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There is something very earthy about all his work, and the reason for him winning the prestigious and most-coveted National Awards — Best Film in 2007 (Khosla Ka Ghosla) and Most Popular Film in 2009 (Oye Lucky Lucky Oye). How many young directors can boast of winning these prestigious awards for their debut and the next creation and get credit for starting a new trend in cinema. "If you ask me, did I start the new trend of films, I don’t know. I can’t answer what came first — the chick or the egg! It was more than nine years ago that I started making Khosla Ka Ghosla. At that time, there were no takers for such films. It took me more than three years to complete it, and then, to find buyers. But during that time, the film scenario changed in India. Multiplexes mushroomed; several others started making different genre of films; India staked a claim on the international scene and the audience also matured,’’ recalled the forty plus bespectacled ad man-turned-film director Dibakar Banerjee. He is eagerly looking forward to his latest release of his Hindi film Shanghai, a political-murder-mystery thriller starring Abhay Deol, Emraan Hashmi, Kalki Koechlin and Prosenjit Chatterjee. Talking about his new venture, the director said, "Shanghai is a political thriller that looks at how politics — the tools of power — is remote-controlled by the governing class over the poor, uneducated masses in India, especially in the name of development. Development is an endemic Indian problem. It is the culmination of what is currently happening on the socio-political scene in India. It is a phenomenon bogging every big and small town of the country. Everyone wants to convert their city into the dream Shanghai city of China, and hence the name." The story is loosely adapted from the book Z by Greek author Vassilis Vassilikos, written in 1966 to reveal the facts behind the assassination of a prominent Greek Liberal MP in 1963. He adds, "The audience will be surprised to see a non-glamorous Emraan Hashmi playing a repulsive and grotesque Jogi Parmar, a porn photographer, and Abhay Deol as a conservative South Indian IAS officer Krishnan — two parallel lifestyles in India." In the film, Deol presents the progressive educated middle-class forward looking man whereas Hashmi plays a common man, who is left behind in the development of the country. "For this film, both stars had to look different. Hashmi put on 7 kg weight by gorging on pasta and cheese plus we have given him slight`A0prosthetics`A0to get that paunch and the Grecian-looking Kalki was made to look innocent and vulnerable." Dibakar is always known as a maker of different genre of films. So when asked if he would ever make a typical masala Bollywood film, he says, "I will never say no to any kind of film. But even if I make a typical 1970s or 1980s kind of film, it will be in my own style. I will contemporise it to the present kind of films. I enjoy going against the grain."
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