Manisha Koirala Is Inspired by Irrfan’s Son’s Post!

A  social-media post from  the late  and  much missed  Irrfan Khan’s son  Babil has  made  Manisha Koirala sit  up and  think.

 Says Babil, “My father gave his life trying to elevate the art of acting in the adverse conditions of noughties Bollywood and alas, for almost all of his journey, was defeated at the box office by hunks with six pack abs delivering theatrical one-liners and defying the laws of physics and reality, photoshopped item songs, just blatant sexism and same-old conventional representations of patriarchy.”

 Manisha Koirala who during her  days  of  glory did  substantial  commercial  films  like Mani Ratnam’s  Bombay,  Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Khamoshi: The Musical and   Mansoor Ali Khan’s Akele  Hum Akele Tum , feels  the  time has come to  revise  the  language  and  patriarchal  status   of commercial Hindi cinema.

 Says  Manisha,  “ More than  half the budget  of those big blockbuster commercial  film  goes into  paying the  hero.When you go  to see  the film  you wonder where  all the money  went because  it isn’t visible on screen. Then you get the answer. The money went  into the hero’s bank  account.  The film is made  from the  money that remains after  the hero is paid.It is insane! We  have to change this.”

Manisha  feels  the  Covid lockdown is  an opportune time to  think about  repositioning  the  film’s budget. “The  leading  men must  lower their  fees drastically for our film industry  to survive the post-Covid slump.  Use  the  budget  of  a film to make good films. It is  the  only way we can overcome  the  recession.”

Manisha feels there  is less  squandering of  resources on  the  OTT platform. “The  actors are paid what they deserve and  the  majority  of  the budget goes into  production. That’s  the  way  it ought to be.An actor like   Irrfan  fought  against the excesses  of mainstream cinema throughout his career. We  owe   it to him to make films that  are  not about crashing cars and snazzy item songs but  have something to  say about  life  as we know it.”