RAKEYSH Omprakash Mehra takes on India’s “1,000-year-old mindset” in the black comedy Delhi-6 screened today at the Venice film festival.
"On the face of it, we’re all very tolerant people, people with a straight face who teach our children to love and care," Mehra said.
But India’s "very old value systems are not relevant today. The mindset remains 1,000 years old."
In the film Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan), a second-generation Indian living in the US, accompanies his ailing grandmother back to the homeland to die.
"The fish wants to return to the water," Mehra said.
Roshan at first finds assimilating easy, surrounded by love and tolerance, but he gradually becomes aware of underlying conflicts.
This is where Kala Bandar, or the Monkey Man, comes in.
Kala Bandar was the subject of an urban myth that captured the imagination in New Delhi in 2001, when police went so far as to offer a Rs50,000 (£623/$1029) reward for the capture of a simian creature said to have attacked several people.
"Wherever the two stories intersect there’s a spark and they merge towards the end of the film," Mehra said.
Kala Bandar "became a metaphor for the demon within," he said.
"In the world we all live in today we pretend to actually love each other, but there’s something inside us that makes us hate. The only person you need to change is the person you look at in the mirror," Mehra said.
The action is set in the teeming old quarter of New Delhi, known as Delhi 6, its postal code, where Mehra grew up.
"It is like a microcosm of India," he said. "If you were to shrink India it would fit into that city."
The ancient walled city is among the most densely populated in the world. "It’s like there’s a big tap somewhere, and instead of water there are people coming out of it," Mehra said. But amid the chaos, "there is so much calm, so much peace."
The 66th Mostra runs until Saturday.
