To understand the genius that Raj Kumar Hirani is, one should have been present at 'The Director's Masterclass' organised by IIFW at FICCI yesterday evening. The almost two and a half hour long session saw Sudhir Mishra (a perfect choice) delving into the deeper aspects of Raju's proven filmmaking skills in an endeavour to understand what how the director converts his inspiring story and screenplay into visually compelling images for his audience.

While India knows Raju the director, not many are aware of Raju the editor. When a young boy from Nagpur dreamt of getting into FTII, direction was something that he desired to get in but couldn't manage to owing to the tough competition prevalent among the existing number of seats in the film institute. Someone suggested him that getting into FTII is a task and that he opt for the less popular branch of editing that will help him gain an entry and once in he could do whatever he wanted. Raju heeded to the advice and much against his desire he chose editing as his subject something that he ended up doing for the next few years.

"I had no idea what editing was all about. Even when people used to ask my father what his son did, he used to say, 'Kuch film ko cut karta hai.'”

All the years spent cutting his teeth in the editing table helped Raju hone his directorial skills. To prove a point, an old film directed by Raju for Prasoon Pandey was played at yesterday's session. The film was called Dilwale Annapoorna Le Jaayenge that had sequences of SRK from his different films edited out to create a hilarious short film where it seemed like SRK is in chase of a girl who has the ability to make good rotis. Finally he finds a girl who is able to spin out nice rotis with the help of Annapurna aata.

The session was also peppered with anecdotes revolving around his famous blockbusters Munnabhai series, 3 idiots and PK. Raju revealed how his personal experience with many doctor friends and the malpractices that they have seen practicing inspired him to make a Munnabhai. "I had initially created the role of a gangster who suffers from a chronic headache. He ends up visiting a doctor who advises him to undergo blood tests, urine test. Finally after spending a bomb on pathological tests, he is still not able to understand the root cause of his headache.  After two days, his headache disappears and he realises all that he was suffering from was a hangover. He then decides to become a doctor just to teach the corrupt doctors a lesson. However I felt that it would be wrong to target the community as all doctors are not corrupt."

Raju had no qualms in admitting that he was not satisfied with what hr wanted to say in PK. "When Abhijat and me wrote the first draft, it was about an alien who could get into someone's mind and change it. Then Inception was made and we had to change our script. We then rewrote it as an alien who sues and then someone told us about Paresh Rawal's play which was made into a film called Oh My God which again made us rewrite the script."

Raju also expressed his gratitude towards Vidhu Vinod Chopra for backing Munnabhai calling him a great producer to work with. On two of his favourite actors, Aamir and Sanjay Dutt, Raju had only words of praise. Aamir like rehearsals before the actual shoot while Sanjay hates it and is spontaneous in his takes. Talking about his future projects, Raju sounded upbeat about his biopic on Sanjay Dutt which he says is not an attempt to glorify the jailed star.

We will wait for that one. Hope it will not take five more years.