Father figures with a recipe for life

Saif Ali Khan is in the best phase of life. With films such as Chef, Kaalakaandi, Bazaar and web series Sacred Games, the actor is looking at an array of roles. Besides, his third child Taimur is the most popular kid on social network and  his daughter Sara is set to debut in films. Raja Krishna Menon is a prolific ad film director and has the hit Airlift to his credit. As a director-actor duo, their next film—a remake of Jon Favreau’s Hollywood hit The Chef—cackles with their onscreen chemistry.

Raja didn’t want to change the title of the film as it’s an official remake. He says, “My first film Airlift was an original script, and when producer Vikram Malhotra told me he was keen on remaking The Chef, I didn’t give it a thought. I was telling  my wife, ‘Let’s quit all this, buy a food truck and travel in Europe’. But Vikram was keen.

I’ve never made an adaptation earlier, so it was going to be tough. I had to make an adaptation for the Indian audience keeping the essence of the story. I haven’t watched the original film.”
Saif explains, “It’s not a remake. Raja adapted it and made it his own story. The film is a modern problem. So often divorce is treated as somebody ending up as the villain in a relationship, usually another woman. The film is set in the US, Kerala, Amritsar, Goa and north India. The hero is a north Indian married to a south Indian girl. It’s about cultural differences and food.”

The plot is driven by relationships. “It’s the journey of the mind rather than a physical journey. Airlift was about escaping from a place it had a dramatic  construct to it. Here, the dramatic construct is in your head. How do you re-position your life to find out what’s important—work, family or balance? Secondly, food is the nicest thing to see but hardest to shoot. Shooting takes time and food destroys easily. If you have pudina half-an-hour old, it looks wilted and withered. We had a kitchen and a chef cooking constantly. We had real food. In advertising, we use fake food. Thirdly, we had to train Saif as a chef for a few hours a day so that he got comfortable in the kitchen.”

Saif can cook kebabs, dal, bhurjee and pastas, which he learnt watching his mother. For Chef, he had to start by learning how to hold a knife like a chef. He chopped 5,000 to 10,000 onions, garlic and tomatoes.
Chef is more about a father-son relationship than food, and Saif becoming a father for the third time was one of the reasons for casting him. It also helped that Raja is a parent. “I don’t think I would have been able to make this  film if I weren’t a father. A parental relationship is the most unconditional relationship in the world,” he says.

On getting older, Saif says, “I have realised I can’t crawl faster. Taimur is sweet and someone whom I am responsible for. When Sara was born, I was a young father, and with Taimur I’m bit older. When he’ll be 20, I’ll be 67. When I’m old he’ll be ready for life. It’s like dealing with the final project.”
On his daughter Sara’s Bollywood debut, Saif says, “Acting is a great job. My advice to her is, ‘concentrate on being a good actor and don’t get caught up in  negativity, comp  etition and rivalry’.”

His next project Kaalakaandi shows Mumbai and its diversities. “It’s about people making money, and those who are desperate for money, which happens  in any big city. Then there’s Bazaar, which is about the stock market and dreams of an ambitious guy. I play a ruthless Gujarati businessman. Then I have an interesting role in Sacred Games,” he says.