Rupa Publications to release Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s autobiography on 27 July

Rupa Publications will be releasing Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s autobiography, titled The Stranger in the Mirror, on 27 July.

The autobiography of the National award-winning filmmaker has been written in association with author Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta.

The book contains a foreword by Oscar-winning composer AR Rahman and an afterword by actor Aamir Khan. Mehra worked with both of them on the award-winning film Rang De Basanti (2006).

The Stranger in the Mirror will feature anecdotes from Mehra’s early life and detail his journey as an ad filmmaker and his transition to feature filmmaker.

The book will feature accounts by those who worked closely with Mehra in advertising and in cinema, including Rahman, actresses Waheeda Rehman, Raveena Tandon, Sonam Kapoor, Divya Dutta, actors Manoj Bajpayee, Abhishek Bachchan, Farhan Akhtar, Atul Kulkarni, R Madhavan, producer Ronnie Screwvala and ad man Prahlad Kakkar.

Kapoor, who worked with the director on Delhi-6 (2009), introduced the first look of the book cover today.

A press note from the publishers said, 'Though it may seem natural for an autobiography to have a primary narrator, what makes this book truly unique is its many narrators. It is this multi-dimensional, multi-character narration that will enable readers to delve deep and truly understand what it means to be as unselfish as Mehra, a man who gleefully steps back and lets the experts do their job.'

Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur said of Mehra’s work, “I was pursuing films in Hollywood when I saw Rakeysh’s film Rang De Basanti. It was incredibly moving with a strong sense of purpose and meaning. From then on, I have been a huge fan of his work, watched everything he’s done. It’s tough to constantly infuse your films with your own belief systems. Success or failure, Rakeysh has constantly done that. And that makes him a passionate and true artist.”

Mehra completes two decades as a feature filmmaker this year; his debut film Aks (2001), starring Amitabh Bachchan and Manoj Bajpayee, was released on 13 July 2001. He established Flicks: The Motion Picture Company in 1987, which later became Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Pictures in 2004.

Mehra is married to editor PS Bharathi. His latest film Toofaan (2021), starring Farhan Akhtar as a boxer, is currently playing on Amazon Prime Video.