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Ma-gic formula?
Tanuja Chandra's next film is based on a story by her mother Kamna Chandra. It will star Rajeev Khandelwal
SUBHASH K JHA
Hindi author Kamna Chandra (who has written the screenplay of Raj Kapoor's Prem Rog and Yash Chopra's Chandni), has written a film for her daughter Tanuja Chandra.
The film is an intense love story set in a small town in north India and will feature Rajeev Khandelwal in the lead. Tanuja confirms the news and says, "This is an unpublished story and very precious to my mother's heart. Yes, this is the first time that my mother is writing a film for me and there's no particular reason why she hasn't written for any of my earlier films. When she wrote Prem Rog and Chandni, I was too young to make films. Even when she wrote 1942 A Love Story for my brother-inlaw Vidhu Vinod Chopra, I wasn't ready to take the plunge. However, my mother had saved this story for me so that I could utilise it whenever I wanted to. It is quite a precious gift from my
mother."
Was it the critical acclaim of Aamir that made Tanuja to sign on Rajeev Khandelwal as the film's lead man? Tanuja begs to differ. She says, "Long before Rajeev made his big screen debut in Aamir, he stood out among the multitude of television actors. I remember I had seen him in some soap while surfing and had asked who he was. Now of course, in Aamir, he has shown how effortlessly he can blend into the character. But besides that point, he's just the actor that I require in my film."
While Rajeev is hugely kicked with Tanuja's passion for her work, he has requested her to move the story's timeframe from the 1970s-80s to the current times. Rajeev confirms the news and says, "Yes I have requested Tanuja to contemporise the story, so as to make the film accessible to a wider section of audience from the current generation. It's a story with unending universal relevance."
The film will be shot in a sleepy scenic town like Ujjain or Bhopal.
Rajeev Khandelwal
Ishaani
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