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'It's Not My Nature To Be The Messiah Of Happiness In Romances'
Bollywood's flirtatious, loveable rake epitomises the new age lover boy--eternally urban, suave and a lot of fun.
Namrata Joshi interviews Saif Ali Khan
Saif Ali Khan has found himself a distinct, career-defining persona as Bollywood's flirtatious, loveable rake. Be it Dil Chahtaa Hai or Kal Ho Naa Ho, Hum Tum or Salaam Namaste, he epitomises the new age lover boy--eternally urban, suave and a lot of fun. There's much that makes Saif appealing to the young--he's easy-going and cool rather than serious and passionate, smart and sharp rather than deep and intense, and more intuitive than profound--quite like his real self. His off-screen alliance with diva Kareena Kapoor, intently followed by the media, has earned them the title "Saifeena". The star is in the news again with his production house Illuminati Films' first venture--a big-scale, youthful love story called Love Aaj Kal. Enough reason for us to chose him as the Love Guru of our romance special.
Riding high on hype and curiosity, Love Aaj Kal is a contemporary romance spanning two generations with Deepika Padukone as Saif's love interest. Set in San Francisco, London, Delhi and Calcutta, it is directed by Bollywood's romanticist of the season, Imtiaz Ali of Jab We Met fame. At the Illuminati office an old world, black and white portrait of lady love, Kareena, rests on the side table; a good luck note scribbled by her has been framed as a prized display. We are watching tracks from the film--the catchy Chor Bazaari, mellow Dooriyan and, of course, Twist, which Saif's daughter Sara finds "rocking" and is the new hit on the dance floors.
A self-possessed Saif, distinct in a colourful bandana with Kareena's name tattooed in Hindi on his left hand, begins with prosaic conversation--how good it feels to have moved from Lokhandwala to Bandra and instructions to the cook on making perfect sandwiches. Then he effortlessly slips into the role we have assigned him and shares his mind on love, romance, relationships and commitment over tea, papaya, cookies and sandwiches on his wind-swept Bandra balcony.
Excerpts from an interview.
Why did you choose a love story as your maiden production? Were you not working on Agent Vinod?
It was actually more to do with choosing a director who we wanted to work with than the story. When we met Imtiaz Ali, he wanted to make one of two or three stories into a film. But he was tilting more towards this subject. Agent Vinod was always a concept that we wanted to make. The script has taken a lot of work and it wasn't ready so we thought we would do that second. A lot is determined by the director you choose. In some productions, a script is created and owned by the production house and then a director is found to direct it. In my experience it works better if you team up with a director who then has a film that he wants to make as opposed to selling an idea to a director. Agent Vinod has been our idea and Sriram Raghavan has written it and worked on it. Love Aaj Kal is Imtiaz all the way.
It's not that we started off by saying that let's definitely make a love story even though I am happy we eventually did. As a production house we would like to make commercial films that appeal to the entire country and to the Indian diaspora. We thought it would be the most widely appealing. Originally, it was set in Bombay and Delhi. We enlarged the scale to a film based in London and San Francisco, then coming back to Delhi. The end of the story has also been changed.
It was a bitter sweet end initially and finally Imtiaz agreed to a happier, a more satisfying ending.
So, are you implying that romance is the most bankable subject in Bollywood?
A love story is not necessarily bankable; the connect is important. It's a fairly typical idea to make a love story but within that form we were looking for something contemporary and new. Our attempt was to push the envelope within the boundaries of a typical romance, a fresh new take with dialogue and scenarios that people can identify with.
Imtiaz is a perfect director to try and do that with.
In what ways have you pushed the envelope?
What makes a love story dramatic is what the lovers go through in order to survive and that's not always something as clichd as a father who doesn't want the marriage to happen. It could be inner turmoil, it could be confusions of one's own mind, it could be the pressures of your job. The film is about what happens to the relationship after the couple have broken up. They end up seeing other people; they might even get married to other people. What we have shown is real problems in a modern context.
