Ayushmann Khurrana and Vaani Kapoor’s latest film, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui has been earning high praise from all quarters. The movie’s trailer may have put some people off but when the film was released, it met with widespread acclaim. In fact, Hrithik Roshan had even watched the movie at the time in theatres and had praised it. In an exclusive chat with Mayukh Majumdar, Content Strategist of Filmfare, director Abhishek Kapoor recalls: “When Hrithik saw the film in theatres, a lot of critics were not able to understand ki ‘yaar this is not intellectually done’ and it is not what they expected it to be, you know? Hrithik saw the film and the kind of reaction he gave me was so pure and genuine. He called me up and he said something . . . that it is one of the best movies he has ever seen and I asked him was he exaggerating and he said, ‘absolutely not, this is my feeling and I am shocked that how you had the courage to do that, to make a mainstream film and so normally you did it as if its nothing’ and that reaction really kind of strengthened my resolve and told me that what I had done was the right thing.”
During the interview, Abhishek Kapoor maintains that he wanted to make the film in a rom-com kind of way and not over-intellectualise it. “I mean you know everyone feels ki yaar how can he be with her in the end. In the end, if you want to make a mainstream movie toh she has to have her own life and ‘bechari ko nahi mila sukh’ and so everyone says, haan, I can relate to Ayushmann’s character. No, I was convinced you know? For example – When I interacted with so many transgender girls, I asked myself this question, would I go for it and to tell you the truth, I would. You know, if you meet them and I met so many of them, in the first 15 minutes of the conversation you just forget. They are just human beings you know,” he added.
“Some people say that it’s so simplistic but why are you expecting anguish? Because their minds are trained to see this as a very left, niche kind of film but my experience after having met so many trans people from the community and having interacted with them, it is normalised. So hence, the narrative style and the telling of the story has a normalcy to it, which many people think “ki bahut simple hai”, but hai simple! I think the most complicated things should be narrated in a simple way, you know you don’t need to complicate things. In fact, to come to a stage of simplification, you have to go through the process of very complicated details and then unknot them in your head and then present it convincingly in a simplistic form. That has been the challenge. So when people say something is really simple, they say, “yaar ye to bahot simple hai”, par vo simple karne ke liye hi bahot mushkilo se guzarna parta hai,” he further states.
