Geeta…

0:58Jawad MirOkay

0:58Shashi Ranjan... And, Rakesh Ji. Yes.

1:00Jawad MirYeah. They were, they were both really great. Geeta I've talked to before as well a few times about the, Angry Young Men, and it was the first time with…

1:09Shashi RanjanYeah, I am

1:10Jawad Mir... Rakesh Roshan. But yeah…

1:11Shashi RanjanRight

1:11Jawad Mir... Great series. I really enjoyed it. Nostalgia and, you know, just the human emotion that was in there, was very genuine and it came across authentically. And I know being a director myself, especially making documentaries, that is a testament to the director more so than anything else because they feel comfortable with you. So kudos on that, on the work that you've done.

1:37Shashi RanjanThank you. Thank you so much and, I was glad to know that you're a document… documentary filmmaker, and this is what, this is one genre, especially in India, which really needs to do, up the game because, there's so many stories but you know how, I don't know whether you track Indian

1:56Jawad MirI do

1:56Shashi Ranjan... So you know the film division documentaries and the Doordarshan documentaries, pathetic, and the documentary means very boring, very dull, bad visuals and, you know, the voiceovers and things like that. That is the basic perception of, a documentary in India. So I'm glad that, you know, as a documentary filmmaker, I have been able to create a story which is glamorous, which is informative, which serves its purpose but at the same time it entertains. It has emotion, it has drama and of course great music.

2:38Jawad MirYeah.

2:38Shashi RanjanSo I'm glad about that.

2:40Jawad MirYeah, no, and that's, and that's one thing about, so there's, you know, just like in a narrative film there's different genres, right? Even with documentaries there are different genres. Like there is, you know, the genre of human rights, there's this genre of social impact, there's a genre of, you know, biography or there's a genre of what you did. Like it has entertainment/biographer, you know, biography elements in there obviously…

3:04Jawad Mir... But more of like a generation. So it, you know, it's catered for a different audience. But at the same time one of the things that's really cool about this is because it's, it's obviously not a social impact or human rights doc but it just has this element which you just said, the element of entertaining people, you know, that where, which instead of sort of sitting through a bunch of interviews and, you know, going through this and that, it has a story and it has an entertainment value to it. So yeah, ama… amazing stuff. Tell me, how your journey, and I did talk to Rakesh, about this as well but from your perspective, what sort of, what was the first step in making this from your angle and the journey that you took?

3:56Shashi RanjanI'll just give you a little bit of a background that

4:00Jawad MirPlease

4:00Shashi Ranjan... I w… I, passed out from FTII Pune as an actor.

4:05Jawad MirOkay.

4:05Shashi RanjanI did my diploma in acting and I did, some 20 films, good, bad and ugly. And then I moved on to production. I'm not, I was not getting the kind of roles I wanted and struggling and I couldn't wait for a yes every morning. And, so I started dabbling into production and, started directing television. So I did a lot of talk show. In fact, the first talk show ever in India was social political talk show was done by me, called Shotgun Show with Shatrughan Sinha.

4:40Jawad MirOkay.

4:40Shashi RanjanAnd, it was a huge success which ran for three years on Star. It used to come on prime time because there was no news channel in those days, so it used to come on an entertainment channel. So that gave me, because I was politically and socially aware and I like this genre so I made, another, very, you know, big, talk show with Javed Akhtar called Guftagu, with Mahesh Bhatt, Without Makeup with Mahesh Bhatt. Then I used to do a program called Making of a Legend, which I used to produce, direct and anchor in which I spoke to some 55, 60 living legends of Indian cinema.

5:23Shashi RanjanAnd that really gave me that, confidence that there is a huge space in our country that we do not document our greats. There is no nothing available. If you want to know something about K. Asif or a Mehboob or a Guru Dutt or a Raj Kapoor or a Mohammed Rafi or Lata Mangeshkar, you, I can go on. You don't have nothing. It's such a tragedy that, if a student of cinema or even a film buff wants to know, there is nothing besides their work, whether it's a song or a film or a whatever. There are books, yes, but nobody reads books these days. So… This was always in my mind that, you know, s… I think this, space should be filled. And one day, I was sitting with, Rakeshji in his farmhouse, and he told me that he was heard that one music company didn't, put his father's songs and his name in a collection.

