Yogesh Mishra | yogesh@bollywoodtown.in
Emraan Hashmi is a renowned Bollywood actor. He has given many hit movies like- Murder, Aashiq Banaya Aapne, Gangster, Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai, The Dirty Picture, Jannat, Humari Adhuri Kahani, Baadshaho and many more. According to him, due to corruption, our education system has been badly affected and education has become a big business and people should know it. His upcoming movie ‘Cheat India’ is all about this. In an exclusive interview with Yogesh Mishra, he spoke about his upcoming movie Cheat India, his viewpoint on being an on-screen serial kisser, expectations as a producer and more…
Is ‘Cheat India’ inspired by a true event?
Basic gist of the story is about a man who heads a nexus which is a kind of spearheading an education scam in the system. It is based on factual evidence where our education system is right now and how it was probably 50-60 years back. This nexus is eating our education system. Our education is stuck somewhere in 20th century. It’s not been revised from past 100 years.
What was the battle ground of the movie?
The place we have shot the movie is in Lucknow but this is not confined to a particular place. This problem is with all the states be it North India or South India. It’s everywhere. This is somewhere regressing our country’s development. Perhaps thousands people only could have seen this if it was made a documentary but to make it more palatable to a larger audience, we have made this movie which has a love story and songs etc. It is very relevant film. So far we don’t have any movie which is made on our education system. So it is important for audience to see it. I think this can bring a change. It can be a conversation starter. We don’t know if after 5 or 10 years from now when our education system will change, I think there will be a small contribution of ‘Cheat India’ as well in that.
What exactly inspired you to do this film?
Soumik (director of the movie) narrated to me this script almost an year back. I just loved the character of Rakesh and all other characters too. This film is not just for the students but also for the parents and youngsters of our country. Our country is the youngest nation of the world. The median age over here is 27 years that is way younger than others even developed part of the world. There is a basic problem with our core infrastructure which is our education system and how it nurtures the minds of our youngsters.
You are also one of the producer of the film, so do you have any plan to organise the special screening of the film for education ministry or education boards etc.?
I definitely want to show this film to the key people in various cities and states whenever our promotional activities will start. I would like to show this film to the people who are managing or related to this industry (education). We will show it in key colleges. We are not trying to bring down the education system and pointing a finger that they are wrong. This is the kind of request to tell them that how we can improve. This is what we feel. We just want to focus on this issue so that many parents and unaware students can know what kind of scams are going on.
Have you approached any government authority to discuss this issue before making this film?
At the moment we have not approached any government authority but when film was under production, we discussed it with many key people and gathered information. Also we sourced a lot of information internationally to make it more relevant.
Being one of the producer, what are your expectations from this film?
I don’t produce the film for box office numbers. I want audience to love this film and that will be my reward. I have stopped thinking about box office numbers etc. There are lot of dimensions in it. As a producer my responsibility is to get my money back with certain profit. Distributors should not lose the money. If someone has spent money, he must get profit.
Apart from you, there are other producers too in this film. When and how this collaboration happened?
I have professional relations with Bhushan Kumar since long back. He has produced my several films in the past. I know Tanuj Garg since quite some time. My discussion was going on with him to collaborate for films. This script (Cheat India) came to me. Soumik came to me and narrated this story last year. I think my frequency is matching with my other producers too, so this is how this collaboration started.
How much is the romance angle in this film?
There is definitely romance in this film. There are 5 beautiful songs in this movie. There is a romance angle in this film. I think you should go and enjoy this film in theatres.
Can we consider it as one of the script to improve your image of being on-screen serial kisser?
I never took this image too seriously. I do films because I love the story. This is just a public perception and created by media. I don’t believe in all this. I do films but I don’t know what people think about me but I know one thing that my audience knows that it will be a good film and will have a good performance.
Do you think audience is missing that Emraan Hashmi who used to do ‘Murder’ kind of movies?
That Emraan Hashmi is dead. That was one phase of my life. Through my experiences I have moved on. I got married after that and have a kid. There was a time when I was doing similar kind of movies but then I realised what next…? Now as a producer, I have more responsibilities.
Any message for the audience and readers?
Basically this film is about our education system which started in 18th century when East India Company came here. They introduced such an education system which was effective for that time but that is not much relevant for now. Due to corruption, our education system has been badly affected. Lot of scams happen. Exam papers are getting leaked. Education is a big business and people should know it and ‘Cheat India’ is all about this, so people should go and watch this film.
