Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (born 7 July 1963) is an Indian filmmaker and screenwriter. He is best known for writing and directing Rang De Basanti (2006), for which he won Best Director awards at the 2006 Filmfare Awards and National Film Awards and received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. He is also the writer and director of the films Aks (2001) and Delhi-6 (2009). He also directed movie Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) which was well appreciated among both masses and critics. The movie was based on popular Indian athlete Milkha Singh.

Early life
He was born in New Delhi, in a Punjabi family in India. His father worked for the Claridges hotel in New Delhi. He represented India as a swimmer in the 1982 Asian Games held at New Delhi. He studied at AIR FORCE BAL BHARTI SCHOOL, Lodi Road, New Delhi (110 003).

Personal life
Mehra has a seven year old daughter and a four year old son.

Mehra criticized the vote-bank politics behind the introduction of the Mandal Commission by VP Singh, and said it inspired him to pen the script of Rang De Basanti.

Mehra has criticized India's education system as being too marks-driven, without any emphasis on actual achievement. Ridiculing the system, he said: "We'd started work on "96.7", till I realized it had become redundant, and I should work on a subject called 100%. It was about the education system. Perhaps I'll make it once I understand the whole system... perhaps my views are very lopsided right now. But the seeds have been sown,". He further added: "Imagine if Shakespeare goes to DU (Delhi University) and he's told, 'We can't take you based on stories you've written as your marksheet isn't that cool.' Or if a Leonardo, or Rabindranath Tagore goes there, and writes something called "Gitanjali" and they tell him, 'Mr Tagore, it's nice to write things such as 'Where the head is held high', but where is your marksheet?"

Rakeysh Mehra also has a culinary interest - the famous Bauji ka Dhaba in a Gurgaon mall and in The Garden of the Five Senses, New Delhi.

Career
Mehra started off by selling vacuum cleaners for Eureka Forbes. He established Flicks Motion Picture Company Private Limited in 1986, starting his career as an advertisement film maker. He has directed scores of television commercials for Indian and international clients such as Coke, Pepsi, Toyota, American Express and BPL. He has also directed music videos such as Aby Baby starring Amitabh Bachchan.

He then transited from being an ad-film maker to a feature film maker.

In June 2001, his company released its first full-length feature film titled Aks, starring Amitabh Bachchan. Aks was moderately successful but was critically acclaimed for the Bachchan's performances in the film.

His next release titled Rang De Basanti was released in 2006 and starred Aamir Khan and Soha Ali Khan. The film was a huge hit in India and did very well overseas. He received much acclaim for the film, winning Best Director awards at the 2006 Filmfare Award and National Film Award as well as a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was also officially chosen as India's entry to the Oscars.

Mehra's last released film as a director, Delhi-6, was in 2009 starring Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Om Puri, Waheeda Rehman, and Atul Kulkarni among many other actors. The film got lukewarm critical response and did not perform very well at the box office.

Mehra is working on another film titled Bhairavi about a family in the world of classical music where he wants to cast Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, and Abhishek Bachchan in principal roles, and another film, Raja and the legend of the flute (earlier tentatively titled Paanch Kaurav) - a mythical opus on the lines of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Lord Of The Rings, with an estimated budget of Rs.700 million.

In 2009, Mehra was also reportedly working on a film based on the tragic love story of Punjab's Mirza-Sahibaan, with Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor.

He then produced the film Teen They Bhai in 2011, a film about three brothers who keep fighting amongst themselves, which was directed by Mrighdeep Lamba. However, the film neither won critical acclaim nor do well at the box-office.

In February 2012, he shall start working on directing Farhan Akhtar as Milkha Singh in a biopic on the Indian athlete, who sold Mehra the story of his life for inr 1. The story for the film was reportedly brought to Mehra by the son of Milkha Singh, Jeev Milkha Singh. He has denied reports that he is looking to shoot the film in Lahore, and has planned to shoot it in Delhi, Rome, Tokyo and Melbourne. The film would also star Sonam Kapoor and would feature music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

Mehra bought Milkha Singh's shoes with which he raced the 1960 Rome Olympics an auction in Mumbai in February 2012 for inr 2400000 and then returned it back to him to gift it to Farhan Akhtar.