Falling in love doesn't need much of an effort but to stay in love is the challenge. Most films don't deal with what happens a year and a half later. Abroad you do have Revolutionary Road, Bridges of Madison County, Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?-- more mature love stories looking at what happens to a couple when the romance gets over.
Of late Hindi film romances have become tame, there is no rebellion.
Earlier lovers fought society, religion, caste, tradition. What are they fighting now?
I think they are fighting each other. They are fighting within. They are fighting for a balance between the professional and the personal. There are so many choices
The threats to the relationship is what our film is about--personal ambition, the changing role of women, the fact that they are equal most of the time to men. The role of women has changed, so men need to be more evolved in their thinking. I think both the partners need to be more evolved because it's not black and white any more.
Are we romantic anymore? Are we too individualistic to care about relationships?
You can compare it to mountaineering. Your base camp is your marriage but the peaks you conquer have to be done by you alone. Without a healthy base camp you will find those peaks harder to conquer. And if you are too busy conquering peaks you might come back to find there is no base camp left. That's why words like commitment and trust come in. Relationships are not easy to maintain. Sometimes it's just easier to let go of them. Because you might find that your work is more stable and more faithful and pretty much consistently gives back to you what you give it. So we tend to trust that a little more. Whether or not marriage is a successful institution in the new millennium is what we need to figure out.
Rather than high passion and pure love a lot of films today are about the fine line differentiating love from friendship.
For me it's been quite clear as to whether I think of someone as a friend or a lover but I think it's pretty beautiful to be confused about it.
It could have the makings of a very deep relationship. Love can be a little selfish, involves your ego. Friendship is warmer and more accepting. You will accept things from friends that you won't from a lover. You don't judge them so much. They can say or do whatever they want. But if a lover says something wrong it can make you jealous, edgy. You can be attracted to the wrong person. But it's not that often that you are friends with the wrong person.
Tell us a bit more about the film…
It's the story of Jai and Meera who live in London
One is into engineering, other is into restoration of paintings and frescoes of national monuments. He doesn't understand that, like he doesn't understand his own mind. He doesn't believe in love as romantic love. He thinks it should be short-lived and does not think in terms of love stories like Romeo and Juliet. That's just a film or a book or a play for him. He decides to lead his life practically and they end up working on different continents. He pretty much decides to break up with her at pretty much the beginning of the movie. His journey of realising how much he needs her and what happens to their relationship after they have broken up is the film. What makes them come back together again. The point is not the story but how it happens. It's a much more interesting relationship when you are still involved with a girl you have technically stopped seeing. You enjoy each other in different ways. You have a different level of freedom with each other. They really don't have that thing of being GF-BF. They are not bound by each other. I think that's fairly new. It's a journey, from being a practical guy, who thinks that Romeo and Juliet don't exist, to realising that he feels about her like the way Romeo felt about Juliet…
There's another story, about Vir Singh, the young Rishi Kapoor (who owns a coffee shop) and he doesn't like what's happening in today's generation. I play him when he is young. His love story is relatively very simple and pure. I wish it was that simple for us, that a guy could just decide on seeing a girl that this is it. That this is the only girl for him for the rest of his life. The film is about love today and yesterday. It's about love these days.
If you look at cinema of earlier times, your mother's films… The love stories were all about larger-than-life passion. Do you think that a passionate love story can work…
Anything can work but it depends on the treatment. Some stories, the obstacles you go through, aren't realistic any more. Times do change. Classics are eternal, you can pretty much adapt them. Some stories would be everlasting. When we made Parineeta, which was a lovely story, at the end of it, my character is supposed to break this wall symbolically but the audience didn't digest it. A lot of people have issues with that. Sometimes the collective feeling of no this won't work today… Some classics are enduring. Romeo and Juliet is applicable today. That story works, in others the idiom needs to change.
What do you think of yourself as a romantic hero?
I see myself happier and more comfortable doing films like Race, Omkara, Being Cyrus and Ek Haseena Thi. It's not in my nature to be a messiah of happiness in saccharine romances. I find it more realistic to my nature to play slightly darker roles. May be because everyone said I was like a chocolate boy when I was starting out that I decided to go towards the darker roles; to be more manly.
