Face Off with Javed Jafferi

8220;Thirty Plus.8221; Age, he believes, is a state of mind, but admits that plus is five years.

Married?

Yes. And quite happily, with two kids to boot.

How much has he grown in these 35 years? Enough to forget Meri Jung as a bad experience and make a fresh attempt to fan the Fire inside him?

8220;I have matured as an actor and as a person.8221; He has no complaints about the roles he chose in the initial stages of his career, though he feels he could have planned it all better.

Can Fire then be considered a turning point in his career?

8220;Well, the turning point came much before that with Oh Darling, Yeh Hai India. It was a complex role and I did a good job. But full credit to Fire, because it didn8217;t require the standard attributes that make an actor in Bollywood 8212; dancing and fighting.8221;

But what went wrong? His filmcareer never really took off8230;

8220;Well, I have always been a sort of a drifter. Never was quite persuasive with people.8221; Looking back, he thinks it was lack of PR that did him in. He doesn8217;t drink, doesn8217;t smoke and claims that he doesn8217;t even like to indulge in small talk. All this proved to be a big handicap for him in a industry which eats, sleeps, breathes gossip.

But never mind. Whatever cinema couldn8217;t get him, television has 8212; name, fame and loads of money. And that brings us to Videocon Flashback. Why has the show ended abruptly?

8220;I really don8217;t know. From what I have heard, the channel has some problems with the sponsors.

Is he then, no longer with Channel V?

8220;Well I was never a Channel V employee. I was just freelancing for them.8221; He also tells us that the channel does want him to do a show for them, but the details haven8217;t been worked out yet.

To come back to Videocon Flashback, how much of the script of this show 8212; the wacky one-liners, the word play, thejokes 8212; came out of his mind?

8220;It was a team effort. There was Imtiaz Bagdadi who did the research, there was Arshad, there was Manu Chopra8230; they all contributed to the script. I supplied my style, my language and my ability to mimic actors.8221;

But there was a distinct Javed Jafferi stamp all over it.

8220;Yes, that8217;s because the script writers were intelligent8230; they understood my style, my thought process and I was comfortable with them.8221;

But didn8217;t he get into trouble with the people he lampooned on screen?

After all, he wasn8217;t very kind to Dharam papaji or Kaka, aka, Rajesh Khanna.

8220;No. Never. Dharmendra, who8217;s known for his fiery temper, in fact called and appreciated me. I have run into Rajesh Khanna several times, he hasn8217;t complained even once.8221;

What next, then?

Well he is going to concentrate this year on the things that he always wanted to do. And it8217;s quite an interesting line-up 8212; a film, a TV serial and an album. But he would notdivulge any details about any of the three at this stage. The film, though, he tells us will be directed by Sangeet Sivan, the director of the Sunny Deol-Sushmita Sen starrer, Zor.

Will he also act in the film?

Yes, he will, alongwith co-directing the film which will have a very strong element of music.

And what is this one-liner-a-minute8217; man most likely to say?

8220;I love your nostrils, I like your tonsils, to a woman when she laughs aloud.8221;

And what is he least likely say?

quot;!amp;amp; That8217;s censored!