Thankfully, no one died after watching Shaandaar

Thankfully, no one died after watching Shaandaar

He's taken the debacle of Shaandaar chin up. "When you experiment you have to be prepared for the consequences. And we will further experiment in life. Thankfully, no one died after watching Shaandaar," says director Vikas Bahl with wry sarcasm. "The way people are sending me condolatory messages, it seems someone has died," he laughs. "At the most people may have wasted a few hours of their lives. Baaki sab kushal mangal hai." On a serious note, he analyzes, "I guess, I tried to do too many things at the same time." The huge expectations after his superhit Queen could also have worked against the director. "That's unfair. It's like saying that I didn't like the dinner because the lunch was tastier. Anyway, you learn, you move on."

After the emotional Queen, Vikas Bahl probably just wanted to relax. He says he took on Shaandaar because he wanted his audience to have oodles of fun. "I love going to the movies, having burgers, popcorn, sip cola and have a great time. The day I started writing Shaandaar, the only thing in my mind was that I wanted to make a happy film. I wanted to make a film on a wedding because it's a robust celebration in India. The film would then also have dance, song and music." He's glad he tried to push the envelope in terms of the technique and the quirky romance between Alia Bhatt and Shahid Kapoor.

With Alia Bhatt and Shahid Kapoor on the set of Shaandaar

Ask him to choose between his heroines - the firebrands Kangana Ranaut and Alia Bhatt - and he gets vocal about how good they both are. The similarity between them, he says, is their sincerity in figuring out the character and then delving deep into it. "They catch every small thing about the character. They then want to imbibe that. The only difference is that Kangana played a complex character in Queen. So she always had to stay in that zone where you can't snap out, enjoy yourself and then return in that space. Whereas Alia played a happy person in Shaandaar. She could just stay like that.Her only focus was the film. She was such a happy person on the set that everyone fell in love with her."

Recently, there were rumours that many directors were miffed with Kangana for demanding writing credit' in their films. Vikas rubbishes it as pure gossip. "Kangana never asked me for it. When I decided to give her the credit, I called her and informed her that I was giving her the credit for writing. So if someone tells me this I laugh it off as a joke." He adds, "People say many things about my personal life as well. If they're enjoying doing so, then good for them. But I wish they had better things to converse about rather than gossiping about a third person."

He has nice words to say about Shahid Kapoor too. "I didn't face any kind of problem working with Shahid. He, of course, likes to discuss his character. He got his character bang on in the first shot. After that it was a smooth sailing. He got his body language right, his manner of speaking right. Once you crack this as an actor then you're ready to roll."
Shaandaar may have flopped but Vikas Bahl still swears by on screen love stories. In fact, he finds them very inspiring. "A well presented love story gets you involved with the romance. Even the English song I want to break free, could make you believe it's playing for you. Visuals and music touch your heart and make it a personal experience. That's the power of music and the movies."

Kangana Ranuat on the set of Queen

He's part of Phantom Films along with Vikramaditya Motwane, Madhu Mantena and Anurag Kashyap. Their magnum opus, Bombay Velvet, failed miserably at the box-office. "Bombay Velvet is collective failure of the team. If Anurag did not succeed as a director, I did not succeed as a producer. But we learnt a lot. Somewhere we had stopped being ourselves. That's the mistake we made collectively. And next time when we do a film, we will retain our individualism." He elaborates, "Like Anurag should just be what Anurag Kashyap is known for. If you tell him every day that it's a big film, then he will end up doing things, which he usually might not have done. The truth is people like to see his hard-hitting brand of cinema. And his audience is only going to grow. If Black Friday did four crores of business, then Dev D did 18 crores and Gangs Of Wasseypur raked in 30 crores. It means more people are watching his films. We as producers should encourage him to maintain that."

He also believes that real friendships do exist in the industry. "I agree friendships are a little difficult to sustain because of the kind of profession we are in. You may meet someone every day for five months. But you can't meet that person every day for the rest of your life. The bond that develops during the course of a film will have its own journey. People are basically friendly and help each other out. I've never been turned down whenever I've asked for help. I find people around me genuine. They have to work very hard to prove to me that they are fake. I don't believe that people lie, cheat... I'd rather believe everything is fine."

He says he's still not become a brand. "People still walk up to me and say, Aapko Comedy Nights With Kapil mein dekha hai'. They don't know who I am. Yes, after making a successful film you do get a better crew to make a better film. The journey as a director gets interesting. Other than that it's the same life, same friends."