The life story of legendary runner Milkha Singh is one of the most inspiring tales from our country. And incidentally, Milkha charged only Rs 1 to let Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra base his next film starring Farhan Akhtar on him.
Our sources say that in return Mehra went an extra mile to source a special Rs 1 currency note that was printed in 1958. The year was when the Flying Sikh got back medals from both Commonwealth and the Asian Games.
A source says, `Milkhaji was not interested in money. All he wanted was that Rakeyshji should make the film.`
Rajiv Tandon, the CEO of Rakeysh's production house says, `From my childhood days I remember when elders came home, they would present Rs 1 notes to the children. It was like gifting a blessing. We wanted to do the same for our film too and started out to source this special currency note.`
Interestingly, Rajiv's brother who works in a bank helped the film's team to lay their hands on this 'precious' Rs 1 note.
Sources say on receiving the special gift, the legend was extremely moved. `It was a like a souvenir for him,` adds an insider.