Making his own muqaddar...is the director of the filmSikandar Ka Muqaddar Neeraj Pandey
Till date, his Special 26 remains a benchmark of how to marry entertainment with intelligent cinema. As National Award-winning director Neeraj Pandey returns to the subject of heist with his upcoming film Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, he talks about a range of issues. From being genre agnostic to how he has no idea what critics think of him and why espionage fascinates him, the acclaimed director of movies like A Wednesday and Baby, however, is measured in his responses. Just as his films are, which invariably shun the superfluous language of excessive jargon.
First things first; Sikandar Ka Muqaddar is indeed a tribute to Amitabh Bachchan’s blockbuster Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, a film Neeraj so loved while growing up. But beyond tipping the hat in the title, he insists there is no similarity between the 1978 film and his thriller. Rather one of the reasons for this playful take was that it fits the theme and spirit of Sikandar Ka Muqaddar, and draws as much from its storyline. He elucidates, “Sikandar is being chased relentlessly by cop Jasvinder Singh. Even though there is no evidence that Sikandar has pulled off the diamond robbery, Jasvinder’s instinct tells him otherwise and over 15 years, he keeps following his moves and in that sense he is shaping/disrupting his destiny.”
As a dialogue in the trailer uttered by Jimmy Sheirgill’s character of Jasvinder goes, Yeh Sikandar ka muqaddar hai, aur mein is film ka director hoon, we wonder if that is the director’s voice? He laughs, “Oh no, I am not that narcissistic as to devise such ways to express my thoughts. It’s just a character speaking.”
His characters indeed have always spoken in a unique voice, often as brave-heart spies, a world he understands well for he has many friends in the armed forces and intelligence agencies. Yes, a lot of research goes into creating series like Special Ops and The Freelancer. Delectable touches like Manoj Bajpayee’s character receiving the hundred rupee note from a conman, played by Akshay Kumar, in movies like Special 26 too are not off the cuff decisions. Rather, he reveals, “Everything is woven in the bound script.”
At the very onset of writing, he also knows whether it is going to be a film or series. Characters become actors much later when he is closing the script or at times halfway through when he begins to see actors in characters. But be it OTT or theatrical outing, his reasons for casting (actors or stars) have nothing to do with the platform on which his work is premiering. Promoting young talent, opening doors for them, however, is a conscious decision. And that’s why his Khakee franchise, whose first outing was directed by Bhav Dhulia, will always have a new voice helming it and a new captain will take over the Bengal Chapter of Khakee. On (re)discovering Avinash Tiwary in Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, even though the gifted actor made his debut in Imtiaz Ali’s brother Sajid Ali’s Laila Majnu, he says, “Avinash is a fantastic actor, has lot of untapped potential. And he is only going north.” He promises that if viewers loved Tiwary’s negative turn in Khakee: The Bihar Chapter they will appreciate him even more in a different avatar as Sikandar.
As the film streams on November 29, he doesn’t agree with the widely held presumption that OTT platforms take off the pressure on creators for there are no box-office figures to chase. He says, “It’s a myth that numbers don’t matter on OTT. Only there is a different mechanism to gauge that. Otherwise how would we have a sense of budgets, feasibility, et al?”
On the possibility of his ambitious project Chanakya coming to life, well, right now it is on the backburner and much-anticipated psychological thriller Crack won’t be happening at all. Nor is he, the director of super-hit sports drama M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, likely to do any sports biopics anytime soon. “For aren’t enough being made already,” he quips.
Clearly, as a storyteller, Pandey may not have aspirations to go down as the greatest, but to tell stories with a difference and differently is certainly his inimitable style. To the naysayers who think his series at times veer close to Islamophobia and are overtly nationalistic, he offers no defence, except lament the critics’ ‘poor judgement’. Besides, as he says, “We make films for audiences and not critics.” Of course, more often than not he gets thumbs up from both.
