'The audience has accepted Tere Ishk Mein with all its flaws. My film doesn't need any other validation.'
"Success, good, failure, even better. What is there to say?" Aanand L Rai tells Subhash K Jha, as his latest film Tere Ishk Mein becomes a hit.
The film drew almost unanimous flak for portraying such dark love, and so bloody, especially in the end.
Aanand agrees: "I was aware that audiences may get put off by the last hour. But tell me, aren't life and relationships like that? Messy? Our cinema tends to sanitise relationships. Leave out the mess. I don't mind keeping it messy, even at the risk of seeming confused. Conflicts are also a part of my DNA as a filmmaker."
Tere Ishk Mein is being questioned for the two protagonists' erratic behaviour but Aanand is unapologetic.
"Yeh dono aise hi hain (these two are like that). Shankar and Mukti are mixed up and foggy in their heads. They are not consistent in their behaviour. They are not even trustworthy. You wouldn't ask either Shankar or Mukti to babysit your child. They are what they are, take it or leave it," he says.
Luckily for Aanand, audiences have chosen to accept them, along with their flaws.
"I believe it's the flaws that make us who we are. What would we be if we were all perfect human beings? That would make a very boring world. I cannot tell you how hard we have worked on the film: Dhanush, Kriti Sanon, Prakash Raj, Tota Roy Chowdhury, my writers Himanshu Sharma and Neeraj Yadav, cinematographers Tushar Kanti Ray and Vishal Sinha, A R Rahman... all of us have given our blood, sweat and tears. Then we put in the middle of these cross currents..."
"Ek teraf logon ka pyaar, doosre taraf critics' ki gaaliyan."
"You said you loved the sequence when Kriti comes to Dhanush and his father's hovel and the father offers her dinner. That sequence for me was the entire film. Poori film ek taraf aur yeh sequence ek teraf. I know where I have scored and where I have gone wrong.
"The audience has accepted Tere Ishk Mein with all its flaws. I cannot be more grateful. My film doesn't need any other validation."
Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff
