Thaindian News

By Subhash K. Jha
Mumbai, Jan 13 (IANS) Director Balki has halted his plans for his next feature film until his wife Gauri Shinde, whom he met in the advertising world, makes her first feature.

“She isn’t going to rush her script. And I’m willing to wait,” says the director who missed the Screen popular awards for best director and best film which went to Raj Kumar Hirani’s “3 Idiots” instead of “Paa”.

In fact, the director said he didn’t even want to attend the award ceremony.

“In all these years in advertising I never went for award functions for excellence in ad-making. Naturally I thought I’d extend the same attitude to filmmaking. However Mr. Bachchan and Abhishek wanted me to accompany them for the Screen awards so I went. It was fun! I was thrilled for Amitji, Vidya Balan, the child artiste who played Vishnu and Arundhati Nag.”

As for missing out on the awards for best director and best picture, Balki shrugged and said: “It just means more people saw ‘3 Idiots’ than ‘Paa’ which I gladly accept. I saw ‘3 Idiots’ too and had a good time. I thought Aamir Khan and Kareena Kapoor were fantastic.”

Balki is in fact thinking of working with Kareena, after having seen such outstanding work from Tabu in “Cheeni Kum” and Vidya Balan in “Paa”. “I’d also love to work with Deepika Padukone,” says Balki enthusiastically.

Since Big B will be in his next film, will Deepika star opposite the actor?

“Why not?” shoots back Balki. “It all depends on how far you stretch the boundaries of conventionality in cinema. For me there’s no point in making feature films if I don’t push the envelope. I might as well continue making ads.”

Despite his success, Balki is no mood to rest on his laurels. He has already started working on his next film, a comedy, written with Big B in mind.

Shedding light on the laughter that would emanate from his third feature film Balki says: “‘Cheeni Kum’ and ‘Paa’ were both humorous takes on what people saw as serious issues. But I never set out to make issue-based films. They just happened. I just want to entertain the audience intelligently. My comedy won’t be slapstick or situational. It would be a very specific situation and theme targeted at bringing out the amusing side of a particular aspect of our life.”