Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra suggests people to watch the Oscar winner Parasite

Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has been stationed at his farmhouse in

Kale

, a few hours drive from Mumbai, for the last 40-50 days. The writer-director-producer admits that he has been busier than ever before in his life. His routine includes writing for a few hours, meetings and farming apart from helping the villagers by providing them with grains and other essentials every day.

“Deep down, everyone is in touch with themselves. Over and above the monkey business, I hope they discover themselves in this lockdown. My day begins at 4 am with writing my drafts of my forthcoming works. I work on them till about 10 am and then move to kheti-baadi for a few hours. Before we break for lunch around two, Bharathi (his wife editor

PS Bharathi

) and I procure grains and other essentials for the villagers here and ensure it reaches their homes safely while following the necessary measures. After lunch and a little rest, we have meetings on video calls. Narrating stories and screenplays to actors has been underway in these weeks. I also discuss things with my teams, marking the progress on various projects that we are engaged with. Gradually, we have learnt to adapt to the situation without complaining about it and making the most of it. Not having access to

OTT

platforms has only given us more time,” says Rakeysh.

Being home and indoors allows people the luxury of using their time to watch content that they have either missed out or wish to revisit or merely watch for entertainment in the time being. Though Rakeysh and his wife have not been consuming content online, we asked him if there are films he would advise people to watch while they stay indoors. Rakeysh says, “They should watch their favourite films all over again. This is a great time to explore Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Korean, Iranian and Japanese cinema. I would say watch one in each of these languages to just expand your thinking and understand the language of these cinemas. Also, five Hindi and five English films, too. People could start with

Parasite

if they haven’t already seen it.”