The much delayed Milenge Milenge, produced by Boney Kapoor and directed by Satish Kaushik, hit the cinema halls this Friday. Satish Kaushik, however, is unfazed by either the delay in the release of the film or the competition presented by Anant Mahadevan's much talked about film Red Alert, which also released the same day.
Speaking to the Press at Marwah Studios in Noida, he said, “It is all destiny, there were a number of factors responsible for the delay. However, there are other films too which get delayed but people do not talk about them because they are not high cast films. People have talked of Milenge Milenge because of the cast and the high profile people involved in the making of the film. If we had newcomers in place of Shahid and Kareena, people would not have remembered. Further, we had another film Wanted under the same banner which had to be wrapped up.” Kaushik, however, feels the film will do well at the box office despite the long delay – of almost four to five years.
Most of the shooting of the film took place in Delhi, and Kaushik's Delhi origin came in handy for him. For instance, he was able to shoot at the famous Jain temple in Chandni Chowk only because the local people knew him and respected his work.
Local support
“We put up a book shop at the Jain temple, which was otherwise a difficult thing looking at the chaos in the area but everyone, including the officials, cooperated with us fully. This shot is an important part of the film. I get a lot of support here and have been coming here since 1998,” added Kaushik.
It was a far cry from the time when he passed out of the National School of Drama in 1978 and landed in Mumbai to try his luck in the film industry. “I had to introduce myself to everybody. People did not know about NSD. Some used to cheekily call it MCD. Initially I even had to work in a textile firm for a meagre salary of Rs. 400 a month. Then things changed for me when I became an assistant to Shekhar Kapoor.”
Since then he has been meeting the audience with his works regularly, right from Mr. India to Bricklane via Milenge Milenge .
