After a gap of almost eight years, Subhash Ghai returned to production this year with his recent release 36 Farmhouse, featuring an ensemble cast including Amol Parashar, Barkha Singh, Vijay Raaz, Sanjay Mishra and Ashwini Kalsekar. It was a delight for me to see the maverick come back to where he belongs but he insists to me that this isn’t a comeback or a return as he was continuously working throughout.
In between this gap, Ghai also announced a film that he was going to make on the Indian religious guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh or Osho. While the announcement was made at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018, there hasn’t been much development on the project in these four years. But as I converse with the filmmaker, he shares the update on the same.
At cannes yesterday
I was proud to announce an international film
#OSHO -the others side of ocean “ as a producer under indo italian co productions to be directed by Italian Director Lakshen sucameli in English language for global market on few interesting chapters of osho🎥 pic.twitter.com/E8ZEffTwS0— Subhash Ghai (@SubhashGhai1) May 16, 2018
He reveals,
“There is an Italian director who proposed this idea to me at Cannes about making a film on Osho’s life. He narrated me the story there and I really liked it, so we decided to make that film. I asked him to send me a full script, but my team didn’t like the script he sent. The film we thought of making on Osho, it didn’t align with that.”
Even though that film might have been shelved, but the idea of making a film on Osho’s life hasn’t died in Ghai’s mind and he assures me that the film will surely be made by him one day.
He says,
“I am a big fan and follower of Osho myself and I read him daily. I feel like Osho should be promoted and it should be a part of children education today. What a child thinks nowadays, he thought of that in the 1980s. He is 100 years ahead of time according to me. I will surely make a film on Osho, but his projection should be really powerful and contemporary, in today’s language so that it can impact the youngsters in the present.”
Osho has been a controversial figure but as per what Ghai tells me, I am certain that he intends to bring another facet of his life in front of the audience, and that makes me curious for the film. To add to that, it would be exciting to see Ghai take the director’s chair as well on that as it has been a while since he has done that. And going by the repertoire he has to his name, it will surely be one film to watch out for.