In Love Aaj Kal, I had been moved up a little in the Assistant Director hierarchy. The work on Love Aaj Kal largely involved me setting up the background actors on set, directing the set action of everyone else apart from the lead actors. On days when we shot the flashback portions of the 60’s, this would involve a lot of leg-work. Other days were easier. I was beginning to learn that every film had it’s own feeling, its own vibe. And I felt least connected to the vibe of this film. The stakes had been a lot higher on Jab We Met, so the film had been made a lot more organically, with a lot more nurturing and involvement. Post the success of Jab We Met, the budgets became huge and the film making a lot less intimate and involving. Everyone was preoccupied with other things during the shoot of the film and I really wasn’t enjoying the mindless legwork. This film had me questioning the role of an assistant director a lot, it felt like an endless way to get humiliated and constantly reminded about your ‘low’ level in the hierarchy.

At the apex of the assistant director team is the Chief AD or the first assistant director, who is typically the director's right hand. On this film there were just four assistants but some directors are known to have as many as 8-12 Assistants.On period films I believe there are assistants called ‘horse assistants’ and ‘elephant assistants’ whose sole job was to look after the horses and elephants on the battle fields. Anyway, on our film the first AD was a guy called Rajesh Tibrewal who I have the greatest respect for. He remains the enduring memory on this film.

He was a workhorse; a soldier and he demanded nothing less than our loyalty and blood. He commanded our Director’s complete trust and Imtiaz leaned heavy on him for almost all of the work. Rajesh was constantly unhappy with the work we did, and he chose the best, juiciest, most explicit words to express his unhappiness at our overall ‘ lack of seriousness’.

Rajesh had a burning passion for film, and while I may never completely understand the man- I completely understand his love for film, his passion in treating every second on set as a test of purity and dedication towards the holy grail and privilege of creating cinema.

He had white unruly hair, a big childlike lopsided smile and spoke without pretence about movies, work and his love for his job.

He was the first Chief AD I worked under and he showed me singlehandedly that the work we were doing, even if it was as silly as moving a horse from one end of the field to the other still had a dignity, a purpose and was part of a higher calling. He introduced me to the filmmaker’s brand of ‘hope’, completely unreasonable and hard to digest. When I met him, he had been working in the industry for over eight years and his enthusiasm and childlike disdain for ‘relaxing and taking a break at work’ often made him the butt of a lot of jokes. I'll never forget that day in London where he left all the other three assistants at the hotel and drove alone to the set because we were *coughs* five minutes late. He often told me that I was a lot like him and though I scoffed at the idea publicly, I felt a strange pride in it. Eccentric, brilliant, moody, cunning, even scary- Rajesh was all those things and yet he was the most stand up guy I worked for. In his army, you were trained to work for the greater cause and prepared to do everything it takes. I’m glad I met him, because his unadulterated love for movies while in the trenches of unforgiving, unacknowledged work helped me set up my relationship with my own work.

He taught me that I could be proud of what I was doing, even if what I was doing felt trivial, silly sometimes downright stupid. Every little action done towards the best intentions of the film made a difference to the film. And ultimately all that mattered was the film. Love Aaj Kal did reasonably well, but for me it marked the culmination of my training. I carried all the lessons that I learnt under Rajesh to my third and last film as an Assistant Director- Rockstar, where finally all the work I had been doing started to make sense. Filmmaking had entered my bloodstream.