Siddharth P. Malhotra on making stories about women: It is a calling

Siddharth P. Malhotra on making stories about women: It is a callingJuly 7, 2024Mumbai, July 7 (IANS) From ‘We Are Family’ in 2010 to 2018’s ‘Hichki’ and his latest release, ‘Maharaj’, Siddharth P. Malhotra has consistently told stories about women. The filmmaker says it is a “calling” and that maybe he is a “feminist at heart.”

When asked why all his stories centre around women, Malhotra told IANS: “I don’t know. Even my next film is about a man and a woman. But maybe I am a feminist at heart.”Malhotra spoke about ‘We Are Family’, starring Kajol, Kareena Kapoor Khan, and Arjun Rampal.The film, an official Indian adaptation of the 1998 film ‘Stepmom’, revolves around a divorced mother of three children whose former husband brings his new career-oriented girlfriend into the family.Malhotra also talked about the Rani Mukerji-starrer ‘Hichki’, based on Tourette syndrome.“‘We Are Family’ was about two women. ‘Hichki’ obviously was about a woman with Tourette syndrome, and ‘Maharaj’ is about a man standing up for women and their integrity in the 1860s. He’s not fighting a fight for himself but for women,” he added.Malhotra believes that the power of women is very strong in his life, which naturally leads him to make stories about them.“I don’t know, maybe it’s my upbringing or the people around me… Or women’s power is very strong in my life. Maybe it comes naturally to me to do films about them. It comes naturally. It is a calling, and I have never engineered it in my head,” he said.“It’s the story that tells me, OK, let’s tell it, and it’s the universe that guides it through,” he added.Malhotra then shared an anecdote about ‘Hichki’.“Literally, if I try another way, ‘Hichki’ was supposed to be about a man but became about a woman,” he said.–IANSdc/prw