Girija Shankar goes bananas!

Girija Shankar, who we know as the actor who played Dhritarashtra, Duryodhana''s helpless father in B R Chopra''s Mahabharat, will finally have something more to him than the role that made him so popular.
He''s making his directorial debut with an English film called Banana Brothers. Shot in San Francisco, it''s about two men who go to the US to settle down and realise their dream to make it big, albeit after a fair share of trials and tribulations.Besides its unusual title, Banana Brothers has another highlight - the language. While the actors would speak English, they would break into Hindi, Gujarati and Punjabi whenever the scene demands..
Anupam Kher and Gursevak Maan (brother of pop singer and actor Harbhajan Maan) play the two brothers who, mind you, are not ‘brothers'' as in ‘brothers''. They actually are two strangers who eventually become friends. How does the title fit in? Says Shankar, "It so happens that one day disappointed by their luck, the two are just talking to each other saying, ‘Kuch ban na padega brother, kuch banana padega'' and that''s when they stumble upon this idea of of setting up an enterprise which they then call Banana Brothers. So you see, the title has got nothing to do with the fruit."
Produced by Shankar''s company Ocean Media International, the film''s story and screenplay has been co-written by Shankar''s wife Malvinder and Dhieraj Mohan. Of late, there has been an increase in the ABCD kind of films and so how is Banana Brothers different from them? "It talks about the pressures, the problems the NRIs face when they set foot on foreign shores."
It was during the course of Shankar''s acting assignments in films directed by NRI directors that he came across this interesting idea: "There is a growing community of actors, actresses, technicians who are Indians, but can''t fit into the mainstream cinema in US. They need a platform to perform. So in my film, I have used talented Indians from the US, and Canada." Shankar''s technical team comprises of names from Hollywood.