Filmmaker Meghna Gulzar reflects on her journey from her 2002 debut Filhaal, a pioneering film on motherhood and surrogacy, to acclaimed works like Talvar, Raazi, Chhapaak, Sam Bahadur and Daayra. Born to Gulzar and Rakhee, she describes films as having their own destiny, recalls emotional on-set milestones, and dreams of finally making a light, romantic film.
It was in 2002 that Meghna Gulzar made her directorial debut with Filhaal, a film that spoke about motherhood and surrogacy well ahead of its time. But the road to fame came with its own challenges, as Meghna carved out her own niche and cinematic grammar—taking on subjects where individuals grapple with institutions larger than themselves, often at the cost of their own moral certainty. Talvar's retelling of the chilling 2008 Aarushi Talwar case set the template. It was followed by the spy thriller Raazi, then Chhapaak, Sam Bahadur, and now Daayra—each one training her lens on a person and the ecosystem that shapes, tests, or fails them.
Born into film legacy—daughter of noted poet and filmmaker Gulzar and actor Rakhee—Meghna's path has been entirely her own. She looks back at her many firsts.
Meghna Gulzar (MG): Oh my God, that the first take was okay. Actually, I remember that I had made sure that none of the main actors were there for the first day of the shoot. I was shooting with the secondary characters so I could ease the pressure on me. I think more than anything else, there was just such tremendous relief in my parents because they were waiting for my first film to take off. I had held off getting married because I wanted my film to start. Eventually, I succumbed, because a film has its own destiny. You can't predict when it will happen, and how it will happen, but it was memorable.
MG: You think you have control over a film? No, you don't. A film has its own destiny. It decides its own cast. It decides when it's going to happen, and it decides what that journey is going to be. We are just tools telling that story.
MG: For me, I think my most immediate memory of something on set is — there is a shot in Sam Bahadur where he is in tall grass, and he is shaking hands with a Gurkha jawan. It is actually a still of his which used to be the wallpaper on my laptop for almost seven years, and I knew I wanted that image recreated in the film. We went looking for the location, and we knew it needed to be part of the song. The location happened, the look tests for the actors were done, scenes were shot, and this was a spot somewhere in West Bengal. The DOP at that time, Jay Patil, told me, 'Come and check the frame.' And I saw it, and I started weeping, because it was like it had come true. It was like that. For me, that was a moment that was like history stepping into cinema.
MG: I want to see myself making a romantic film. I've been saying this for five years now, but yeah, I want to.