Rakeysh Mehra upcoming flick Mere Pyaare Prime
Minister is a mother-son saga which highlights sanitation issues.
Projects on the subject of toilets could be a
profitable venture was discussed when Akshay Kumar announced his forthcoming
film, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha.
Now, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is also set to explore
the topic with his next, Mere Pyaare Prime Minister.
Mehra is quick to clear the air when we raise the
question of how his film will differ from Akki’s film. “My film is set in a
slum, where the issue is more acute. Besides being a hygiene issue, living in
those conditions is unsafe. It is a mother-son story which kicks off with a
young boy’s letter to the PM requesting that a toilet is made for his mother,”
he shares, adding that Anjali Patil is set to play mother to a “spunky young
boy” named Om. “This is nothing like Akshay’s film, which is a love story at
heart. And even if it is, there is never enough said about subjects like this.”
That the subject affects him greatly is evident when Mehra points to the plight
of women in the country. “Women’s safety is a prime concern. Rapes are a given
when women go out to defecate, as per UNICEF figures. The problem of sanitation
in urban areas is bigger than it is in rural areas. Rural India has culturally
adapted to defecation outside. In the khet, recycling is easier.”
Mehra, who has taken on the responsibility of a
social entrepreneur, along with NGO Yuva Foundation says, “We realised that
girls stop coming to school after puberty. Along with Yuva, we decided a change
is needed.When we revamped the first municipal school, it took us R5 lakh. The
girls started coming back.We got a donation for 20 more schools. Now, we have
1,20,00 volunteers. By 2020, we plan to install 5000 toilets. Ian Botham has
come on board as a patron and helped us build toilets in Worli Village. All my
movies have been an extension of a piece of my mind, and this one is the same.”
With 'Mere Pyare Prime Minister' Rakeysh is coming
up with an altogether different plot focusing mainly on slum life.
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