The Telegraph - Calcutta : Metro

‘For a dad, son comes first’
Returning to celluloid after more than a decade, producer ROMESH SHARMA turns director with his son Karan’s launch film Dil Jo Bhi Kahey. He speaks to Pratim D. Gupta about the Bachchan-Revathy-starrer and what makes it special
Romesh Sharma

It’s been more than 15 years since you produced Hum. Where were you all this time?

After Hum, I made the Bengali film Bondhu starring Danny Denzongpa and Tapas Pal. Then I made the same film in Hindi with a different actor in place of Tapas. But at that time, I didn’t get distributors to release the Hindi film. Now, necessity being the mother of invention, I ventured into television and turned that film into a TV series called Ajnabee for DD Metro. From there on, I got sucked into the world of television and made three or four major soaps like Usool and Tulsi. I myself never realised how all these years went by.

So what brought you back to celluloid?

I knew I had to get back to films at some point of time. I made this 42-episode French television series Cest La Vie (This Is Life), which is the original of Dil Jo Bhi Kahey. That enjoyed 87.6 per cent viewership and was a big success there. So it was already tested for a small market. My son Karan, who plays the lead in Dil Jo…, also played the lead there. Hence, we decided to make the Hindi film which will see me debut as a director and Karan as the hero.

Wasn’t it boring, scripting the same story again?

When I was writing the Hindi script, I had to block out the French tele-series from my mind. It was left in the sub-conscious level only. I just disconnected from what had happened. So writing the film was a major exercise and it took a lot of time. At every stage I was ensuring that it was different from the television series despite the story being the same.

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