Ishtyle Bhai

What do you do when the film you labored over for months turns out to be an unmitigated disaster at the box office?

Some times people blame shift and accuse the audiences’ incapacity to crack it. Sanjay Leela Bhansali is an old hand at this. Thanks to a film called Khamoshi-The Musical and its dismal performance, Mr. Bhansali is ready to fight it out with everyone and then some. Mr. Bhansali went to the extent of saying that people weren’t ready to understand the suggested nuances of whatever-the-hell-he-was-trying-to-do-in-any-case in the name of Saawariya. Others like Vinod Chopra refuse to believe that their film is bad. He still thinks that Eklavya- The Royal Guard is the long lost twin of some hidden-from-the-world David Lean masterpiece.

In the recent past I endured an interview of the Vijay Krishna Acharya, the director of the Tashan on the telly. The film in itself is an experience that words can’t capture. Many of you must be familiar with my take on the film and in case you missed out then read it here. The stupid thing about the interview was that it was too soon after the tanking of the film as the poor guy had such a confused looked plasters on his face. This futile PR exercise convinced me that Vijay Krishna Acharya still hadn’t gotten over the shock of its failure. Or maybe he was still not over the shock that he was actually greenlit by Aditya Chopra to make Tashan.

No.

Wait a minute.

I think it looked as if Acharya were still in shock that he managed to get a Grade A cast for Tashan.

No.

I think it was more to do with the fact that his film had released. He was trying to recall the faces of his buddies whose films never released.

Whatever was the exact reason he was not comfy and in such places mere mortals such as us usually end up thinking that attack is the best form of defense. So off he went and even suggested that perhaps people didn’t accept the amorality of his character. Hence some blokes in Kanpur or Katwaria Sarai couldn’t connect with them and expectantly the film tanked. The interviewer, Ms. Anupama Chopra, could have interjected that the same people happily embraced the same production houses Bunty Aur Babli with all their imperfections. Ms. Chopra didn’t ask as she was in shock that Aditya Chopra called her and asked her to interview Mr. Tashan for (a) she was grinning from ear-to-ear and (b) the interview was interspersed with promos of the film!

The big question here is how much time does a director need to get over a failure? Is there a thing called getting over failure for many of Mumbai’s finest never forget. Ram Gopal Verma rehashed Drohi and gave us Satya, repackaged Raat and made it Bhoot while Mr. Bhansali married Khamoshi and The Mircale Worker to offer Black.

Almost a month after Tashan’s release I bumped into Vijay Krishna Acharya at a café in Delhi. He was very recognizable thanks to my elephantine memory and his serpentine moustache. To be doubly sure I asked him if he were who I thought he was; he nodded in affirmation. I told him that I loved Akshay Kumar’s Ramlila-Ravan-on-a-Bajaj-Scooter entry in his film. He shook my hand and thanked me. He went out for a smoke (my guess). He had his customary confused look back. My friend told me that no one would have told him that anything good about the film and maybe he thinks I was being sarcastic. Once he came back to finally leave the café, he looked at me and flashed a smile. As he got out his look was threatening to come back.

I really liked the Akshay Kumar’s entry.

I did. I did!