6:28Shashi RanjanAnd, I told him, I said, "Well, it is a great loss to them." But I think it didn't s… stop there, and I told him, I was just thinking. And I used to sing a lot of, Roshan Saab songs right from my childhood. So, you know, I was fond of music, and I realized... And then I realized that it happens to be Rakesh Roshan's father. So I said, "Why don't we make a documentary on this?" And he jumped on the idea, and he said, "I think it's a good idea," though he didn't have any i… you... Including that how a documentary works, you know, because he's basically, a movie filmmaker, and, documentary filmmaking is a different ballgame. It's a different animal altogether.

7:11Shashi RanjanSo he had his apprehension, " beginning entry " and all that. But yeah, as,.. And then he suggested also that, why can't we all three be a part of it? And I realized that, yeah, it's a good suggestion because it completes the arc that we start with the father, and we come to the, you know, the, Hrithik Roshan because th… these generations are there, and, yeah, it's big, interesting arc. And, I started the research. But the important part, J… Jawed, is in this documentary is that anybody or everybody who's seen it finds it very emotional and very transparent and honest. My effort was that their work is in public domain. You know what films they have made. You know how good or how bad they are. But who are these people?

8:12Shashi RanjanThat was the question in my mind. And as I started talking to them, the family, we created a kind of a rapport. We came emotionally very close to each other, and that's why th… they could be naked in front of me with, everything. So that connect, I think, reached to the audience, and I'm very glad about that.

8:36Jawad MirYeah. No, it certainly did, and I... You know, the raw emotion, and for me personally, one of the things, and, like, because you've seen the other two episodes that hit me home was that element of, you know, with Rajesh Roshan where he talks about that he's getting all this work, "Why do I need to network?" Right? And then eventually everybody has their time, and everybody's time goes away. That's just the way the world works.

8:59Shashi RanjanYeah.

8:59Jawad MirAnd that part, I think so many people can relate to even if they're not in the film industry…

9:06Shashi RanjanTrue

9:06Jawad Mir... Because you feel that, you feel that you're relevant, right?

9:09Shashi RanjanTrue.

9:10Jawad MirAnd it takes a flash to become irrelevant, and that was really touching. And I'm so glad that you tapped onto that.

9:18Shashi RanjanJawed, you know, life, the film is of course is a b… because they are from films, so it's a backdrop.

9:24Jawad MirYeah.

9:26Shashi RanjanThis is a journey of any common person because there are struggles, but how do you deal with them, your personal tragedies, your highs and lows. So that's why, you know, besides film people, rest of the people also could connect with the story because it's aspirational at times. It inspires you, and, it feels human. It doesn't feel like that, oh, somebody, a film star talking about, you know, things. So yeah.

9:55Jawad MirAnd that's one of the things that I, you know, whether it's in Hollywood, whether it's in a cricket team from any part of the world, whether it's Bollywood, every one of the people, even if they're, like, celebrities, like, to the toppest level, they crave to b… be like ordinary people. Like, for example…

10:14Shashi RanjanTrue

10:14Jawad Mir... I was, I was talking to John Schwartzman. He's a cinematographer on films like Armageddon, The Rock, you know, the popular movies. And I was... We were talking, and we, he told me that how he's so glad that nobody knows him because he's not an actor because actors crave to even go to the gas station and fill up their car with the, with the gas just because they want to feel normal, right? Like, just ordinary. And this is what this film does. It normali… it just complete... I mean, the Roshan family is very sort of, humble from what I saw in the series, especially Hrithik and Rakesh. I mean, Rajesh, Roshan's career, I haven't really followed that much. But yeah, it really encapsulate that. And for me, o… one of the curious questions that I have is that what was... And there's always challenges in any project, whether it's in film or life. What was one element, I'm sure there were many, where you may have felt this is going, this is not necessarily...

