First Strike

The promos of Ishqiya suggest that Abhishek Chaubey,like his guru,the multi faceted film director Vishal Bhardwaj likes his cinema to be gritty,real and coolly irreverent.

After assisting Vishal Bhardwaj for six years,Abhishek Chaubey is ready with his first film,Ishqiya

The promos of Ishqiya suggest that Abhishek Chaubey,like his guru,the multi faceted film director Vishal Bhardwaj likes his cinema to be gritty,real and coolly irreverent. Starring Arshad Warsi,Naseeruddin Shah and Vidya Balan as gangsters on the run,Ishqiya appears to have a rustic,edgy feel that Chaubey says he relates to,from his own childhood in Faizabad,Uttar Pradesh. Or it could simply be the Bhardwaj impact. But Chaubey,32,is quietly confident and unfazed by criticism floating around in film circles that his work is a shadow of his mentor. I take pride in saying I graduated from the Bhardwaj school of cinema, says Chaubey. For the last six years,hes worked in different capacities for Bhardwaj,right from his films Makdee to Omkara.

Chaubey is currently stitching together the final cut of the overseas print of Ishqiya,that releases in India on January 29. Similarities to Bhardwajs style are pronounced: different Hindi dialects from the rural heartlands of UP creep into the script,rustic slang is unapologetically used,and then,as a twist,theres a not-so-subtle suggestion that Balan is a nymphomaniac. Chaubey argues,that at its core its a story about the adventures and the love story of two thieves. My inspirations are the sleazy characters operating in UP, explains Chaubey,an English literature graduate from Hindu College,DU.

His first venture in the Indian film industry was as assistant director in the 2001 romantic flick Shararat. Though the movie flopped,Chaubey got a break as an assistant in Bhardwajs low-budget thriller,Makdee. When we were wrapping up Makdee,Vishal handed me the first draft of Maqbool, recalls Chaubey,who went on to assist and co-write for his subsequent projects. In Ishqiya also,Chaubey has co-written the script with Bhardwaj and Sabrina Dhawan. Vishal told me if I want to direct a film I have to develop my own story, says Chaubey and when questioned about the similarity between Ishqiya and Omkara,he adds,The resemblance is purely cosmetic as youll soon see.

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