http://www.glamsham.com/movies/scoops/06/jan/24kamlesh.asp
Kamlesh Pandey - gung ho about RANG DE BASANTI
By Nitin n Sethi, Bollywood Trade News Network
"Till date as a writer I had been just writing what others either
wanted or expected from me and hence hired me to write. I think I have
had enough of it. Now that I do not have to prove to any one about my
capability, I have decided to write what I want. And my latest release
as a writer- Rakyesh Mehra's RANG DE BASANTI is one subject with which
I am literally gung ho about." That is Kamlesh Pandey the veteran
writer who holds forth on his current pet obsession- RANG DE BASANTI
starring Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Siddharth, Atul Kulkarni and Kunal
Kapoor. Kamlesh who had started his career, as a writer with Pankaj
Parashar's JALWA, has indeed come a long way. Among the films that he
has written are TEZAAB, CHALBAAZ, DIL, SAUDAGAR, KHALNAYAK and BETA.
Right now, Kamlesh is excited with the course his career has taken
him. Two of his films are seeing the light of the day in January-
Sanjay Gupta's ZINDA and Rakyesh Mehra's RANG DE BASANTI. "I am
excited about both the films. While I have just written the dialogues
of ZINDA, which has been inspired by a South Korean film called Old
BOY, I have written the screenplay and dialogues of RANG DE BASANTI,
which is essentially Rakyesh Mehra's baby. Kamlesh adds. "Luckily
Rakyesh and I share the same emotions and concerns. RANG DE BASANTI
may have a cynical point of view but I think it is the wake up call or
today's youth, who seem to have compromised with the two monoliths-
the corporate and the family, who shape you, who actually shape your
mind and make you believe what they want you to believe". Kamlesh is
happy that Aamir Khan has loved only two subjects in the last ten
years- SARFAROSH and RANG DE BASANTI. "The way Aamir has accommodated
himself so beautifully and dissolved himself in the group is to be
seen to be believed." Kamlesh adds.
The under current of the film RANG DE BASANTI, according to Kamlesh is
what would Bhagat Singh had done if only he was alive today. "I wrote
RANG DE BASANTI out of a sense of anger because under the guise of
cinema, we only find crap cropping up every now and then. I had grown
up on as staple diet of Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor as a child. I belong to
the school, which thinks that a film ought to have some substance and
set out to say something." Kamlesh adds, " I have used a very odd
structure for the film, which was very difficult. I feel that it is
the director's vision, which has to take over once my script is ready
because it is the director who sets out to execute on celluloid what
the writer writes on paper. It is creditable that Rakyesh has
delivered what he had promised"
Kamlesh laments the fact that though we claim to be the biggest film
industry in the world, we do not even have a film course or workshops
for screenplay writing in even a single university. Kamlesh adds. "It
is pathetic that we do not have even half a dozen competent writers
though we claim to produce around 800 films in a year. India has been
unfair to writers who I feel have not been given their due credit and
status. No wonder almost 95% of the films released every year flop
miserably. Though the media is ready to write reams and reams about
any girl who is willing to take off her clothes, it does not bother to
respect writers who are treated like illegitimate children."
Kamlesh who has also written for TV serials like Mrs Madhuri Dixit
says that though he is out of television more or less because he is
not able to relate to the vision people have of television, says that
he couldn't say no when Ekta Kapoor approached him with the offer to
be on her panel of writers and supervise her serial Kahani Ghar Ghar
Ki with his story inputs. Says Kamlesh, "I have known Ekta right from
the time I had commissioned her TV serial Hum Paanch for Zee TV almost
a decade ago."
Kamlesh Pandey is not ready to just sit on his laurels now that both
ZINDA and RANG DE BASANTI have reached the winning post. He has
started working on two projects for Rakyesh Mehra for whom,
incidentally he had also written AKS with which Rakyesh has made his
debut as a director. "One of the two films will be DELHI 6, which will
be a light hearted film about real people in flesh and blood who
inhabit Chandni Chowk in Delhi while the other one will be a musical
called BHAIRAVI for which A R Rahman has promised to compose music
provided Rakyesh is ready to wait for two years."
Kamlesh PandeyKamlesh Pandey has added one more feather to his already
crowded cap by writing a stage musical called Bharathi for Pashagoshi
Productions from Israel, who have earlier produced several stage
musicals like The Fiddler On The Roof, Phantom of The Opera etc. "I
was given a brief to write a stage musical on India with 14 popular
Bollywood songs and weave a story on India. It is a live show with
Bhavana Pani, daughter of writer-director Uday Shankar Pani in the
title role. Ganesh Acharya, Remo and Jojo Khan have done the
choreography for the live show, which consists of 60 dancers from
India. The play has run for a month and a half in Israel in the Hebrew
language and is now all set to open in France on January 26 this year
in French."
Regards,
Shah Navas
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