11:15Jawad MirYou know, "Why did I take this on?" Like, was there any moment where, not from a standpoint of dealing with the Roshans or anything, just in general because of the beast of the project it was?

11:28Shashi RanjanJawed, you know, it's, it's, it's my labor of love. So since, I'm fascinated by this genre and, I grew in this business of 35 years now, so yeah. So I was not looking at it that at a from point of view that let me create a story of celebrities or of a big family. I find at the moment I started being close to them, I realized the humanness and the human drama in them, and I forgot that he happens to be a director or a, you know, some father of a very big film star. And same with Hrithik Roshan. My rapport with him, my only worry, if I…... Can say was this, that, because I was a great admirer of Roshan Sahab, and he is not alive, and to create his, episode, I was always very, cautious that I shouldn't be doing something which is lightweight.

12:35Shashi RanjanI will not be able to forgive myself if I make something which is... Doesn't match up to his talent, and people say, "What a," you know, "document you created after 50 years of his death," and, you know, look at this. That was my priority. So the moment I saw the first cut of the first episode, and then I said, "Bingo. This will move people. This has everything. It has music. This has great anecdotes. It has everything." And then I continued. And of course, another big challenge technically, since you're a maker, was that there's so much of footage. What do I do? And everybody is a high, heavyweight, right? From Shah Rukh to, you know, Javed Sahab, to Asha Ji, and everybody has spoken so much out from the heart that I wanted to keep this also, I wanted to keep that also, and then suddenly I realized, shit, I can have an episode of two and a half hour each if I, you know, get so indulgent into all this.

13:45Shashi RanjanSo yeah, cutting those areas was a difficult job. But as Raj Kapoor's one... Once said, that when you make a movie, you should fall in love with the... Like a girlfriend you should treat the movie, but when you come to the editing, you should be a butcher. So.

14:04Jawad MirYeah. Well, that's where…

14:05Shashi RanjanYeah

14:05Jawad Mir... That's where Geeta did a phenomenal job along with yourself.

14:08Shashi RanjanYes, Geeta did a phenomenal job and…

14:10Jawad MirSynthesize it.

14:11Shashi RanjanYeah, when we kind of, w… we were, we were on a, almost on the same wavelength. Of course, we had our share of disagreement, which is absolutely important in a…

14:23Jawad MirYes

14:23Shashi Ranjan... Documentary like this that,.. But yeah, o… o… overall we were, we were in sync. And another advantage which I had, Jawwad, was that I purposely wanted to interview everybody myself. I did the research, I did the interviews myself, because while I was interviewing them, I was taking them according to my script in my mind, and I exactly knew what, when he said this, what should be the, will be the answer of A, B, C, D, E. So that while I was interviewing them, there was an edit going in my head, and also the script moving in my head. Oh my God, what a lovely sentence, and how will I have a counter for this or a, you know, validation for this? So yeah, it was interesting journey of, two years. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

15:15Jawad MirI... You me… you mentioned the first episode, how it was challenging. To me, and it's probably because I think I knew Rakesh's work, I knew Ra… knew Rajesh's work and Hrithik's work, that was the most important episode for me too. Because I learned something that, A, I did not know, and then just it had this... I don't even know how to explain. It had this depth to it. And not saying that the others did not, but there was just something special about that, and I think that…

15:44Shashi RanjanExactly

15:45Jawad Mir... And that's because, one of the many reasons is because of what you just said, that your caution towards it. Not that you didn't ta… you know, care about the other ones, but there was just this extra care that went into it, and you feel it. You actually see it and you feel it.

15:59Shashi RanjanHere there's a person who nobody knows how he looks like. Okay? 99% people didn't know how he looked. And you want to bring his story, and you want people to connect to his old music, and what kind of a human being he was. So that was challenging. So I had to recreate. There's a recreation. At one time, certain people said, "Oh, Shashi, why recreation?" well, it... I said, "No, I need to give a visual to my emotion."

16:36Jawad MirYeah.

16:36Shashi RanjanWhen the, when the person is... I need to, I need to show people that atmosphere, that feel of that era. And I think, people liked it immensely.

