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Beauty and the feast!

Pritish Nandy is ready with "Pyaar Ke Side Effects". He shares the story of the making of the film with RANA SIDDIQUI

LOVE CALLING Pritish Nandy says "Pyaar Ke Side Effects" belongs to"Jhankaar Beats" genre

Some time ago we had Rules - Pyaar Ka Superhit Formula directed by Parvati Rajgopalan. The formula didn't work at the box office.

This time it is Pyaar Ke Side Effects directed by debutant Saket Choudhury and produced by Pritish Nandy Communication. The film has two actors from absolutely two different schools of acting - Rahul Bose and Mallika Sherawat. And surprisingly, Rahul Bose himself suggested this script to Pritish through his co-actor Rangita. A script that Pritish immediately got ready to produce. He recalls, "When I first heard the screenplay, it was quite clear that it demanded that the two lead actors be absolutely contrasting. We considered several possible options and came to the conclusion that Rahul Bose and Mallika Sherawat cast opposite each other would be ideal. The nerd and the bombshell in direct confrontation! The snooty, intellectual actor versus the nation's ultimate dream."

Battle of the sexes

Obviously, the film has a story that justified such contrasting characters.

Agrees Pritish, "The confrontation of the sexes is the underlying spirit of the movie. It's about a commitment-phobic male a DJ, and a Delhiite girl - the girl he falls in love with but finds marriage very scary. She is commitment phobic too, in a sense, having run away from a marriage mandap before. It's a romantic comedy or, better still, a comic romance. The narrative is easy and witty. This is not a typical entertainment programme that passes for what we call Bollywood comedy. It's young, hip, contemporary and the treatment is uncluttered. It's in the Jhankaar Beats genre, a slice of life film."

A poet and a painter Pritish had a reason to make this film, a new director who was enthusiastic and energeticHe says, "I enjoy working with first-time directors because they are not predictable. Sujoy Ghosh went around trying to find a taker for Jhankaar Beats for four years before he met us (read PNC). Anant Balani had not made a film in 10 years when he met us with the screenplay of Mumbai Matinee scribbled on torn sheets of tissue paper. Sudhir Mishra spent six years trying to find someone to make Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. I agreed in five minutes. Leena Yadav spent three years on the screenplay of Shabd but had no takers till she met us. I got her Sanjay Dutt and Aishwarya Rai. Nagesh Kukunoor had Bollywood Calling inside him for years. Suparn Verma looked for someone to make Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena for three years till Fardeen Khan sent him to me. And Sanjay Dutt brought Sanjay Gupta to me to make Kaante."

But we remember Sur as a beautiful film, which didn't work at the box office. Tanuja Chandra, the director said it was the lack of publicity, which annoys Pritish.

"That's untrue. Our biggest strength is our marketing. Sur was promoted well but did not succeed in pulling in the audiences. Lucky Ali was a hugely popular singer those days but his charisma failed to bring people to the theatres. Gauri Karnik, the heroine, was also a newcomer. But the music was such a hit that it still sells and brings us royalty. We got critical acclaim. Most people saw it subsequently on television and DVD and loved it. But no one takes that into account while labelling a film as a hit or a flop."

PNC has been backing some good films. Without any "Bollywood lineage" as Pritish puts it, it has made 17 movies in four years, went to over 40 top international film festivals and won over 200 award nominations. The experience has only enriched him.

What awards?

He doesn't bicker about Indian films not getting any awards at the international film festivals. Nor does he think that we send wrong films to festivals.

"It's not a question of good or bad. We make films that have a different idiom from the kind of films that go to these awards. It will take the world some time to understand and accept our idiom. In fact the Indian film industry has far greater range and viewership than Hollywood. We sell about a billion tickets more annually (3.8 billion versus Hollywood's 2.8 billion) and the audience for Indian films is growing rapidly worldwide. We have already entered mainstream theatres in many countries and television everywhere shows Indian movies. Rajnikanth is a huge star in Japan. Shah Rukh Khan is hugely popular in Europe. Amitabh Bachchan is a legend wherever you go. People in Russia still remember Raj Kapoor and Mithun Chakravarty. New markets are opening up everywhere. Indian films are also changing, to address new audiences. A cultural renaissance is taking place everywhere. Only the Government is yet to recognise this. The world over, movies get tax incentives and encouragement because they promote a nation's culture and provide employment to lakhs of people. But in India, we are taxed to death. That's the tragedy." For now, Pritish is just happy with the `side effects' he is soon going to infect his audience with.

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