Rakeysh
Omprakash
Mehta
in
his
upcoming
biography
'The
Stranger
In
The
Mirror'
written
by
Reeta
Ramamurthy
Gupta,
has
made
an
interesting
revelation
about
one
of
his
critically
acclaimed
films,
Aamir
Khan-starrer
Rang
De
Basanti.
The
filmmaker
revealed
that
the
superstar
had
included
a
special
clause
while
signing
the
dotted
line
which
helped
him
to
finish
the
movie
on
time.
According
to
the
clause,
Aamir
had
demanded
to
be
paid
double
his
remuneration
if
the
film
wouldn't
be
completed
on
time.
Mehra
revealed
in
his
book,
"While
signing
on
the
dotted
line,
Aamir
included
a
clause,
which
was
the
reason
I
ended
up
making
the
movie
on
time
in
the
first
place.
Here's
an
example:
'If
my
fee
is
4
crore
and
you
don't
pay
me
on
time,
then
you'll
have
to
pay
me
8
crore
for
defaulting,'
he
had
said.
I
had
never
even
seen
8
crore
till
then."
Further,
the
Toofaan
director
was
all
praise
for
Aamir
and
continued,
"Aamir
is
a
visionary
and
understands
everything
that
is
going
wrong
or
right
with
the
creative
process.
Sometimes,
tough
decisions
like
'let's
shoot
for
10
more
days'
became
easy
because
Aamir
backed
the
need
to
do
it.
Also,
he
had
no
ego
about
whose
scene
it
was.
If
the
scene
belonged
to
the
other
boys,
he
would
happily
stay
in
the
background
because
the
film's
narrative
was
the
Bible
that
could
not
be
tampered
with.
Aamir's
cinematic
understanding
remains
unparalleled
in
our
industry.
Without
his
nod,
RDB
would
have
been
another
dreamer's
script
gathering
the
dust
of
apathy
and
inertia."
Mehra
further
mentioned
in
his
book
that
Aamir
imbibed
the
soul
of
DJ
and
Chandrashekhar
Azad
and
gave
his
own
interpretation
to
it,
ranging
from
the
sublime
to
the
mundane
qualities
of
the
character.
"Bharathi
(the
filmmaker's
wife)
had
given
me
a
quote
which
she
had
read,
'There
are
two
primary
choices
in
life.
Either
you
let
things
be
the
way
they
are.
Or
take
responsibility
for
changing
them.'
I
sent
Aamir
the
same
as
a
one-line
brief
for
his
character
impetus,"
the
director
recalled.
In
his
book,
Rakeysh
has
also
revealed
that
AR
Rahman
wasn't
his
first
choice
for
the
film's
music.
He
had
almost
finalised
musician
Peter
Gabriel,
one
of
the
founding
members
of
the
British
rock
band
Genesis,
to
compose
music
for
Rang
De
Basanti.
However,
his
gut
feeling
told
him
that
he
should
work
with
Rahman
and
the
rest
is
history.
Rang
De
Basanti
which
released
in
2006,
had
an
ensemble
cast
which
was
headlined
by
Aamir
Khan,
Siddharth,
Atul
Kulkarni,
Soha
Ali
Khan,
Sharman
Joshi,
Kunal
Kapoor
and
British
actress
Alice
Patten.
The
film
bagged
the
National
Film
Award
for
Best
Popular
Film
and
was
India's
official
entry
at
the
79th
Academy
Awards
in
the
Best
Foreign
Language
Film
category.