Mid-conversation, while describ-ing himself fi��lmmaker Sooraj Bar-jatya suddenly gives up, proclaim-ing, “Apne baare mein what tospeak,” needlessly adding, “Ithink I am shy.” In an era of chest-thumping and mic-drops, Barja-tya is not famous for his extrover-sion. “From the very beginning, Ihave been shy or not comforta-ble,” proving his words as hespoke them. For Barjatya, “work”is what is the most important. Heprefers to spend his time observ-ing and talking to people, andhe’s at, “every marriage and func-tion” doing just that. He’s also aself-professed avid reader. All ofthis, for him, is a director’s “mainhomework.”

In a modest fashion he confess-es, “I am trying to learn. Growingwith every fi��lm.” In recent years,the shy fi��lmmaker has at leastbeen doing the mandatory pre-re-lease interviews. The last such oc-casion was for a fi��lm that he haddirected and scripted himself, theSalman Khan sleeper-hit, PremRatan Dhan Payo (2015) whichmade ₹��194 crores at the box of-fi��ce, but was widely panned bycritics.

Today at 54, Barjatya has learntto be more accepting of criticism,which in his younger days wouldupset him. “Today, I take it in mystride,” he says. His mantra: “Toeach his own.” Although Barja-tya’s own oeuvre has been res-tricted to Salman Khan starrersand sanskari family dramas, as astudio, Rajshri Productions hasalways delved into a diverse poolof genres, directors and sub-jects. But box-offi��ce success haslargely been restricted to theirtrademark family fi��lm.

Sign of the timesSince 2010, apart from Prem Ra-tan Dhan Paayo, the studio hasbeen primarily busy making TVshows in Hindi. With Hum Chaar,slated to release this weekend,Barjatya is up to something pro-misingly diff��erent. The fi��lmmakerturns producer for the upcoming

fi��lm, which centres not on familybut friends, and is written and di-rected by debutant fi��lmmakerAbhishek Dixit. Barjatya explains,“I have been hunting for a subjectwhere we could tell our little va-lues from a young[er] point ofview, which is diffi��cult for me. Iknow my audience is 35+ andwhen a youngster comes, it is toshow his grandparents a fi��lm heknows they will enjoy.” Yet, withHum Chaar, Barjatya wants to en-gage not just the grandparentsbut the accompanying “young-sters”. “How can I say something[in my fi��lms] like Raju [RajkumarHirani] or Gauri [Shinde] says,”he asked himself, and the answerfortuitously came when Dixit nar-rated his story.

Still, the question remained —how could Dixit fi��t the fi��lm intoRajshri’s family-oriented frame-work? Dixit said to him confi��dent-ly, “You make family fi��lms butfriends are also family” and Barja-tya was intrigued enough to give

him a shot. The fi��lm is inspired byDixit’s own life experiences as amigrant from Lucknow in Mum-bai where he is now based. Livingfar from home, he could seldomgo back, and friends became asupport system. When you areaway there is a formality thatbuilds up even between familymembers, but to your friend, youcan say “Abbe char-sau de na( just lend me some money, ya),”explains the fi��lmmaker.

“I am making a real fi��lm,” heclaims. Set and shot in Noida andKanpur, Hum Chaar is about agroup of four friends, medicalstudents from diff��erent places inUttar Pradesh and North India,who have a fi��ght but ultimatelyrealise that all they have is eachother. By Rajshri standards, HumChaar is a “small fi��lm” with a newdirector and fi��rst-time music di-rector. The fi��lmmaker emphasis-es, the fi��lm still has the “marm”,the sensitivity and sensibility of aRajshri fi��lm that is perfect for the

studio’s existing audience and yetreaches beyond with its uniquevoice. “It doesn’t have my stamp,”he says with pride, but also adds,“friendship is also a beautifulrishta”.

Ramayana prismThis year, Hum Saath Saath Hai,a fi��lm with tremendous cross-gen-erational recall, completes 25years, while Maine Pyaar Kiawhich launched Khan is three de-cades old. Barjatya’s fi��lms are notsimply a celebration of family lifebut also expressive of deep nos-talgia and longing for it. Barjatyasays, “You can’t just start stayingtogether again,” but one shouldtake eff��orts to nourish and main-tain whatever ties that remain —“jitna rishta rakhte hai we shouldcelebrate it. We should meet in Di-wali, marriages, birthdays, anni-versaries — forget and forgive — atleast talk. We can’t say we want tolive like Ramayan, but if you takeone step so will the other.”

Through his fi��lms, Barjatyaurges us to at least try to “trust”each other. Today, across genera-tions, people are increasinglyfaced with loneliness and depres-sion and the only thing one has isfamily — which Barjatya defi��nesliberally to include friends, in-laws, spouses, and extended fa-mily, anyone worthy of the title.In a way, this is Rajshri’s core es-sence which has “always workedfor us right from 1962”.

Barjatya’s other appeal is to behonest with oneself, “everythingis about niyat” because of which“over these 30 years, I have seenmiracles happen, we have made58 fi��lms. My father launched Rak-hee [Gulzar], Jaya [Bachchan],Mithun [Chakraborty], Naseerud-din Shah, Madhuri [Dixit], Bha-gyashree, Salman”. The fi��lmmak-er warns us that fakingappearances “will not take youanywhere, just be yourself … yourwork and your honesty will makeyou stand out”, and not just in ci-nema but in any fi��eld and sphereof life. What’s next for Barjatya,after his stint as producer? A fi��lmwith Khan of course, which hewill begin scripting this summer.

Redefi��ning theIndian family

An introvert at heart,fi��lmmaker SoorajBarjatya onproducing ‘youngerfi��lms’ with the Rajshritouch

:: Rutwij Nakhwa Family man: Filmmaker SoorajBarjatya; (below) The cast of HumChaar * DINESH PARAB; SPECIALARRANGEMENT