Chitrangda Singh and Shiney Ahuja in a moment from Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi

Sudhir Mishra

Vidya Balan will act in Bahut Nikle Mere Armaan

Hazaaron khwaishein aisi ke har khwaish pe dam nikle,
Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle...

When Mirza Ghalib wrote this magic couplet, he couldn?t have possibly imagined that years later a film-maker would name two of his movies after the mukhras of the two lines. That too back-to-back. So, even as awards and accolades continue to pour in for Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, director Sudhir Mishra is on to Bahut Nikle Mere Armaan.

?It is about the contradiction between love and independence,? Mishra says from Mumbai. ?The film is set in the Indian movie industry of the 1950s when people like Guru Dutt and Bimal Roy were making their classics. It?s like a tribute to a period which, I feel, produced the most interesting cinema, when film-makers used to take a lot of stylistic liberties.?

Just like he did in Hazaaron? Mishra tries to look at personal relationships against a volatile backdrop in Bahut? ?The film is ultimately about the separate desires of two people ? an actress and a writer. While the actress is a big star and doesn?t wish to leave the limelight, the writer is a free soul who wants her to sacrifice her career for their love. So at a time when the country had just become independent, these two people want their individual independence.?

Despite choosing the 1950s film industry as the backdrop, Mishra doesn?t base his story on any stalwart of Indian cinema history. ?The subject will be roughly true to its time but not inspired by anybody in particular. Take Guru Dutt for example. Much of his life is romanticised as an independent director who turned into a pauper but in reality he was a rich film-maker who had his own studio. I am not interested in such gossip.?

What Mishra is more interested in are the lives of all those Urdu writers who used to come to Mumbai from UP and Punjab to write songs for Hindi films. ?They were men on the streets. They wanted to write lyrics not only to pursue their passion for poetry but as their only source of livelihood. It was for them a kind of monetary solace. And this was at a time when Urdu as a language was losing its place after the Indian independence.?

Apart from the rich content, Mishra wants to play with the colour tones of the images in Bahut? like Martin Scorsese did in Aviator. ?That?s the interesting part of putting the film a little back in time. You can create a certain visual style. All the films shot at that time were in black-and-white. So the films within my film will be black-and-white. Then even for the main film, we are planning to take out certain colours to give a very period look to the images.

For his lead pair, Mishra has gone for the two who have been recently sweeping all the Best Debut awards ? Shiney Ahuja and Vidya Balan. ?Casting Shiney was an automatic choice. He is not only very talented, he is like family to me. Now, Vidya has a certain old-world charm and the spunk of an independent woman. She has softness with strength, is polite yet firm. She has the rare quality of looking modern without mimicking a western person.?

But after the critical acclaim of Hazaaron?, he could have surely afforded big stars for his new film. ?I couldn?t have even made Hazaaron? with stars,? Mishra feels. ?That would have brought a duality of personality for the audiences watching the movie. I was looking for people with no reference points in Indian cinema. It was important for me that the character of Geeta existed in life but not in films.?

Mishra is happy with the kind of response Hazaaron? has received from within the industry. ?That film can now take care of itself. Maybe after watching the film on TV (the small-screen premiere is on Monday on STAR Gold at 8.30 pm), people will now see the other films I had made. If it did nothing else, Hazaaron? showed that there are more actors in the industry than the seven-eight people who come from film families.?

Bahut Nikle Mere Armaan, to release next year, is produced by Prakash Jha and will go on the floors by May this year.