Even my choice of watching films and the books that I read tend to be a little darker. Having said that I would like to change it.
Why?
Because I think it's more positive and therapeutic to spread a little more love and happiness than deal in the darkness of a Langda Tyagi (of Omkara) all the time. It is therapeutic to act in those films. It helps you sort out your head.
Which romantic films have you liked?
Gone with the Wind was a great movie because it also showed the changing times. The original Devdas is also about a changing India. But I really don't like love stories. I prefer The Matrix and Star Wars though there is a love story in them also.
Is it less challenging/inspiring to play a typical romantic hero?
On the contrary. For that glow you have to have the energy for the camera and purity in your eyes and the light to shine forth from you. I imagine it's an exhausting process. Perhaps it's easier to be a brooding, dark actor.
You had earlier spoken about women…Are women in romances more proactive now? Were they more submissive earlier?
If you look at the great romances, women have always been proactive. Juliet, what she does at the age of 14, is pretty unheard of. Taking a stand against her father, marrying against his wishes, looking dead and then killing herself. These are not really submissive, passive things. Today there is genuine opportunities for women and they are as busy and successful in same fields as men. That needs some understanding.
What makes a screen couple click?
Screen chemistry is hard to create. All too often real life lovers have no chemistry on screen because there is no tension between them. And sometimes two people who have not known each other, who haven't spoken much, look amazing. Lots of time, chemistry is created by the script and the situations that the characters are put in. We all have energies and some of our energies suit other people more.
What do you think of Imtiaz as a director?
Love Aaj Kal is very mature and at the same time very commercial. Imtiaz sees it very beautifully and artistically. We are both striving for something special. He is looking for that in his writing. It is pretty ordinary for two people to be in love but within that to find extraordinary feelings and moments and looking for greater heights within their relationship, that's quite something. He is an artiste, he is a wanderer. He has that vibe about him. And his true home seems to be in the pages and the lines he writes. I find him very loyal to his work and deeply committed.
Have you seen any of his films?
Only Jab We Met…
And did you like it despite not being the romantic movie buff?
Exactly.
Do you see atypical romances working in a country like India? Can you imagine a Revolutionary Road being made here?
I am sure but then we have another issue which is that I believe that I like to watch films that help me escape from my world. I don't necessarily subscribe to thought-provoking cinema. Even though I am happy that not everyone agrees with me and that there are a lot of thought-provoking films. Films that make you think is a function of cinema. But, honestly, given a choice between watching Revolutionary Road and Matrix, or the new Bond film, I will go for the escapist cinema.
I eat popcorn and forget about my life for 2-3 hours. Most of the world subscribes to it. That's why The Terminator made more money than Revolutionary Road. I like acting in escapist films also, like Race. As a production house there should be a balance. We should make Being Cyrus and Omkara and yes we should make Love Aaj Kal. I read a lot of stories. I am deeply interested in the supernatural, the occult, folk tales, ghost stories. I'd like to make a Western set in 1857 about two adventurers. Make a film about two kids in a college or boarding school in India, what they go through.
Is your next film Qurbaan also a love story?
It is the most topical, relevant film that I am doing. It's about terrorism and there is a love story in it. It explains beautifully the difference between the moderate Islam and the fundamentalists. As a Muslim, I am happy to be a part of the film. People who kill people in the name of religion are not Muslims… It's a complicated issue. Since the Crusades when Saladin was fighting King Richard, the Muslims have been fighting the Christians. It's complicated, but you have to be black and white about it and say that I don't think you are a good Christian if you kill and your aren't a good Muslim if you kill. I might be simplistic but it has to be that simple. When we start blurring the lines, it becomes too complex. Rule number 1 should be that you should not kill. Christians have done it under the Pope in the Middle-East, the first four crusades throughout the Middle Ages. It's nothing new. It happens the minute you start talking of one God. Violence seems to be the bedrock of a monotheistic religion. But the point is that Islam is a beautiful religion, if there's any religion in the world that is beautiful any more. Personally I would be more inclined to being spiritual. I do namaaz but I won't say I do it five times. It's a very private equation with God. And I believe in an Almighty Force…I believe in spirituality and karma. A mix with some sort of Buddhism makes sense to me.
