Entertainment


The Indian Tarrantino


31/ 5/2004

A REAL life Indian hit man was the inspiration behind new wave director Shashanka Ghosh's new film 'Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part 11'.
Bored with the usual Bollywood love stories, former advertising executive Ghosh wanted to try his hands at something new and slick and he hit on his idea after being introduced to a hitman by a friend.
Dressed in a sleek black suit, the hitman was a world away from the stereotypical Bollywood style gangster who is usually dressed in lungis, smoking a pipe with an entourage of bodyguards chewing and spitting pan.
Ghosh was quite impressed with this "modern" looking gangster and wondered what it would be like for an ordinary man to befriend a hitman.
This idea spiralled into his debut film 'Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part 11' where an advertising copyrighter gets caught up with a mobster. He single handedly manages to bring two rival gangs down without firing a shot, then escapes to Mumbai with a heap of cash.
The film has received rave reviews in India and will be released in the UK soon.
Ghosh who is making his mark as the new "Indian Tarantino" said: "I wanted to make a quick film that was different, entertaining, even bizarre when I came across a hitman during a meeting. A friend of mine introduced me to him and we got on really well. That's when I started toying with the film idea.
"Then I started making the story more inventive. I believe strange things happen in life as the title of the film reads. Life is like a black comedy and sometimes shit happens and that's how I perceived 'Waisa Bhi Hota Hai'.
"It is a commercial film that will appeal to all kinds of audiences. For instance, we showed the film to different sections of people and they all understood the common language.
"There are many scenes in the film taken from real life incidents. Even my experiences as an ad-man have been used."
Ghosh, who runs his own production company called Enrapture Multi Media, was in the UK recently attending the Raindance East film festival in London before travelling to Bradford and Leeds to talk to potential production companies based in the UK.
He is hoping to do a crossover film and is keen to work with organisations based in the UK and the US.
He said: "We have some really exciting projects on our slate and I think we are one of the first companies to come over here to seek partners for small budget films. There will be many more directors and producers like me coming here with 'crossover' projects because they make good business sense.
"Crossover films have been doing quite well already, if you look at Bend it Like Beckham, Monsoon Wedding and The Guru, they have al been hits in India and internationally, there a huge market for it."
Originally from Delhi, Ghosh didn't plan to go into films and wanted to be a chartered accountant as a youngster.
Instead he got into marketing and with help from a friend decided he wanted to get into advertising followed by a stint as a copywriter.
But he soon got bored and wanted to get into films.
He said: "A friend told me he had read an article in Playboy that MTV rejects 5,000 scripts in a month. We worked on some scripts and approached MTV. They hired me to make promos for them. These did well and I even received awards for some. I then joined Channel (V) and have enjoyed it there."
Ghosh is now working on his next venture - a Bollywood style cowboy film.


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