Hyderabad: In his autobiography The Stranger In The Mirror, filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra mentions how he planned to launch Abhishek Bachchan, son of veteran stars Jaya and Amitabh Bachchan, in a film called Samjhauta Express but it did not materialise. Mehra was "deeply disappointed and crestfallen" that he never made Samjhauta Express and burnt all the material related to the film in a bonfire on his terrace.
The autobiography's foreword has been given by AR Rahman with whom the director has collaborated in films Rang De Basnati and Delhi-6. The afterword of the book has been written by Aamir Khan with whom Mehra worked in the film Rang De Basanti.
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In the book, Mehra mentions how he planned to launch Abhishek Bachchan in a film called Samjhauta Express but it did not materialise. Just before they were to shoot the first schedule in Ladakh, Jaya Bachchan called Mehra to say that Refugee will be Abhishek's first film, and not Samjhauta Express. Mehra was "deeply disappointed and crestfallen" and declared that he would never make Samjhauta Express. He took the script and all the research work, location pictures, wardrobe trials and burnt them in a bonfire on his terrace on the barbecue stove.
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"I understood the decision (Abhishek's) rationally. My script involved Abhishek playing a Pakistan-sponsored terrorist in his first film, which was against the grain of how Indian audiences perceive their hero... I couldn't help but wonder: what is the right launch pad for an actor with a gargantuan legacy like Abhishek?" he writes.
The director and Abhishek later went on to work together in Delhi-6, which was released nine years after the actor's debut Refugee (2000).
