First cut FAME

Navdeep Singh
It8217;s a classic Bollywood first meeting. A hotshot director walks out of a blizzard of cigarette smoke, settles down on a plush sofa after the routine handshake, takes out another cigarette and while lighting it throws out the customary line: 8220;Do you mind if I smoke?8221; I always do but since this is the guy who came up with the clincher cigarette moment in recent film history I let him get away.
You couldn8217;t have missed it. Abhay Deol8217;s Satyaveer in Manorama Six Feet Under walks up to the nukkad ki paan shop to grab a cigarette. 8220;Ek Ramadoss dena,8221; he says. If films are made up of little touches and asides8212;you know the moment within a moment8212;Navdeep Singh is someone we can look forward to.

The yuppie debutant director of the gritty Manorama8212;India8217;s first true blue desi noir8212;has a distinct style of telling his story. Singh was born in Mumbai but his family8217;s Army background took him across the country. He learnt his cinema syntax from The Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Los Angeles.
Seven years of working in London and LA left him facing a question that haunts every filmmaker with a foreign degree. 8220;I could have hung around LA and made a film but I couldn8217;t see myself flipping burgers in the day and writing my script in the night. So I came back,8221; he smiles.
Back home, Singh went through the whole waiting-for-the-big-star-game. For six months, he tried to get a meeting organised with a top actor known for his intensity. 8220;After six months when I finally get some time, I get a call when I8217;m driving to the actor8217;s shoot that the meeting has been postponed for next week,8221; he reminisces.
Another actor who is trying desperately to make a comeback nixed Manorama with a one-liner, 8220;Main documentaries nahin karta.8221;
At this point, good friend Abhay Deol came to the rescue. He arranged a meeting with Shemaroo who agreed to come on board as the producers. Shooting in the rough and unfriendly terrain of Rajasthan wasn8217;t easy8212;8220;My actors had to rely on thermal underwear in the night sequences,8221; he jokes8212;but Singh needed the parched background to bring out the loneliness and lifelessness of his protagonist.
In times to come Manorama, that gets its title from the cult Hindi crime magazine Manohar Kahaniya, will be remembered for its crisp Hindi dialogues, lyrical camerawork by Arvind Kannabiran and Singh8217;s exquisite framing. The latter being a skill he honed as an ad film-maker.
Singh has shot the Milano Biscuit ad starring Hrithik Roshan as well as the Boondon mein jaane kya naya hai Maruti Alto commercial among others. See the way he has captured the reflection of a desert sundown in Deol8217;s aviator Ray Bans or Yana Gupta8217;s extremely sensual walk-on gypsy girl illusion and you will know.
Like his leading actors, Gupta wasn8217;t Singh8217;s original choice. 8220;I approached Shilpa Shetty who I had a massive crush on after her UP, Bihar number in Shool but we couldn8217;t afford her so we went to Yana who was second on my list,8221; he says.
Comparisons can be arduous and Singh has a tough one to face given that his film appears to be creatively inspired by Roman Polanski8217;s Jack Nicholson classic China Town. Something he doesn8217;t deny.
8220;In Bollywood inspiration has a different meaning,8221; he says, adding, 8220;I agree that my film shares a few plot points with China Town but I guess, it8217;s every film buff8217;s disease that references rub on quite unconsciously.8221; There8217;s a nice little tribute to China Town in Manorama when Deol is shown watching the film.
With Manorama, Singh has not only won half the battle of getting noticed but got the best in the industry raving. This is what Anurag Kashyap, another director who8217;s pushing the limits of Bollywood idiom, had to say about Singh. 8220;The attention to detailing that Navdeep has shown in the film makes you relook at what you have not been doing. It made me feel inadequate.8221;
The real break-in, however, will come with the big hit. So is Singh game to go for the commercial jamboree? 8220;If it8217;s something like a Main Hoon Na, that I can do but if you expect a Bollywood drama then I won8217;t be able to deliver because I find them fake and forced,8221; he says.
For his next film he8217;s toying with the idea of making either a psychological thriller or a ghost story, on the lines of Madhumati and Woh Kaun Thi. There8217;s also a dream to do a James Bond style OTT action comedy. Maybe then his mother wouldn8217;t say, 8220;Mera khayal hai ki mujhe Manorama Six Feet Under achchi lagi hai.8221;
Next time he wants to be very sure.

