One for the Road

Director Ketan Mehta on his new film Manjhi,The Mountain Man,court cases,and a love that moved mountains

A few days after the Patna High Court cleared Ketan Mehtas film Manjhi,The Mountain Man for screening he had been accused of not having the rights to the story the director is counting down to its release. The film is a story of the triumph of the human will and is both Indian and global in its relevance. Though I plan to show it at film festivals,I am primarily keen to release it in India by the end of the year, says Mehta over phone from Mumbai.

The film is set deep inside Bihar,in a village in the Gaya district,between 1960 and 1982 where a poor labourer called Dashrath Manjhi gradually acquired the name of Mountain Man. His wife,Falguni Devi,had died because their village did not have healthcare facilities and the nearest town with a doctor was more than 70 km away. A devastated Manjhi decided to address the situation so that nobody else would die this way again. For 22 years,he chiselled away at the Gehlour hills,single-handedly carving out a road that,Mehta says,reduced the distance from 70 km to seven. To me,it seemed like an amazing love story. The road is a monument like the Taj Mahal,except that Shah Jahan was an emperor who had 20,000 people working for him while Dashrath Manjhi worked alone for 22 years, says Mehta.

I read a news story on Dashrath Manjhis around 2007 when he died. I was making Rang Rasiya at the time but I was completely blown away by this extraordinary man, says Mehta,a two-times National Film Award winner for Bhavni Bhavai and Sardar. His other film include Mirch Masala,Maya Memsaab and Mangal Pandey: The Rising. Mehta began researching for Mountain Man in 2009,meeting Manjhis family as well as visiting the famous road. It is now a pucca road and,when I stood there,I felt a sense of awe. A man had not only thought of making this road,but actually went ahead and made it, says Mehta.

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Mehta had announced the film on August 17 last year,Manjhis fifth death anniversary. He has treated Mountain Man as a love story,and roped in Bollywood character heartthrob Nawazuddin Siddiqui to play Manjhi and Radhika Apte of Shor in the City and Rakta Charitra fame as Falguni Devi. Tigmanshu Dhulia and Prashant Narayanan are among the other actors in the cast list. The film has been shot in Gehlour village,with villagers playing roles in the film. Mehta describes the music by Sandesh Shandaliya as world music that is rooted in the ethos of the land.

Shooting began in October 2012 and finished in December. There are thousands of stories on Dashrath Manjhi and dozens of documentaries; his story is in public domain, says Mehta. Now that the court has given the green signal to Mountain Man,it is expected to hit the big screen shortly.

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