But why is the hero always a Hindu and heroine a Muslim…
Why is that? Do you think there's something pretty about a Muslim girl with her head covered? It's very interesting. There must be a reason. It could be just as simple as a Muslim girl being a delicate, soft, protected person. I haven't really thought about it. Is there something poetic or beautiful about that? Doing adaab, being gentle? I think lot of these girls seem to be the soft-spoken, protected, burqa types.
How does an intimate relationship like yours and Kareena's play out when you are under intense media and public gaze?
It's like asking how you manage to function in India, driving to town and being recognised at signals. It's not an issue at all. There are other issues, as in any other relationship. When two people are working in the same profession, with same pressures and ambitions, I think a commitment is more important than ever. When you are married you are going in the same direction. But before you are married the pressures might pull you in different directions.
So you support commitment and marriage in these deeply cynical times?
I could very well be on my own today. But I think it's beautiful to be in a loving relationship. And to make that work, whatever it takes. Sometimes it might not be easy but it makes everything worthwhile.Romance is an expression of love. Of showing the other person how special they are. It's not about money, it's about imagination. Like in this electronic world, writing a letter might be such a beautiful thing. There will always be room for romance. You just need to reinvent and be a little different.
And so the next, Agent Vinod, will not be romantic, it'll be a Bond kind of film?
Bond is a little camp. He is basically a celebration of the West, capitalism being superior to communism. Bond lost his relevance with the fall of the Iron Curtain. This has got nothing to do with Bond, Vodka Martini and hot chicks. It's Special Forces kind of Indian hero on an international stage dealing with relevant issues of global terrorism. He is an answer to that. Efficient, slick and lethal answer that we can feel proud of as a representative of the Indian government.
Bollywood's flirtatious, loveable rake epitomises the new age lover boy--eternally urban, suave and a lot of fun.
Namrata Joshi interviews Saif Ali Khan
Saif Ali Khan has found himself a distinct, career-defining persona as Bollywood's flirtatious, loveable rake. Be it Dil Chahtaa Hai or Kal Ho Naa Ho, Hum Tum or Salaam Namaste, he epitomises the new age lover boy--eternally urban, suave and a lot of fun. There's much that makes Saif appealing to the young--he's easy-going and cool rather than serious and passionate, smart and sharp rather than deep and intense, and more intuitive than profound--quite like his real self. His off-screen alliance with diva Kareena Kapoor, intently followed by the media, has earned them the title "Saifeena". The star is in the news again with his production house Illuminati Films' first venture--a big-scale, youthful love story called Love Aaj Kal. Enough reason for us to chose him as the Love Guru of our romance special.
Riding high on hype and curiosity, Love Aaj Kal is a contemporary romance spanning two generations with Deepika Padukone as Saif's love interest. Set in San Francisco, London, Delhi and Calcutta, it is directed by Bollywood's romanticist of the season, Imtiaz Ali of Jab We Met fame. At the Illuminati office an old world, black and white portrait of lady love, Kareena, rests on the side table; a good luck note scribbled by her has been framed as a prized display. We are watching tracks from the film--the catchy Chor Bazaari, mellow Dooriyan and, of course, Twist, which Saif's daughter Sara finds "rocking" and is the new hit on the dance floors.
A self-possessed Saif, distinct in a colourful bandana with Kareena's name tattooed in Hindi on his left hand, begins with prosaic conversation--how good it feels to have moved from Lokhandwala to Bandra and instructions to the cook on making perfect sandwiches. Then he effortlessly slips into the role we have assigned him and shares his mind on love, romance, relationships and commitment over tea, papaya, cookies and sandwiches on his wind-swept Bandra balcony.
Excerpts from an interview.
