“My toilet film is different from Akshay Kumar’s Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” – Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra : Bollywood News

Earlier we had mentioned that Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra is all set to make a film on sanitation facilities around slum area. The filmmaker kick started Mere Pyaare Prime Minister based on this subject around the locality of Mumbai but the film has been facing several comparisons with the soon-to-release Akshay Kumar starrer Toilet: Ek Prem Katha.

“My toilet film is different from Akshay Kumar’s Toilet: Ek Prem Katha” – Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

The said Mehra directorial is a mother-son saga which highlights sanitation issues. Projects on the subject of toilets could be a profitable venture was discussed when Akshay Kumar announced his forthcoming film, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. Now while Rakeysh is all set to explore the topic, he is quick to clear the air that his film is completely different from that of Akki’s film.

“My film is set in a slum, where the issue is more acute. Besides being a hygiene issue, living in those conditions is unsafe. It is a mother-son story which kicks off with a young boy’s letter to the PM requesting that a toilet is made for his mother,” he shared, adding that Anjali Patil is set to play mother to a “spunky young boy” named Om.

Further he added, “This is nothing like Akshay’s film, which is a love story at heart. And even if it is, there is never enough said about subjects like this.” That the subject affects him greatly is evident when Mehra pointed to the plight of women in the country. “Women’s safety is a prime concern. Rape is a given when women go out to defecate, as per UNICEF figures. The problem of sanitation in urban areas is bigger than it is in rural areas. Rural India has culturally adapted to defecation outside. In the khet, recycling is easier.”

Mehra, who has taken on the responsibility of a social entrepreneur, along with NGO Yuva Foundation said, “We realized that girls stop coming to school after puberty. Along with Yuva, we decided a change is needed. When we revamped the first municipal school, it took us Rs. 5 lakh. The girls started coming back. We got a donation for 20 more schools. Now, we have 1,20,000 volunteers. By 2020, we plan to install 5000 toilets. Ian Botham has come on board as a patron and helped us build toilets in Worli Village. All my movies have been an extension of a piece of my mind, and this one is the same.”