Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor in Tashan

You have launched yourself in Bollywood with the Dhoom films and Guru. What were you doing before that?

I was doing television, the last of which was Jassi Jaissi Koi Nahin. Before that I was doing Just Mohabbat and a couple of kids’ shows like Sonpadi and Shaka Laka Boom Boom. I wrote a few, I directed some. Before that I assisted Kundan Shah on Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa.

You changed how films were made in Bollywood with Dhoom. How did it happen?

It was a happy accident really. A friend writer of mine was assisting the director Sanjay Gadhvi. I met him and he liked what I thought about his project. They had an idea of what genre the film was and they had a basic idea of the characters. Once I got in, I fleshed out the screenplay and dialogues. Dhoom was not a film with any star power. We thought of it as an entertainer. We scripted it as a Manmohan Desai film. There was no time for a breather. We did manage a fairly unconventional Hindi film for its time. It was neither a love story nor a drama and it had a very special energy about it.

You made it bigger with Dhoom:2. Were you under the sequel pressure?

Yes, now we had a reputation to live up to. We knew people were expecting a lot of action, maybe a heist film... The question on everybody’s mind was: “Last time it was bikes, will it be cars this time?” We thought if we could not have that, and if we subverted it enough, we might be able to do a film with slightly more ambition. And actually what came about was the love story between Hrithik and Ash. That is what took the film out of the Dhoom franchise. It gave the film a certain kind of weight which helped the film.

So, when it came to Tashan, where you were the director as well, what were you trying to achieve?

The idea was to make a film which I would go and watch today happily. I have grown up watching films at a time when Amitabh Bachchan was becoming big. There was a full-bodied quality about those films. Very Indian.... They were films which were born out of India and celebrated Indianness. Illogical, unreal but there was a pull to them. Somewhere, I wanted to replicate that in spirit. Today’s India is far more comfortable in its own skin than it has ever been.

I thought if I could tell a story in an interesting manner within the mainstream format... I had done Dhoom, I had done Guru... Now I wanted to experiment with a non-linear narrative with characters who are not your everybody characters. Slightly edgy, not necessarily “good”, but having a certain innocence about them. I thought people would like them for what they are. I thought it would be part slice-of-your-soul, part travelogue, part seduction... celebration of everything I think is special about us. Also, as a director I wanted to project my own voice, rather than something seen or said.

There is a very strong likeness to the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez school of film-making in all the back stories coming together...

Yes. I think if you look at it objectively, Tarantino’s style comes from Kurosawa. You know, one incident with many points of view (Rashomon). But I wasn’t horribly conscious of it. I have seen many Hindi films in my lifetime which were rooted to flashbacks. I was pretty much in that world. And maybe the reason I like Tarantino’s films is because they remind me of our Hindi films.

Did the presence of Saif and Kareena in your film change anything in the script or make you design the film differently?

I feel everybody has their personal lives. I wouldn’t want to get into that. When we cast the film, all of them were not as big as they are today. They have subsequently and rightfully grown. They all came on board after hearing the script.

Was Tashan’s failure to release at the multiplexes a setback?

We are used to films opening really wide with lots of prints. Multiplexes have become very crucial to the film-viewing experience in a city like Mumbai. So, in that way maybe it has affected the business. But in some strange way, it also ensured people saw the film with 800 other people. Purely as a community experience, it was quite spectacular. You know when Bhaiyyaji starts speaking in English, suddenly 500 people are laughing at the same time. It’s very different from a multiplex with a capacity of 300. In that way, it was great going back to that kind of viewing. The film was made for an audience to go out and enjoy themselves.

Would you say Tashan is immune to bad reviews?

It can work both ways. For somebody perverse like me, when I read a film being universally panned by the critics, I would like to check it out. Of course, it can also hamper the prospects.

Is Anil Kapoor the main problem? He didn’t generate the expected impact...

Maybe because of the sound. I have seen it in three different theatres here in Mumbai... every time he comes on there has been a warm reaction. Maybe because he speaks in this UP diction, the dialogues may have escaped people a couple of times. It could have been a deterrent to some. We tried to keep the language as accessible as possible. But yes, these are technical and creative concerns we have to keep in mind in the future.

The other complaint is that Tashan turned out to be an Akshay Kumar film...

It wasn’t intentional at all. For me, Akshay seemed the best bet for this kind of a character. He hasn’t done anything like this before. So it felt like out-of-the-box casting. And he has done it in a completely fabulous way. He really worked on the diction, read and rehearsed. He is in a special place as an actor. He is not just a star. He is up there with the best. The fact that it feels more like an Akshay Kumar film has little to do with what was on paper. But yes, the soul of the film is his love story with Kareena. But personally I liked Jimmy’s (Saif) edgy character, a much more urban face of India.

Will you go on experimenting?

I have a couple of ideas and none of them are very straight. I will try and retain what I think is my voice. Whenever you try something new, you upset a few things and you run the risk of being pushed aside. But unless we try we wouldn’t know. Films should be pluralistic, there should be space for everybody. I am ready to take flak for something bad but I will not stop making my kind of films. This is my way. I have scripted films in the past and I am quite proud of my script work. But I am proudest of Tashan. The risks taken were more satisfying for me. We pushed a lot of envelopes. We are not gods yaar, we are just making a film (laughs).

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