May 28, 2026 12:00pm IST
A.R. Rahman Joins Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Masoom: The Next Generation’ as Co-Producer: ‘He Heard the Script and Asked Me, ‘Can I Co-Produce It?’’ (EXCLUSIVE)
More than four decades after “Masoom” became one of Indian cinema’s most enduring family dramas, Shekhar Kapur is returning to the world of the film with “Masoom: The Next Generation.” But Kapur is not simply revisiting nostalgia. He is building something larger around questions of belonging, migration and family. And he is bringing one of India’s most influential musical voices along for the journey.
In an exclusive conversation with Variety India, Kapur reveals that A.R. Rahman has joined the project not only as composer but also as co-producer after hearing the script. “I am going to shoot it this year. I have cast it, I have written it. A.R. Rahman is co-producing the film with me. He heard the script and asked me, ‘Can I co-produce it?’ and we said, ‘Let’s do it.’ So we have already recorded one song, we are on to the second,” Shekhar Kapur says.
The collaboration adds another major creative force to a film already carrying substantial emotional weight. Rahman, whose work spans “Roja” (1992), “Bombay” (1995), “Lagaan” (2001), “Rockstar” (2011) and Slumdog Millionaire (2008), has long been associated with some of Indian cinema’s most defining soundtracks.
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For Kapur, however, the collaboration moved beyond a conventional composer-director relationship. He says, “When Rahman said he would produce it, it felt fantastic. To have a producer who is one of the greatest musicians of our time.”
Music itself, Kapur says, remains central to how he experiences cinema. “I love music. I think one of the reasons I love making films is because I love not just songs but also the background score.” Shekhar Kapur adds.
The original Masoom, adapted from Erich Segal’s ‘Man, Woman and Child,’ starred Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi and explored the emotional fallout of a man bringing home the son he had from an extramarital relationship. The film went on to become one of Kapur’s defining works and is remembered for its emotional honesty and songs like “Tujhse Naraz Nahi Zindagi.”
“Masoom: The Next Generation” is expected to reunite Shah and Azmi while expanding the world with Manoj Bajpayee, Nithya Menen and Kapur’s daughter, Kaveri Kapur, in key roles.
Yet Kapur insists that the film is not a traditional sequel. Shekhar Kapur says, “My next film is the sequel to, more or less, what I call a sequel to ‘Masoom.’ But for every film, I have to find my source, and the source is something that I have been noticing a lot for my next film. Ninety per cent of India has moved; we are largely immigrants in one way or another. My parents are migrants. They were uprooted during the Partition. Everybody has moved from here to there.”
Kapur says the idea grew from observing displacement across generations. “So the question is, have we become like turtles? Some went from a rural landscape to an urban setup. Some from urban cities went overseas. Then we crawl into our shell and make it a home. In a way, it was also explored by Salim-Javed in ‘Deewar.’ Who are you when you are uprooted? Which is why the mother and the brother became so crucial to the story because he was uprooted.”
That question eventually became the emotional center of the film. “I have taken that as my next. Because there are so many court cases in India where families are fighting against each other. All over the world. So it is a very simple question. When does your home become home? And when does your house become a property and when does that property turn into real estate? It is a story of home and what it means,” he adds.
Returning to a film as beloved as “Masoom” also means confronting the weight of legacy itself. Kapur says the biggest challenge has not been scale or expectation. It has been rediscovering innocence. “It is the same cast and it is the same me, but my struggle in writing is how do I become naive again? Naive again to rediscover this story without being Shekhar Kapur, this well-known director. I had no idea ‘Masoom’ would become this big.”
He adds, “I think the ability I have is to be able to love actors. I think it is my love for my actors that creates my films. Which is why I am scared of working with actors who are unwilling to fall in love with what they are doing.”
More than 40 years after “Masoom,” Kapur is not merely revisiting a classic. He appears to be returning to the same question that gave the original its heart: what makes a family feel like home?
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