Why did you choose a love story as your maiden production? Were you not working on Agent Vinod?
It was actually more to do with choosing a director who we wanted to work with than the story. When we met Imtiaz Ali, he wanted to make one of two or three stories into a film. But he was tilting more towards this subject. Agent Vinod was always a concept that we wanted to make. The script has taken a lot of work and it wasn't ready so we thought we would do that second. A lot is determined by the director you choose. In some productions, a script is created and owned by the production house and then a director is found to direct it. In my experience it works better if you team up with a director who then has a film that he wants to make as opposed to selling an idea to a director. Agent Vinod has been our idea and Sriram Raghavan has written it and worked on it. Love Aaj Kal is Imtiaz all the way.
It's not that we started off by saying that let's definitely make a love story even though I am happy we eventually did. As a production house we would like to make commercial films that appeal to the entire country and to the Indian diaspora. We thought it would be the most widely appealing. Originally, it was set in Bombay and Delhi. We enlarged the scale to a film based in London and San Francisco, then coming back to Delhi. The end of the story has also been changed.
It was a bitter sweet end initially and finally Imtiaz agreed to a happier, a more satisfying ending.
So, are you implying that romance is the most bankable subject in Bollywood?
A love story is not necessarily bankable; the connect is important. It's a fairly typical idea to make a love story but within that form we were looking for something contemporary and new. Our attempt was to push the envelope within the boundaries of a typical romance, a fresh new take with dialogue and scenarios that people can identify with.
Imtiaz is a perfect director to try and do that with.
In what ways have you pushed the envelope?
What makes a love story dramatic is what the lovers go through in order to survive and that's not always something as clichd as a father who doesn't want the marriage to happen. It could be inner turmoil, it could be confusions of one's own mind, it could be the pressures of your job. The film is about what happens to the relationship after the couple have broken up. They end up seeing other people; they might even get married to other people. What we have shown is real problems in a modern context.
Falling in love doesn't need much of an effort but to stay in love is the challenge. Most films don't deal with what happens a year and a half later. Abroad you do have Revolutionary Road, Bridges of Madison County, Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?-- more mature love stories looking at what happens to a couple when the romance gets over.
Of late Hindi film romances have become tame, there is no rebellion.
Earlier lovers fought society, religion, caste, tradition. What are they fighting now?
I think they are fighting each other. They are fighting within. They are fighting for a balance between the professional and the personal. There are so many choices
The threats to the relationship is what our film is about--personal ambition, the changing role of women, the fact that they are equal most of the time to men. The role of women has changed, so men need to be more evolved in their thinking. I think both the partners need to be more evolved because it's not black and white any more.
Are we romantic anymore? Are we too individualistic to care about relationships?
You can compare it to mountaineering. Your base camp is your marriage but the peaks you conquer have to be done by you alone. Without a healthy base camp you will find those peaks harder to conquer. And if you are too busy conquering peaks you might come back to find there is no base camp left. That's why words like commitment and trust come in. Relationships are not easy to maintain. Sometimes it's just easier to let go of them. Because you might find that your work is more stable and more faithful and pretty much consistently gives back to you what you give it. So we tend to trust that a little more. Whether or not marriage is a successful institution in the new millennium is what we need to figure out.
Rather than high passion and pure love a lot of films today are about the fine line differentiating love from friendship.
For me it's been quite clear as to whether I think of someone as a friend or a lover but I think it's pretty beautiful to be confused about it.
It could have the makings of a very deep relationship. Love can be a little selfish, involves your ego. Friendship is warmer and more accepting. You will accept things from friends that you won't from a lover. You don't judge them so much. They can say or do whatever they want. But if a lover says something wrong it can make you jealous, edgy. You can be attracted to the wrong person. But it's not that often that you are friends with the wrong person.
