Rise of the Raconteur

After getting a degree in engineering and MBA, you entered into films. How different would life be if films had not happened to you?
More stable I would guess. A job always comes with certain assurances like a salary, pension etc which is taken as granted. Now I have to make sure those happen. Unstable, but life is lot more exciting.

You do not come from a background of films. How difficult or easy was it to come into an industry which was alien to you?
It was tough, but I personally feel it’s as tough as any other field. Even after my degrees, I had to work quite hard to get a decent job. So, I guess, getting into films is a little bit harder, but it presents the same challenges.

What prompted you to leave your job and make films?
The fact that I could not do two things at the same time! I realised that if I really wanted to make films then I would have to give it my 100 per cent. I could not latch onto the security of a job and still try to make films. One must be focussed and dedicated to whatever vocation he or she chooses to pursue. No risk no gain...

How did your family and friends react to your decision?
I think it was too unexpected a decision for my family or friends. It’s not the kind of decision they expected from me so they did not know how to react. I think, deep inside, they must have thought it to be a passing infatuation. And being totally alien to the film world, they just could not fathom how I would even start. So they did not think it was serious enough to deserve a reaction.

From Jhankar Beats to Kahaani, how has the journey been?
Tough, very tough. But what I really enjoyed was that the tough situations were created by me because of my films not doing well. So that was cool. I could not blame anyone for that. In this field or any other, you can only let your work speak. Now it’s better. So now it’s cool and I'm happy.

Jhankar Beats was a very different film and was a tribute to RD Burman. How did you come up with the idea of making a musical film?
I don't know. It was a story which interested me, which I wanted to tell. To me, Jhankar Beats was a story of making decisions in life. It was about choosing priorities in life. How do you decide while life goes on? What is important today may not be your priority tomorrow… So how do you cope with that? How do you choose between saving money and buying a keyboard that you always wanted? That interested me. So that’s how Jhankar Beats was developed. Three friends going through different stages in life and how they cope up with the decisions life forces them to make. 

pratishtha.malhotra@planmanmedia.com