Lovestruck

dharmesh darshan breaks his silence and speaks out to suresh nair about mela, dhadkan and why his new film is titled hanh... maine bhi pyaar kiya. why on earth would a film be titled hanh... maine bhi pyaar kiya? the answer — a) you are sooraj barjatya and keen on making a sequel to maine pyaar kiya; or b) you have run out of ideas for an original title.well, if you are right on both counts. unless your name is dharmesh darshan. everyone falls in love in my film, reasons the soft-spoken, bespectacled filmmaker whose dhadkan had almost stopped after a messy mela last year. and if you probe further, he will reveal why his film is called hanh... maine bhi pyaar kiya. because that's how abhishek bachchan declares his love for karisma kapoor on celluloid. and that's also how akshay kumar declares his love to karisma. that apart, hindi commercial cinema is nothing but music and the title track of my film best captures this declaration of love. by now you know that hanh... maine bhi pyaar kiya is a kinda love triangle — a couple (aby's baby and lolo) and another man (khiladi kumar) in their life. otherwise, darshan is only too happy to reveal that his is an extremely romantic film. because romantic films are forte — like <>raja hindustani and i>dhadkan. so you could see this as a trilogy. but coming back to the title, dharmesh darshan is hardly hassled by the fact that hanh... seems to bring back memories of the time when sooraj barjatya ne bhi pyaar kiya. hey, there are only so many words in hindi, justifies the director. and maine pyaar kiya came over a decade ago. if i had let that affect me, i would have lost out on a good title. as for being compared to the rajshri whizkid, darshan is only too happy about it. after all, now they can share a cup of cappucino and tell each other, yeah, maine pyaar kiya! hanh... maine bhi pyaar kiya. dharmesh darshan slips into a flashback and recalls his last film. i was happy with dhadkan, he says. every film can't be a raja hindustani. but it did very well. and it was remarkable for the simple fact that the film didn't even have a slap, considering two action heroes (akshay kumar and sunil shetty) were playing romantic heroes for a change. but it made me feel proud when sunil, whom every critic had written off as an actor, got every award for his performance. and while akshay grew as an actor, shilpa shetty signed ten films after dhadkan. but little further down memory lane and we stumble over mela — a film that darshan is almost hesitant to talk about. no comments, he says and then admits after a pause, i completely accept it as a failure. come on, i could go wrong once at least. the lesson learnt from mela? that your greatest success can be your greatest failure and vice versa, analyses darshan. the fact that failure of mela came after the success of raja hindustani made me realise what my audience wants. because dhadkan was just a modest project compared to mela which had big stars in it. darshan also admits that while he usually has a script before casting the main roles, things were different with mela. it was the only time i had the stars first and the script later — to incorporate faisal khan. cutting back to the present, dharmesh darshan promises one thing in all his films — good music. but that apart, he's banking heavily on the real-life chemistry between abhishek and karisma to do wonders for his film. you have to see the magic they have together on the screen, he says. it's actually fun to watch abhishek say i love you to karishma. and karishma say the same to someone else. in fact, i have never seen her telling anybody that. while darshan admits that he's put his heart into his latest film, he is well aware of what happens to the relationship between stars and directors after the failure of a film. so he is not sure what his equation with aamir khan is after mela. i haven't met him for two years, he says with a smile. i will find out about our relationship only after i meet him.