Anurag,Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat is your mellowest most meditative movie in many years?
Thank you. It came from a very personal emotional space . I put all my savings in this film because no one would back it. Like how oldtime producers used to do. Reliance Entertainment dumped us midway.
Why?
You should ask them. But all my director friends helped me . Imtiaz Ali , Raju Hirani spent two months on it shaping it.Vishal Bhardwaj- ji, Gulzar saab , Varun Grover helped me write DJ Mohabbat.Anubhav Sinha helped me businesswise.My producers Ranjan and Kabir helped me finish it.
This sounds like a labour of pooled love?
Yes, Amit Trivedi and all my actors and all my crew including production designer Shazia and cinematographer Sylvester Fonseca and my First AD’s Zoya and Sakshi and Rahul and the second unit cinematographer Archana .. All of them . It’s just been a very long but grateful experience . They all just believed in what I was trying to do
Both Alaya F and Karan Mehta are pitch-perfect. How did you find them?
I waited until I found my actors before making the film. I found them over a period of time . My daughter recommended Karan and sent me his short and then I put him in workshops Alaya was extremely good in her showreel . I needed the actors to have a certain range and they both had it and for the requirement.
Do you find it easier to work with newcomers?
Yes. for sure.
Your film shows two parallel love relationships to be doomed. Is this a comment on the implausibility of inter-religious alliances?
It’s more about patriarchy and conditioning . I have seen lots of extremely successful interfaith relationships. My film is not a comment of interfaith alliance. It is a comment on today’s scenario, the attitude of the young toward love and commitment.
What was the genesis of Almost Pyaar With DJ Mohabbat?
A lot of DJ Mohabbat came from my conversations with Vishal Bharadwaj on our morning walks when we were neighbours .The rest was rewritten and re-edited by Varun Grover
After two marriages, what is your take on the permanence of love and relationships?
No clue . I am still clueless.
Abhay Deol came out with a bitter tirade against you .Don’t you think such personal differences should be sorted privately?
Yes, they should be private .But it was my mistake. As he had cut himself off from everyone and we never talked about it I should have not spoken about my experience of working with him. That’s why I apologised and I don’t mind doing so again.