Emraan Hashmi and Soha Ali Khan in Tum Mile

His first film Jannat was a surprise hit last year and director Kunal Deshmukh wants to keep his box-office track record intact with this Friday’s Tum Mile. If Jannat had cricket, Tum Mile has the Mumbai floods of 2005 as the backdrop. We caught up with KD when he came to Calcutta last Friday along with Emraan and Soha to promote the film...

Your producer Mahesh Bhatt says that you didn’t know which film you had made — a disaster film or a romantic film...

When we first conceptualised the film, it became a very complicated screenplay structure cutting between past and present. The past story is about this boy and a girl who meet and fall in love. And the present story is the boy and girl meeting again after six years on the day of the flood. I was never following a linear story. I felt the USP of my film was the flood — visuals that have not been captured before on celluloid. Setting it up was extremely difficult. I think we managed to create it really well. When I showed the film to Mr Bhatt, he walked off. I called him up and he said that we need to snip out certain portions of the flood because the aftertaste that people leave the theatres with is of this live-in relationship that had gone wrong. I was disappointed... I was reluctant but he made me see the film I had made. Sometimes when you are too close to your pet project you are not willing to let go. After re-editing the film at the last minute, I did realise that the love story is the more universal story.

Kunal Deshmukh

How difficult was it recreating the floods on an artificial set?

I think one of the main reasons I was reluctant to cut out the flood scenes is because we had gone through a lot of pain to create those sets. Once you say ‘water’, you are talking about water-proofing. Then water has a certain “dead weight”... you have to measure that and figure out how strong your walls are. Because there is rain also, you need a water cycling and water sprinkling system. You need a whole water grid on top. Then you have all kinds of lights around. To top it off you have 200-300 people in that water. So it gets dirty and the contamination levels are very high. We also had a water purification plant which stopped working on Day 2, because the water was just too dirty. So there were lots of people who were physically pushing to get the job done. You know, pushing cars, moving trees, creating waves... everything was done manually. We do not have the budgets or the technology of The Day After Tomorrow. Within that framework to have been able to do what we have done is terrific.

Is it difficult to make a film at Vishesh Films given the fact that Mahesh Bhatt has a say in everything?

I don’t think so. Working with Mr Bhatt is extremely easy... he gives you a lot of space. He doesn’t overpower you. At the same time, he is the creative head. He has to okay the edit. While he understands the flavour of the maker and the flavour of the movie the maker is trying to make, he will not expose an outside sensibility. He did not judge the film from the way I made Jannat. Also, Bhatt saab’s understanding of the human heart is unparalleled and there’s a lot to learn from there.

Then you have to take Emraan as your hero...

We write really strong scripts which are hero driven. He gets to play these author-backed roles and so you feel that the films centre around him. But that’s not so. Also, he is very easy to work with. Most of the scenes that got chopped are his but he didn’t have any issue with it.

Is Tum Mile more you or Jannat?

Tum Mile is a film which is closer to my heart, closer to my style. There are problems shown in the film that I have gone through. And they are very relatable. Pressures of marriage, pressures of career, pressures of family, problems of being in a relationship. My whole goal was that I am young now and let me make a young film. Let me not try a subject which I can do better when I am 40.

What about all the talk of you seeing Kangana Ranaut?

Not at all! Not at all! We are friends. We were closer when we did Woh Lamhe. I was the chief assistant director on that film. I used to see more of her then. She moved to a new place a couple of minutes away from my house and we decided to meet for coffee. And there was the paparazzi waiting outside!