16:50Jawad MirYeah, I was telling this to Geeta as well, that pers… and this is just a personal thing. I'm not a fan of recreations, and when that happened, I was a little bit taken out of it, but after a while, it was... I was, like, back into it really quickly. And it did give, it did give a face to that, because if I was to go back and, not that I'm planning on, but if I was to go back and, let's say, download the episode and edit the, those recreations out and put those photos in, it wouldn't have that same impact, right? Because it's just, it, the visual does give you that feel. Now, if you were doing recreation of a murder scene, like of a, you know, crime documentary, yeah, that really takes me out completely, because I know for a fact that it's not real. But there were just certain elements in the recreation that you did that felt real. After, you know, after I got pulled out, then I came back in. It spoke to me in a, in a very powerful way.

17:46Shashi RanjanEven Geeta was, in the beginning, was very apprehensive.

17:49Jawad MirYeah.

17:49Shashi RanjanShe said, "Oh my God, you know, how will it look?" I said, "Don't worry, don't worry. It will work. It will work. Just let's, let's edit it properly and we'll, we'll do... We'll, we'll get there. Don't worry." And, the first reaction of the, people who saw, yeah. Oh, my God, especially that, river scene. They really thought it's a real footage. So it worked, and people started to... Now I get so many calls and people say, "Wow," that scene where, you know, he's coming in a car, and that, Sequence of, Kedar Sharma telling him that I will not change him was very moving and people really loved that.

18:33Jawad MirYeah, I think when we talk about recreation in that, in that series, the scene that comes to my mind is that car scene and the j… the balcony. That to me was the most effective recreation scene. It just worked at so many levels.

18:48Shashi RanjanYeah

18:49Jawad Mir... When you were speaking to anybody, you know, Hrithik or Rajesh or, Rakesh, there's always emotional moments when you interview people, right? And in this one, there were many. There were many. If you can recall one moment that really... I mean, you've known the Roshan family for a while. There was something that you learned and that really hit you hard and, you know, you began to obviously become emotional about it. Was, is there something specific that one example…

19:21Shashi RanjanWell, many time it happened

19:22Jawad Mir... I'm sure.

19:23Shashi RanjanMany time.

19:23Jawad MirOne specific one…

19:24Shashi RanjanMany did

19:25Jawad Mir... Or a few.

19:25Shashi RanjanSee, I'm looking at them, we're having a conversation, and what you see is a, is a eventually result of a maybe, two sentences after 20 minute of an interview, okay? But in 20 minute I'm gradually going towards a particular emotion, a particular information.

19:46Shashi RanjanAnd the moment we enter, because until unless I'm not in it, the other person will not be in it.

19:53Jawad MirRight.

19:53Shashi RanjanSo sometimes we used to reach a point when they're crying and I'm crying, and we used to stop the camera and they'll say, "Okay, let's stop crying and then we'll start." So there used to be a five-minute pause, and then we will start again. All it did happen in all the... And you've seen, that's why those, emotional moments, wherever they come, they have a great impact because it's real. It's absolutely real. And, yeah, so I think, you know, this is, it's, it's a, it's a vibration, which happened between them and me that they could see. Like, for example, Hrithik when he was being interviewed, so generally I said, "The main camera you look into the, lens and talk," and I used to be on the side.

20:43Shashi RanjanSo four, five minute he spoke and then he said, "Shashi, I'm not getting it." I go, "Means what?" He says, "No, can you please look into my eyes and talk? Because I'm having the emotion, but I'm not getting in, so I need to look into your eyes." Exactly the same thing Shah Rukh Khan said. He says, "I want to get what you're looking, what your un… your eyes are asking me."

21:11Jawad MirYeah.

21:11Shashi RanjanSo, you know, that connect, was important.

21:17Jawad MirYeah, 100%. It's, it's, you know, when you're making a documentary that, you know, in some cases there are, like, scenarios where you see some docs where people are looking in the camera and, but when it speaks, comes to an emotional part, like, it, you just, the eyes do the trick. Like, it's just…

21:33Shashi RanjanYeah, eyes do…

21:33Jawad MirWe don't, we undervalue the power of eyes.

