His debut was rather quiet but after release it made enough noise to make people wonder what he was all about. Anybody who watched Pyaar Ka Punchnama (PKP) couldn’t have left the movie hall without voicing a vociferous opinion about it. “I got a lot of diverse opinion about PKP. Some good, some bad. But it wasn’t ever supposed to be a popular film so I hadn’t expected run-of-the-mill responses to it either,” says Luv Ranjan, director of the film. So with his second film Akaash Vani which released in the theatres on July 25, is Luv playing safe? “If I wanted to play safe, I would make PKP 2 or I wouldn’t have made PKP at all. I am blessed with a good group of technicians and a producer who support me in my vision and hence I can continue with my efforts,” he says.
Luv’s film Akaash Vani is the story of two people Akaash and Vani who fall in love. The film is about their six-year journey as they encounter various situations and make mistakes that take them through a variety of emotions. The film stars Kartik Tiwari and Nushrat Bharucha two of the actors from his first movie.
“Abhishek (producer Abhishek Pathak) had asked me if I wanted to make PKP 2 and if not what I would like to make and I told him I wanted to make a romance film. But I also knew that it had to be different from other love stories. Akaash Vani is a realistic love story. It is not a mushy, dreamy kind of film. It deals with a social issue which is the crux of the film. Akaash Vani is in the league of 3 Idiots or a Raj Kapoor or a B. R. Chopra film. You know how it is, those movies stay with you much after you’ve left the movie hall,” says Luv.
The Delhi boy says that his latest film is much more powerful and better than his first film. “And women are going to love the movie,” he adds. That’s a departure from his first! “Actually to be honest, I made PKP for the second half while people loved the first half of the film. When it comes to depicting women, I hate how our films only project them as uni-dimensional. I mean, if they are good, they are good and if they are bad, they are horrid. Women are not that way; nobody is that way. My female protagonist is not just vivacious, she is also depressed. She is weak and she is strong. She’s different when she is 18 and different when she is 21. Like all of us. I don’t like perfect characters. They need to make mistakes. My characters are real,” he signs off.
