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New talent, old virtue
BRINGING OLD VALUES: The director of "Woh Tera Naam Tha", Kuku Kohli in New Delhi. Photo: R.V. Moorthy.
HUMAN VALUES, emotions and soil of the country, mention these three and a complete change seems to come over Kuku Kohli, who otherwise appears unconcerned and lost. "I was born in Peshawar, those ties with my land, the fragrance of its soil and the values we nurtured that I find missing these days, are always fresh in my mind," says this director of at least eight films ranging from the super hit "Phool Aur Kante" to average grosser "Yeh Dil Aashiqana" and whose latest film "Woh Tera Naam Tha" hit the silver screen across Delhi this past week. Kuku was in New Delhi's Le Meridien Hotel to introduce this film and his new cast.
"Woh Tera..." too has shades of emotions, human values, respect for elders and reminiscences of India of the early 1950s. Kohli selected this story, penned by a journalist from Madhya Pradesh, J.P. Choksi, after wading through "100 others". He adds, "I value human relations beyond boundaries, so wherever I can, I try to incorporate human sentiments in my films."
His "Anari No.1", with Govinda and Raveena Tandon could not impress the audiences, but his "Phool Aur Kante", in which he introduced Ajay Devgan and Madhu and "Yeh Dil Aashiquana" with a new star cast of Jividha and Karan Nath, managed to win the hearts of the audience. This time too he has pitched in for new talent. That newcomers have no image and the audiences have hardly any expectations from them, are the reasons he offers. One wonders however, why Kohli cannot handle established artistes but works wonders with newcomers? He does not mind revealing, "Actually, I worked under Raj Kapoorji for 11 years as his assistant from the "Bobby" days. He taught me virtually everything - editing, direction, music, how to work on a done-up situation and how to handle new comers. So it is just that experience counts. Despite being relatively new to the film industry, I dared to work with established artistes. It was not easy."
We heard of Anees Bazmi working with him in his film "Asar" with Priyanka Chopra. "But I have heard that Anees has already started working on this film with someone else," he counters. "Mujhe to kuch-kuch gadbad lagta hai, without my knowledge has he actually started it?" he queries himself!
But Kohli is not bothered. In fact, he has already started working on two new films, one, "a thriller with established artistes, and another with a new cast", the story of which will be based on soil and human values as found in the North-East. "I am looking for a cast from that area," he says.
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