21:36Shashi RanjanAbsolutely.

21:37Jawad MirLike, how powerfully we communicate through eyes.

21:39Shashi RanjanYes.

21:41Jawad MirI wanna go back to your career. W… you know, you talked about that you tried acting and it didn't m… materialize and that's, that's okay because we all have our own journeys. If you... And I'm sure there are many pa… times in life where, you know, you felt like, "Why is this happening? Why is this not working?" Can you think of a story or two where everything you felt was, like, done and dusted, like nothing was happening, and then out of nowhere something came up and took you to a different, not different path, but a, you know, some… somewhere better, essentially?

22:16Shashi RanjanJawad, I came to Bombay from a very small town in Haryana. My father was an educationist. He was a writer, Urdu or Farsi Mmhmm. And, so I inherited a sàs of zubaan. Pakistani Yep. Or, So when I came here, I w… it's basically a lot of fate has to do with... So I was a promising actor. I did get for certain films. Those films didn't do well, then I didn't get... So I'm always been intellectually very impatient. Okay. So I have been doing many things. I was the first one to start getting to realizing the potential of television, got into television, and created this, you know, nonfiction, talk shows.

23:16Shashi RanjanEight or 10 big talk shows in the country I did. And then I started a Indian Television Academy. It's the only umbrella body in the country, you know, where the entire television, is brought by a award function called Indian T… ITA Awards. It's in the 24th year now. Next year it's going to be our silver jubilee. I came out with a magazine called Great, which was the only glossy television magazine as good as Filmfare or a Stardust, and I ran it for 14 years till the time, COVID came. I also had ITA School of Performing Art, where we used to teach acting, singing, dancing, and choreography by Farah Khan. So I made movies. I, since I was from Haryana, I produced the first language film, Haryanvi language film there, acted in that. Then I made six other film. So I've been doing s… various things.

24:18Shashi RanjanWhatever excites me, I do. And I'm still intellectually very impatient. I want to do so many things. So there is nothing in my life which is done and dusted. I feel like a… Still get very excited about so many things. Maybe I write a book. I don't know.

24:38Jawad MirThat's good. That's good. Tell me about,.. I've been to India. I spent three weeks in India kind of most, not all obviously everywhere, but a lot of different cities. Haryana, I didn't visit. Tell me about Haryana, what is it like? And, so…

24:54Shashi RanjanSo Haryana is like Lahore.

24:56Jawad MirOkay.

24:56Shashi RanjanIt's a pa… it used to be a part of Punjab. So yeah, so it's, it's, it is, it is a dialect, but the culture and everything is exactly what Lahore is, similar, so.

25:11Jawad MirBut is it the transition from Haryana to Mumbai, that must have been interesting for you, right?

25:17Shashi RanjanVery interesting because, you know, I, did my, bachelor's, BA degree and, that too, I was taught English, but I couldn't speak English because nobody s… used to speak English in the college.

25:34Jawad MirYeah.

25:34Shashi RanjanThe teacher used to teach us but, "I Hindi mein baat karte the ya Hindustani mein baat karte the" I had a great complex because when I went to the institute e… everybody was from St. Xavier's and, you know, St. Mary and all the public schools, and I was the only one who couldn't speak. So I used... I go to my father, I said, "Papa, I don't want to live, here anymore and I want to come back because I have a lot of complexes." So he told me, he says, "Jis industry ke andar tum jaana chahte ho uski zubaan Hindustani hai aur tumhari Hindustani zubaan in sabse behtar hai. So you stick around and learn English." So I learned English at the age of 24. I mean, speaking English. Speaking English I learned at the 24, and after that I came to Bombay, knew nobody. Struggled very hard for four, five years. But "Woh zindagi tujhko jiya hai koi afsos nahi. Zehr khud maine piya hai koi afsos nahi"

26:32Jawad MirWell said. Well said. Your dad, you said he does Urdu and Farsi and like, has he written books or poetry for himself or for publication? Or what was his li… journey like in terms of relation to you and your relationship with him?

