“Everyone
I met in
Tinseltown
negated the
story, saying
my protagonist
is aged and the
girl I wanted as
Chutki wouldn’t
work since she
had a dark
complexion.”Radha ki tarha naachti thi, sooraj bhi aata tha
humein dekhne’. Little did I know years later
Neenaji (Gupta, actress) would have to dance
uninhibitedly on the terraces of our set to get
the shot right in the film,” he informs.
Gradually, like an excited kid, the celebrated
chef pieced his experiences together to fill the
book with a few folios from his heart. When
Paul, his editor, met him after reading and
editing the manuscript, he said, “This is one of
the greatest victories of human kind.” As
a gift back to Khanna, Paul suggested he take
the narrative back to present it on a bigger
canvas, which led him to postpone its release to
coincide with the release of the film he decided
to pursue.
So with the finished book in tow, in 2016,
Khanna did several rounds of Mumbai to
mobilise resources for the film. He was certain
that he wanted Gupta to play the part of Noor.
“After I read Neenaji’s post on Instagram
saying she was looking for good roles, I had
a screenshot of it on my phone for a long time.
When I decided to turn Colorless into a movie,
I knew I wanted her,” he elaborates. It was
the casting of Chhoti, however, that took his
all—1,800 auditions to be precise, beforehe found the right person to play the Chhoti he
had in mind.
“Everyone I met in Tinseltown negated the
story, saying my protagonist is aged and the girl
I wanted as Chutki wouldn’t work since she
had a dark complexion. No one understood
what I was trying to say—that the beauty of
the story lay is these very details,” Khanna
reminisces. Later it would be revealed that
these very details portrayed honestly struck
a chord with the international audiences, when
he took The Last Color to those platforms.
But we’re getting too ahead. Back then,
instead of being dejected that no one in
Bollywood wanted to risk getting involved,
Khanna took it upon himself to be at the
helm of things and directing the film himself.
Every day he reminded himself of how far
he had come in the culinary world with the
background he came for, and pushed himself
to give it his best. The hard work paid off as
The Last Color went on to 26 film festivals (and
counting) in the US with a special invitation
from Cannes. “I remember after the screening
in Austin, the applause rang in my ears for
a while, as I absorbed how the audience
received the film. The United Nations is
officially selecting the movie for empowering
the girl child to be educated. After all,
prosperity is about educating our girls,” he says.
Despite all the recognition it received, for
Khanna, in the end, the film was about a son
showing his mother something he poured
his heart into, as a tribute to his late father.
“She teared up when she watched it. The film
touched her on a different level,” the proud
son beams. After all the sleepless nights he
spent post his father’s passing, he couldn’t have
offered the man who was his inspiration
a better tribute. “The death served as a wake-up
call. This is the most powerful work I have
done until now,” he signs off.The Last Color
explores a unique
friendship between
a widowed woman
and a ropewalkerIn action: Director Vikas
Khanna looks at a shotREALITY what it takes to be