After Parvin its Maneesh's flick in Hansraj

Just a couple of Hansraj alumni in B’town still comeays ago, we told you that Parvin Dabbas had come to shoot portions of his forthcoming flick at his college, Hansraj, in DU. And now, upcoming director Maneesh Sharma, a Hansraj alumnus, has based his next flick in the college. The story is about two DU students who start an enterprise based around Delhi’s wedding culture.
But the Bollywood association is not new for the college, says principal Dr VK Kawatra. Shah Rukh Khan has been the star alumnus, while Shiney Ahuja is now the black sheep. When Anurag Kashyap was making Dev.D, he shot some portions of it in the college. Not only that, he also asked one of his lecturers, Sanjay Kumar, to play the role of Kalki’s father. We met Sanjay recently and he said, “Even though technically, Anurag wasn’t my student since I teach English and he was in the Zoology department, he would interact a lot with me.” For six years, Anurag was associated with him and other Hansraj students, who were in the college’s dramatics society, says Kumar. He added, “We then began an independent theatre group, Pandies, and Anurag was associated with us since 1987-88.” Anurag went to pursue his Bollywood dreams, but the professor and student still kept in touch.
One fine day, says Kumar, Anurag called him and asked, “Sir, do you have an ideological problem with being in front of the camera?” To this, Kumar said, “Yes, unless the mind on the other side is you Anurag.” Anurag then sent him a ticket the next day and Kumar left for a two-and-a-half day shooting schedule for Dev.D. “We had a ball during the shoot. There are some portions which represent Canada but were actually shot a little distance away from Manali,” said Kumar.
While earlier, the very arty India Habitat Centre was used as an alibi for the university, it’s now good to see filmmakers finally shooting in DU when talking about it.
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