26:49Shashi RanjanWith my father? So my father, got the Sahitya Akademi Award for writing a book of, short stories, "Ye Khalish Kahan Se Hoti Hai" Okay. And my, m… the mahal in my house was very literary. Adib used to come and, you know, visit us. So that became a part of my life. And I was fascinated by his language skills because he was a professor in English and psychology, and he was a Urdu writer and he could wr… read and write Farsi. So he was very skillful. And, so I used to always look up to him that... And, he was a very open-minded man because I was the first guy from Haryana to become an actor. And everybody said, you know, "Educationist ka bachcha hai. Kahan bhej rahe hain isko dhakke khane ke liye. Yahan pe IAS karega ye. Leader ban sakta hai" because we had a political affiliation with some leaders there. "Ye toh politics mein aa jayega, MLA ban jayega, MP ban jayega" But he said, "Ki what do you want to do?" I said, "Papa, I want to be an actor."

28:06Shashi RanjanSo he says, "If you want to be an actor, then you go to FTII." And FTII in those days was like getting into IAS or IFS, which is Indian Administrative Services. So when I joined, my course, there were 60,000 applicants from all over the country, and they had to take only 10 boys. So that was the kind of competition, but I got into it. And he told me very clearly that, "I will fund you for one year because I have other kids also. After that, if you become star, good luck to you, but you become on the roads, don't blame me." I said, "Done deal. I will not"

28:45Jawad MirGood for you.

28:46Shashi RanjanAnd that's how my journey started. And, yeah, I remember him very fondly because I think all the creative juices in my, in me is thanks to him.

28:59Jawad MirFor sure. For sure. You know, in the last, year, three series have come out, The Romantics with Yash Chopra and his family, and then Angry Young Men with Salim Javed, and now this one, The Roshans. I'm sure that, you know, just like in any, especially in Hollywood and in India, when there's a trend and if there's people receiving the film really... If the film is being received by the people really well, then the trend kind of keeps rolling until, you know, you completely burn it and you figure out something else. Do you think that's gonna happen now with more stories to come out? And if so, are you willing to be a part of another one?

29:40Shashi RanjanI'm, I'm, I'm very hopeful, yeah. I hope it happens, Jawed. Because I think it's a very... Any country, not only in India…

29:48Jawad MirYes

29:48Shashi Ranjan... Any country must document their history.

29:54Jawad MirYes.

29:54Shashi RanjanLook, i… i… even, you know, in our country, unfortunately, not only in cinema, we have nothing on our literary people, nothing on our great politicians, whoever. We are not in a frame of mind to create docu… doc… do… documentation for our greats. I don't know what. The only thing what we do is write books which sometimes are PR exercises or from one point of view. But when a person is documented, then you really know the real person behind.

30:31Jawad MirYes.

30:31Shashi RanjanLike today… You understand Ra… Rakesh's filmmaking much more better than somebody had written a book. We made this, they... It's, so I really hope this trend continues and more documentaries are made on cinema greats and other great stories which are there.

30:53Jawad MirWhat would you like to see, and what would you like to make? You don't have to answer the second one, but what would you like to see?

30:58Shashi RanjanThere are many stories, still, which needs to be told in film industry. And, since I'm quite well-connected here and I know a lot of people and I have lived li… my life with these people, I would like to make one or two, yes.

31:18Jawad MirWhat would you like to see on who? Like the Kapoors or, you know, there are so many.

31:24Shashi RanjanKapoors, I think they're coming out with something

31:28Jawad MirOh, right. Geeta did mention that there was something was cooking.

31:31Shashi RanjanYeah, so I don't know. Yeah, but there is, there are, like for example, Deols.

31:38Jawad MirRight.

31:38Shashi RanjanNirinder.

31:39Jawad MirNirinder, yes, yeah.

31:40Shashi RanjanGreat story. A man came from nowhere in Punjab, becomes a, you know, sweetheart of billions and billions of people that continues, and his legacy continues. Two sons and son, bachon ke bache, kids…

31:58Jawad MirYeah

31:58Shashi Ranjan... Everything. So I, great story. And a… Again, a common man story.

32:04Jawad MirYes. Agreed. What, who are some of your favorite directors? It doesn't have to be from India. It could be from Hollywood or anywhere else.

32:12Shashi RanjanMany. I'll say, I would say, since I've been a student of cinema, so yeah, I can go right from the beginning that Mehboob Khan, Asif, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, to Ramesh Sippy… ... To Rajkumar Irani, Sanjay Leela Bhansali. There are many…

32:36Jawad MirYeah

32:36Shashi Ranjan... Different kind of storytelling, but yeah, all of them have excelled. So yeah, I, since I w… consume a lot of cinema, I can't just say, yeah, only one or two.

32:49Jawad MirYeah, no, I get it. No, I was just curious about just few names because it is, there, one of the great, one of... So I used, I grew up with Bol… you know, Bollywood, if you wanna call it Bollywood. And then from 2006 to 2015, I kind of stopped watching because I just felt that the stuff that was coming out, with the exception of few, or maybe I had outgrown them, I don't know, was n… way too mainstream-y and not for my liking. But then about 10 years ago, a lot of stuff kind of shifted, like a lot of these, you know, small villages movies started to come out, like ordinary people type stories, which are more appealing to watch. But I think now one of the things, you talked about documentary. There was a documentary that came out that went to the Oscars from India. You must know about this. The Encounters by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. And this was in 1979 where he shot, like people in the, I think it was central Bombay and s… and stuff, the su… the kids' faces.

33:53Jawad MirAnd now I hope that what, not just these documentaries of people, not just necessarily in India, in Bollywood…... But even like issue-based documentaries, right? Like a lot of people in the West make.

34:05Shashi RanjanYes.

34:05Jawad MirA lot of people…

34:06Shashi RanjanYes

34:06Jawad Mir... A lot, I watched one of my colleague's documentaries just few months ago, and she's working on another one. But stuff like that, I think that's also important because people will relate to that. There's a show by Aamir Khan, what is it called, that he, where he talks to like ord…

34:22Shashi RanjanSatyamev Jayate.

34:23Jawad MirYeah. I mean, that connects to people at a deeper level. Like, I've seen some clips of it.

34:27Shashi RanjanNo, so this is, this is what exactly what Shot can show. So we picked up various issues about society… ... And, we had the best of people talking about it, and, became a g… a rage in the country. And since Shatrughan Sinha was a huge star at that time, and he was the first film star to come onto television, yeah, and he was also politically and socially aware because later on he became a politician. So it was a good combo that both of us had the sa… similar kind of sensibilities and, sensitivity towards society and issues.

35:08Shashi RanjanSo it worked big time.

35:11Jawad MirWhen you make a, when we, when anyone makes a film, I know this is true for me, and I'm sure there is, this is true for you too, there's always something, more than one thing that you learn about yourself when you talk to other people, especially in the documentary world, or even when you're making a narrative. It's, it's an ongoing learning process. If you can, maybe one or a few things that you discovered about yourself while making the Roshans that you didn't know existed inside you.

35:41Shashi RanjanSee, my best education, Jawed, came from listening to some of the best people. Now you, for example, in this documentary, Sanjay Leela Bhansali said a fantastic thing. He says, "When something becomes hit and very popular, it's like magic"

36:17Shashi RanjanSo I think it's a great line. Why it happens, why it becomes so successful, then you can, you know, these are all bookish thing. You can keep on discussing, oh, so I, this was work, that work, but you do not know. Like for example…

36:31Jawad MirNobody knows it will work, yeah

36:32Shashi Ranjan... The kind of love and, affection and appreciation we are getting now So everybody has their own interpretation. Some say, "You have made this thing, it was very amazing." Now, one thing which was not intentional at all, I mean, I didn't even think, that the role of women in their lives. There are hundreds of people who say, "The way you portrayed women in that was excellent." I, didn't make a conscious effort. I was telling a story, and in that story, you know, whatever role the women played, it… they played. But now that has become a talking point that, "Yeah. Wow, the way you have looked at women is wonderful." So, you know, when something is liked by people, then they have their own interpretations, they have their own visuals, you know, so it's, it's like that. I remember when I were in the institute, Satyajit Ray came to our institute once, and he was talking about a film which got many awards, abroad.