Tell us a bit more about the film…
It's the story of Jai and Meera who live in London
One is into engineering, other is into restoration of paintings and frescoes of national monuments. He doesn't understand that, like he doesn't understand his own mind. He doesn't believe in love as romantic love. He thinks it should be short-lived and does not think in terms of love stories like Romeo and Juliet. That's just a film or a book or a play for him. He decides to lead his life practically and they end up working on different continents. He pretty much decides to break up with her at pretty much the beginning of the movie. His journey of realising how much he needs her and what happens to their relationship after they have broken up is the film. What makes them come back together again. The point is not the story but how it happens. It's a much more interesting relationship when you are still involved with a girl you have technically stopped seeing. You enjoy each other in different ways. You have a different level of freedom with each other. They really don't have that thing of being GF-BF. They are not bound by each other. I think that's fairly new. It's a journey, from being a practical guy, who thinks that Romeo and Juliet don't exist, to realising that he feels about her like the way Romeo felt about Juliet…
There's another story, about Vir Singh, the young Rishi Kapoor (who owns a coffee shop) and he doesn't like what's happening in today's generation. I play him when he is young. His love story is relatively very simple and pure. I wish it was that simple for us, that a guy could just decide on seeing a girl that this is it. That this is the only girl for him for the rest of his life. The film is about love today and yesterday. It's about love these days.
If you look at cinema of earlier times, your mother's films… The love stories were all about larger-than-life passion. Do you think that a passionate love story can work…
Anything can work but it depends on the treatment. Some stories, the obstacles you go through, aren't realistic any more. Times do change. Classics are eternal, you can pretty much adapt them. Some stories would be everlasting. When we made Parineeta, which was a lovely story, at the end of it, my character is supposed to break this wall symbolically but the audience didn't digest it. A lot of people have issues with that. Sometimes the collective feeling of no this won't work today… Some classics are enduring. Romeo and Juliet is applicable today. That story works, in others the idiom needs to change.
What do you think of yourself as a romantic hero?
I see myself happier and more comfortable doing films like Race, Omkara, Being Cyrus and Ek Haseena Thi. It's not in my nature to be a messiah of happiness in saccharine romances. I find it more realistic to my nature to play slightly darker roles. May be because everyone said I was like a chocolate boy when I was starting out that I decided to go towards the darker roles; to be more manly.
Even my choice of watching films and the books that I read tend to be a little darker. Having said that I would like to change it.
Why?
Because I think it's more positive and therapeutic to spread a little more love and happiness than deal in the darkness of a Langda Tyagi (of Omkara) all the time. It is therapeutic to act in those films. It helps you sort out your head.
Which romantic films have you liked?
Gone with the Wind was a great movie because it also showed the changing times. The original Devdas is also about a changing India. But I really don't like love stories. I prefer The Matrix and Star Wars though there is a love story in them also.
Is it less challenging/inspiring to play a typical romantic hero?
On the contrary. For that glow you have to have the energy for the camera and purity in your eyes and the light to shine forth from you. I imagine it's an exhausting process. Perhaps it's easier to be a brooding, dark actor.
You had earlier spoken about women…Are women in romances more proactive now? Were they more submissive earlier?
If you look at the great romances, women have always been proactive. Juliet, what she does at the age of 14, is pretty unheard of. Taking a stand against her father, marrying against his wishes, looking dead and then killing herself. These are not really submissive, passive things. Today there is genuine opportunities for women and they are as busy and successful in same fields as men. That needs some understanding.
What makes a screen couple click?
Screen chemistry is hard to create. All too often real life lovers have no chemistry on screen because there is no tension between them. And sometimes two people who have not known each other, who haven't spoken much, look amazing. Lots of time, chemistry is created by the script and the situations that the characters are put in. We all have energies and some of our energies suit other people more.
What do you think of Imtiaz as a director?
Love Aaj Kal is very mature and at the same time very commercial. Imtiaz sees it very beautifully and artistically. We are both striving for something special. He is looking for that in his writing. It is pretty ordinary for two people to be in love but within that to find extraordinary feelings and moments and looking for greater heights within their relationship, that's quite something. He is an artiste, he is a wanderer. He has that vibe about him. And his true home seems to be in the pages and the lines he writes. I find him very loyal to his work and deeply committed.
