Prakash Jha 's films are known for their political undertones. Which is why the round of speculations even before ‘Raajneeti’ hit the floors, comes as no surprise.
Topping the list is the allegation that the film’s leading lady, Katrina Kaif , plays Congress president Sonia Gandhi in a story inspired by the Gandhi family. Jha, whose previous film, 'Apaharan' (2005) was based on the kidnapping ‘industry’ in Bihar, flatly denies this.
"See, I'm tired of addressing these speculations. Katrina doesn’t play Soniaji. May be, the similarities are drawn because she is also a foreigner like Soniaji and wears saris in the film. She plays a politician and she was required to wear them," he says.
About ‘Raajneeti’, he says, "It’s a modern day family drama with characters drawn from the Mahabharata. It talks about every kind of politics - personal, state and national.”
This is reportedly Jha’s most expensive film and the script alone took him five years to write. The film has an ensemble cast of actors that includes Ranbir Kapoor , Katrina Kaif, Ajay Devgan , Nana Patekar , Arjun Rampal and Manoj Bhajpai .
Jha is buoyant about Katrina's and Ranbir's performances and thinks they are "hardworking, spontaneous and natural born actors."
About Katrina dubbing in the film, the director says, "She made things easy for me when she dubbed. I was astonished when she spoke two pages filled with 10,000 lines of proper Hindi in front of a huge crowd in Bhopal."
His long-time buddy Nana Patekar plays "one of the most interesting roles in Indian cinema -that of a modern Krishna."
Cinema and politics are Jha’s twin passions, with his home-state, Bihar, figuring prominently in both.
For those not in the know, Jha contested and lost from his native Champaran in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. Most of his movies, be it ‘Mrityudand’ (about social-gender injustice, 1997), ‘Gangaajal’ (about the 1980 Bhagalpur blinding, 2003) and 'Apaharan’ were made against the backdrop of his hometown.
The 58-year-old, who used to watch every kind of cinema as a student, says that for the past five years he has only been engrossed in developing characters for ‘Raajneeti’ and in trying to “turn fiction into reality.” Surprisingly, Jha maintains that, “cinema is not a vehicle for social change but an art form to share (his) understanding of the social and economical progress in the society.”
Meanwhile, Jha has already begun writing the script for his next film that will star his current favourites -Katrina Kaif and Ajay Devgan.