Making ‘Teri Meri Kahaani’ was three times more difficult: Kohli

“I wanted it to appeal to everyone. So I have created humour and situations which would be liked by everyone,” the ‘Hum Tum’ director told PTI.

Kohli says he chose the era of 1910 because he wanted to show a different take on the freedom struggle. Priyanka plays a Punjabi belle in the segment while Shahid is a complete casanova.

“Everyone takes a very serious approach to that part of the history. It is unromantic and non-colourful. My attitude to the freedom movement was different. Shahid plays a complete casanova. I thought it would be interesting to show a character like this in the middle of freedom movement.”

While recreating pre-independence India was tough,Kohli had more fun working on the disco era of the 1960s Bollywood.

It is full of references to his favourites – Raj Kapoor,Dev Anand,Dilip Kumar and Shammi Kapoor,the actors who ruled Bollywood at that time.

“It was tough but great fun. I was remaking an era where I was bound to get influenced by people like Raj Kapoor,shammiji,Dilip Kumarji and Dev Anand. You will see a little bit of all these stars. We created make-up,studios and trams of that era.”

Kohli is returning to the big screen as a director after a gap of four-years. He last directed ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’. In between,he turned producer with Imran Khan-Deepika Padukone starrer ‘Break Ke Baad’.

“The break was not planned. It was just that I was busy producing a film and it is was as involving as making a movie.”

Kohli,who writes his own scripts,says it is more difficult to direct from own story as you can’t blame anyone for the failure.

“Writing is a very lonely process because you are by yourself for a long time but I got help from Robin Bhatt for the screenplay this time. There are certain things that people expect from my movies and I try to live up to that,” he said.