Have you seen any of his films?
Only Jab We Met…
And did you like it despite not being the romantic movie buff?
Exactly.
Do you see atypical romances working in a country like India? Can you imagine a Revolutionary Road being made here?
I am sure but then we have another issue which is that I believe that I like to watch films that help me escape from my world. I don't necessarily subscribe to thought-provoking cinema. Even though I am happy that not everyone agrees with me and that there are a lot of thought-provoking films. Films that make you think is a function of cinema. But, honestly, given a choice between watching Revolutionary Road and Matrix, or the new Bond film, I will go for the escapist cinema.
I eat popcorn and forget about my life for 2-3 hours. Most of the world subscribes to it. That's why The Terminator made more money than Revolutionary Road. I like acting in escapist films also, like Race. As a production house there should be a balance. We should make Being Cyrus and Omkara and yes we should make Love Aaj Kal. I read a lot of stories. I am deeply interested in the supernatural, the occult, folk tales, ghost stories. I'd like to make a Western set in 1857 about two adventurers. Make a film about two kids in a college or boarding school in India, what they go through.
Is your next film Qurbaan also a love story?
It is the most topical, relevant film that I am doing. It's about terrorism and there is a love story in it. It explains beautifully the difference between the moderate Islam and the fundamentalists. As a Muslim, I am happy to be a part of the film. People who kill people in the name of religion are not Muslims… It's a complicated issue. Since the Crusades when Saladin was fighting King Richard, the Muslims have been fighting the Christians. It's complicated, but you have to be black and white about it and say that I don't think you are a good Christian if you kill and your aren't a good Muslim if you kill. I might be simplistic but it has to be that simple. When we start blurring the lines, it becomes too complex. Rule number 1 should be that you should not kill. Christians have done it under the Pope in the Middle-East, the first four crusades throughout the Middle Ages. It's nothing new. It happens the minute you start talking of one God. Violence seems to be the bedrock of a monotheistic religion. But the point is that Islam is a beautiful religion, if there's any religion in the world that is beautiful any more. Personally I would be more inclined to being spiritual. I do namaaz but I won't say I do it five times. It's a very private equation with God. And I believe in an Almighty Force…I believe in spirituality and karma. A mix with some sort of Buddhism makes sense to me.
But why is the hero always a Hindu and heroine a Muslim…
Why is that? Do you think there's something pretty about a Muslim girl with her head covered? It's very interesting. There must be a reason. It could be just as simple as a Muslim girl being a delicate, soft, protected person. I haven't really thought about it. Is there something poetic or beautiful about that? Doing adaab, being gentle? I think lot of these girls seem to be the soft-spoken, protected, burqa types.
How does an intimate relationship like yours and Kareena's play out when you are under intense media and public gaze?
It's like asking how you manage to function in India, driving to town and being recognised at signals. It's not an issue at all. There are other issues, as in any other relationship. When two people are working in the same profession, with same pressures and ambitions, I think a commitment is more important than ever. When you are married you are going in the same direction. But before you are married the pressures might pull you in different directions.
So you support commitment and marriage in these deeply cynical times?
I could very well be on my own today. But I think it's beautiful to be in a loving relationship. And to make that work, whatever it takes. Sometimes it might not be easy but it makes everything worthwhile.Romance is an expression of love. Of showing the other person how special they are. It's not about money, it's about imagination. Like in this electronic world, writing a letter might be such a beautiful thing. There will always be room for romance. You just need to reinvent and be a little different.
And so the next, Agent Vinod, will not be romantic, it'll be a Bond kind of film?
Bond is a little camp. He is basically a celebration of the West, capitalism being superior to communism. Bond lost his relevance with the fall of the Iron Curtain. This has got nothing to do with Bond, Vodka Martini and hot chicks. It's Special Forces kind of Indian hero on an international stage dealing with relevant issues of global terrorism. He is an answer to that. Efficient, slick and lethal answer that we can feel proud of as a representative of the Indian government.
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