The Khosla Ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! director says the idea of a spiritual sequel was mooted by the producer. “In 2019 Ekta Kapoor told me, ‘Let’s go ahead with LSD2.’ That’s when I realized that it was a decade since the first film. We had lived an entire lifetime in that decade.And we had enough material to make a sequel. Before that,there wouldn’t have been enough life lived to make LSD2. In any case I was busy with my Netflix series and then Covid happened. After Covid here we are. That’s why it took fourteen years.”
Dibakar admits Ekta Kapoor now is a different entity as compared to 2010. “She has become even more combative. She has realized that for content to survive in cinema we have to look for maverick transformational original content for theatrical release , alongside the blockbusters. Otherwise we will have to give ourselves up to the monopoly of the OTT platforms who are in no way to be blamed. It’s just that monopoly of any kind is unhealthy. Ekta has evolved to the extent that she understands the fight to keep the cinemas alive,to keep collective viewing alive. She’s fighting it. Her decision to release LSD 2 in theatres is proof of her intent.”
As for Dibakar he sees many changes in himself. “I have grown older,more accepting, isolated but more aware. And I’ve less time to live. So I am also more aware of the preciousness of time passing by.I’ve become a parent.I’ve seen how young lives grow into adulthood. I’ve seen how life unfolds.I’ve also become balder hopefully bolder and wiser . My nieces speak to me more now than they did fourteen years ago.”
Dibakar is not perturbed by his relatively meagre output of ten feature films in eighteen years. “It has been eighteen years! It’s been quite a decent record so far. It’s been one film every two years. I wanted to push it even further. But considering the kind of films I make , two years is the required time. In between , during my tenure with YRF and during Covid when I was making films, the suppression of releases brought down the number of my films being released. But I am okay with my output.I definitely want to make one film every two years. I am really chasing that target. But then things happen, the circumstances, the working conditions, the subjects that I want to make, and the subjects that producers/the OTT platforms want me to make…The difference between what I want and what the world offers need negotiation and time.”
