Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 is a box-office hit and its director Luv Ranjan can’t stop smiling. In a month that has seen big Bolly like Shaandaar tanking, this relatively small film — that tells a story of love and lust from a guy’s perspective — has struck gold to become the sleeper success of the year (Rs 50 crore-plus). A t2 chat with Ranjan.
Congratulations for the super success of Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2…
It feels a lot better when a girl says it! (Laughs out loud)
What is it about the film that people are loving the most?
It’s been the dialogues and the characters. The whole relatability thing — the incidents and the scenes — has worked.
What’s been the inspiration behind the Pyaar Ka Punchnama films? We would like to believe it’s experience!
(Laughs out loud) Honestly, when I made the first part, I was a debutant director who wanted to make something that was interesting and edgy and no one had done before. It started out as an idea that ‘Let’s make an anti-love film’. But then I decided that why not bring in a perspective? That’s how I zoomed in on an anti-love film from the guy’s perspective. When you talk about experience, there are bits and pieces here and there (laughs), but it’s primarily a lot of observation.
Although this isn’t really a sequel, was it always understood that Pyaar Ka Punchnama would have a second film?
Once it released and attained the so-called cult status, the desire was to make a second film, but I didn’t want to make back-to-back Pyaar Ka Punchnama (PKP) films. The idea was always there that we would make it… the question was ‘When’.
Have the large numbers — and the fact that the film’s growing by the day even now — taken you by surprise?
It hasn’t, actually. When we made the first film, it was just the time when these small-budget films were being made with new faces and young actors. Pyaar Ka Punchnama played in theatres for seven weeks, which is huge. The most important thing about the first film is that its box-office numbers (Rs 17 crore) do not actually reflect the number of people who had watched it. That’s because many more people watched the first film on the Internet. That’s why people are getting surprised when they are comparing the numbers between the first film and Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 (Rs 53.5 crore — and counting). All those people who watched the first film after downloading it liked it so much that they have now gone to the theatres to watch the second film (smiles).
You were called a misogynist after the first film. What are women telling you now?
(Laughs) It’s a funny thing… 90 per cent of the women I have met after release have loved the film. There will always be a few who will have a problem with it, but that’s expected. And this is not a problem with just one specific gender… the society that we live in now is the most easily offended society. We are now offended by what the other person is eating or wearing. Whoever calls me a misogynist, I want to ask them if they have seen my second film? (Akaash Vani, where a woman walks out of an abusive marriage to marry the man she loves.) The thing is that people say anything without knowing anything about anyone. I can’t let myself get bothered by that. I am sure that the numbers that PKP2 has made hasn’t just happened from boys watching it (smiles).
I went to the theatres a couple of times to check reactions and I have seen girl gangs walking in. So, the majority of the audience can take a joke. For the touchy ones who can’t, we can’t really do anything about it, can we? They would have kicked my ass even if I had made the film from the woman’s perspective!
"I went to the theatres a couple of times to check reactions and I have seen girl gangs walking in. So, the majority of the audience can take a joke. For the touchy ones who can’t, we can’t really do anything about it, can we? "
You didn’t have a great experience with the censors either…
PKP2 was given an ‘A’ (adult) certificate… you have watched the film… tell me, is there anything even remotely adult in it?! There is no scene that is adult in nature. But according to new CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) guidelines, you can’t say ‘saala’ in a U/A film! I think we have lost perspective… it’s ridiculous.
Which would you pick as your favourite moments from the film?
Apart from the humour, there are some scenes which, for me, were very important, even though they may not be as memorable for the audience. One is where the three boys (Gogo, Siddharth and Tarun) are sitting together towards the end of the second half and the girl (Supriya, played by Sonnalli Sehgall) comes and tells Siddharth (Sunny Singh) that she wants to marry him. After that, the boys sit together as a family and discuss how and when to go about things. Also, I love the scene before the (seven-minute) monologue where the boys are sitting and talking about life. That’s the key difference between the first and the second films… PKP had a bunch of younger guys who would fight even between themselves. In PKP2, the guys are more mature and no matter what shit is happening around them, there is a sense of calm between them. Even when the girls are giving them grief, they are able to come back home to each other and share a laugh.
Why did you only keep Kartik Aaryan from the first film but retain all the three women (Nushrat Bharucha, Ishita Raj and Sonnalli)?
I didn’t want to change the women because, as they say, the devil never changes! (Laughs) Kartik I went with because he was very young during the first film and there was no chance he would look like the same guy in the second film. Also, when you are making a sequel, you have to walk that very thin line between what is new and also retaining recall.
Is a third film on the cards?
That will happen, for sure. It’s too early to discuss it because I want to take my time. The Pyaar Ka Punchnama films are like chaat… you can’t eat it everyday!
Priyanka Roy
What do you want to ask Luv Ranjan about PKP2?
Tell t2@abp.in
