Better Halves

Finally,she decided to take the plunge last year with Kuchh Love Jaisa. “I had written this script of a housewife and a gangster long ago. I needed an actor who resembled a housewife. I approached Shifaali Shah,who immediately agreed,” she says. When Shah’s producer-husband Vipul read the script,he promptly decided to produce it.

DEEPA BHATIA
Bhatia and her husband Amole Gupte make a formidable duo. “He took seven years to write Taare

Zameen Par. And I took five years to write and direct Nero’s Guests,” smiles the debutante filmmaker,who is one of India’s talented editors. Unlike most filmmakers,Bhatia chose to take up the sensitive issue of farmer suicides for her directorial debut. “This issue is really important to me and relevant today,” she says of the movie,which is currently doing the festival rounds. But in her newfound vocation,Gupte has been a contributor too. “Amole helped me translate the Marathi poem which is important for the film,” she says. “Since he is my milestone,I also worked pretty hard on my script.”

Gauri Shinde
Being R Balki’s wife can be an advantage and a disadvantage. However,I hope it works in my favour,” says Shinde,a reputed ad filmmaker who will follow in her husband’s footsteps and turn director by year-end. “I was in New York when I came up with this story idea. I have it penned down,but the project is yet to go on floors,” says the 36-year-old,while maintaining that any sort of comparison with her husband’s films should be avoided. “Although I bounce all my ideas off him,we have very different opinions.” Her husband’s foray into filmmaking seems to have scared her,but only a bit. “It has been quite an emotionally-driven career for him and he seems to have given it his everything,which really scares me at times.”

Deepa Sahi
“The first step towards direction came with the beer-biryani sessions,where people read my script and gave me constructive feedback. My husband,Ketan Mehta,too was a part of it,” says Sahi,who after 25 years in Bollywood,is finally set to wield the megaphone for a lighthearted no-holds-barred romantic film Na Na Karte Pyaar,starring Hema Malini and Nana Patekar.

“Believe it or not I joined the industry to make films. Since I had no sugar daddies,I was advised to become an actress first. But when I realised that the producers had complete control I turned one too. Right now,I feel I am ready to take the plunge as a director,” states Sahi,who has produced and acted in films like Maya

Memsaab and Aar Ya Paar. “All these years,I have been producing my husband’s films. For him,it’s payback time now.”