37:35Shashi RanjanSo he says in that film there was a shot, that there's a very serious scene happens, gloomy scene happens in the house, and dimly lit road outside. I show and I stay the camera on the dimly lit light, and suddenly a dog just walks slowly, looking absolutely sad and walks out of the frame. And he says, "Hundreds of people said, 'Wow, how did you manage this? How did you manage this dog?'" He says, "You know, my production manager was very lazy. He couldn't stop the fucking bloody dog, and he just walked into the frame." So but when something is liked, then people find everything and they start interpreting it.

38:21Jawad MirYeah.

38:21Shashi RanjanYou don't understand what I'm saying?

38:23Jawad MirNo, I know for a fact that even for me, if I am really focused on something, I'm like, "This is gonna be amazing. This emotion is gonna be amazing." And more than likely that might not get reaction from people that I had hoped, but then some… something else that I didn't even think was…

38:41Shashi RanjanYeah

38:41Jawad Mir... Going to do something, even as a scene or as a film, it just…

38:45Shashi RanjanYeah

38:45Jawad Mir... Connects to people. So it's just, like you said, magic. But what I was asking was, forget about the film, but just about yourself. You know, like, when you were... Like, something you may have picked up by Rakesh Roshan or Hrithik as a, you know, as a quality or something, because we're always evolving every single day, that you felt that from…

39:03Shashi RanjanYeah, so from Rakesh, I have, I realized his discipline is excellent. And, his doggedness is pretty irritating at times, but he's, he is... His doggedness about what he believes, it goes on and on. So I think there is some conviction.

39:28Shashi RanjanSo... But his discipline in life for everything was amazing, and I think that what he has, used in his entire career and life, and it has worked well for him.

39:46Jawad MirYeah. No, amazing. Awesome. Would you ever wanna do a narrative, like, directing actors or you wanna stick to documentaries or you don't know?

39:57Shashi RanjanNo, I'm, I'm, I'm, planning a web series, a fiction…

40:02Jawad MirOkay

40:02Shashi Ranjan... Based on true incidents.

40:05Jawad MirAmazing.

40:05Shashi RanjanAlso, you never know, I might direct a film…

40:07Jawad MirOf course

40:07Shashi Ranjan... If I find something very interesting. But I don't want to make, I don't know, the mere kind of a s… story. I really want to do something which excites my mind. I…

40:17Jawad MirYou have to. You have to believe in it.

40:19Shashi RanjanI…

40:19Jawad MirRight? That's the, that's the thing.

40:22Shashi RanjanSo just for the heck of it, I don't wanna do anything. I'm at a stage and age where I don't need to just do things for the heck of it.

40:31Jawad MirYeah. No, that's a good approach. Awesome. Great. Well, S… Shashi, it's been amazing. Thank you so much, man, for your time. I appreciate it.

40:39Shashi RanjanThank you, Jawad.

40:39Jawad MirYeah.

40:39Shashi RanjanNice talking to you.

40:40Jawad MirPleasure talking to you.

40:42Shashi RanjanAnd, hope to see some of your documentaries soon. And when you're…

40:48Jawad MirYeah

40:48Shashi Ranjan... When you're in this part of the world, let's catch up.

40:52Jawad MirAbsolutely. I'll be in.

40:54Shashi RanjanOr I am in, or I am in Canada. Are you... Where are you based?

40:57Jawad MirIn Toronto, in Canada. Toronto, Canada.

40:58Shashi RanjanIn Toronto. Okay.

40:59Jawad MirYeah.

41:00Shashi RanjanI have some friend in Toronto.

41:01Jawad MirYeah.

41:01Shashi RanjanSo maybe I bump into you there.

41:05Jawad MirAbsolutely. Would love to have…

41:06Shashi RanjanNice talking to you

41:06Jawad Mir... Likewise, would love to have you on again in future and, we'll communicate, over WhatsApp. Awesome.

41:13Shashi RanjanThank you. Thank you so much.

41:14Jawad MirTake care. Bye-bye.