Manish Acharya
Ajit did it first. He coined the word 8220;Loin8221; and sampled the simultaneous charms of Mona and Sona. And now Manish Acharya has made a film with the memorable title, Loins of Punjab Presents.
Pegged on a desi music idol show for Bollywood lovers in New Jersey, the film is a heartwarming comedy that touches on the common truths of living and longing. 8220;The title is a little tribute to Ajit and also a good representation of my sense of humour,8221; says Acharya.
This Mumbai-born filmmaker grew up on a diet of the movies and claims to have seen every Hindi release including 8220;trashy ones like 8220;Kaatilon Ka Kaatil and Suraksha.8221;
But his love for cinema didn8217;t stop him from pursuing academics, for which he went to the USA. Acharya holds a degree in physics and industrial relations and co-founded a software company in USA. One fine day, he quit it all to enroll in the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film program.
8220;This is where I learnt to appreciate world cinema and the American independent films. I had always been a hardcore movie buff but earlier I was a victim of the marketing machine in the sense that I would only see mainstream Bollywood or Hollywood films,8221; he says.
So what8217;s the best lesson he got from the film school? 8220;That I can make entertaining comic films without pandering to the lowest common denominator,8221; he says.
And he8217;s gone on to do just that. The consensus in the industry is that Loins is a stylish comedy told extremely well. 8220;Loins released on the same day as Priyadarshan8217;s Dhol. Priyadarshan is known for his impeccable comedies. But after watching Manish8217;s film, you want to tell Priya to see this film because it8217;s such a short and sweet comedy,8221; says Amod Mehra, trade guru.
The story of how Loins came to be made goes like this: Manish and his buddy-cum-co-writer Anubhav Pal were chatting in a local New York cafeacute; about the immense interest of the West in all things Bollywood when they clinched the idea of the film, which was scripted entirely at Starbucks Union Square in Manhattan.
Thankfully Acharya stuck to the middle ground. Neither is his film another one of those pseudo-ABCD American Born Confused Desi flicks nor is it the Namesake-sque inspired cinema of NRIs finding their identity in foreign shores. Acharya8217;s film is a funny and evocative slice of life. It8217;s almost caricaturish but never derides the quirks and eccentricities of different communities. Watching it is like being invited to a breezy 90-minute party on screen.
The film works because of the originality of the idea and the humour in the situations. But Acharya scores the most on the characterisations. There is the Gujarati family who carries their own khakras, a Bhangra rapper who is neither a Sikh yet he wears a turban nor an African-American yet he likes to rap, there is an Indian girl and her foreigner boyfriend who sings our national anthem, an aspiring Bollywood actress who doesn8217;t speak Hindi and a manipulative socialite who wants to win at any cost. The common thread among all these tracks is the need to belong.
That8217;s something Acharya feels strongly about since he spent close to 19 years in America. 8220;When you live alone you become more observant of life around you. I noticed that everyone who lives away from home thinks of belonging, of defining 8216;home8217;, of a self-image. I thought it would be interesting to depict that through a comedy, through songs, through characters that don8217;t normally populate cinema screens,8221; he says.
Loins was not his intended first feature debut, 8220;because I couldn8217;t outline the commercial prospects of the film; it was like trying to sell a Woody Allen film in Hindi.8221; The most difficult part about the film was to get the mammoth ensemble cast together. Landing Shabana Azmi was a coup which happened through actor Ayesha Dharkar. Azmi took just two days to give her nod and confesses to 8220;have laughed her head off while reading the film.8221; She also has nice words to say about Acharya whom she considers a sharp observer of life8217;s situations. She has been quoted as saying, 8220;Manish can talk for hours about global cinema and knows every Amitabh Bachchan-starrer and every Javed Akhtar dialogue by heart.8221; So far so good. Acharya now plans to go for the big kill. He harbours the ambition of a bigger canvas, bigger stars and a bigger set-up.
After the release, he has been inundated with offers from various production houses but he8217;s taking his time to make the announcement. You never know he might just be planning to completely switch over and become an actor especially after playing the role of the white-collared number-crunching nerd in Loins. But acting for him 8220;is a great stress-busting activity8221;, he insists. His heart is in direction.
Loins has already been chosen as the official opening movie at The 2007 South Asian International Film Festival in New York City.
The best compliment he got came from an American woman who came up to him and said, 8220;The next time I see a Sikh cab driver playing Bollywood songs in the cab, I8217;m actually going to smile and enjoy it.8221;
The Loins will be happy to hear that.