It’s an exciting time at Dharma Productions these days. The office is buzzing with energy and enthusiasm. I love it! We’re in the midst of producing 5 films, which is a first for us. Needless to say, fear, anxiety and restlessness are now part of my life. I’m not complaining, this is what I wanted for my production house after all. My father built Dharma from the ground up and it’s been my dream and passion to take it to a much higher level. Last night I sat down to write this blog. It’s been a stressful week so I couldn’t think of anything clever, witty or interesting to say. I was going through what you might call a blogger’s block. I kept thinking of all the work I have pending on my table and all the creative juices that needed to flow. So I thought this week instead of sharing my thoughts with you I would share my workload. So, here goes:

“Dostana” is releasing on November the 14th. It’s being directed by my assistant, Tarun Mansukhani. Tarun has a tremendous flair for comedy and is genuinely a funny guy. He’s been fiercely loyal to Dharma, and loyalty is rare, especially in an exceptionally opportunistic environment. We all love him and hope his first film flies at the box office. The music will be out on the 30th of September. If I may say, Vishal and Shekhar have outdone themselves. What they’ve delivered is a foot tapping, melody filled album that I hope you like. Let me know what you think of the music when it’s out.

Our next film to go on the floors is tentatively titled “Wake up Sid!” It’s being directed by Ayan Mukerji (yes, for those inquisitive ones, he is Kajol and Rani’s cousin). He’s 24 and super bright. He assisted me on “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna” and has written an extremely charming screenplay. It’s a coming of age meets a slice of life film. The casting is unusual and perfect for the narrative; Ranbir Kapoor and Konkona Sen Sharma. It should be out summer 2009. Give us your feed back on the title, “Wake Up Sid!” I would love that.

Rensil D’ Silva, the screenplay writer of “Rang De Basanti” is directing a thriller for us that should be out autumn of 2009. It’s a story idea I’ve had for years, and Rensil has written an exceptional screenplay. It’s his first feature as a director, though he has a tremendous body of advertising film work behind him. The principal cast comprises of Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, and Vivek Oberoi. It’s an edge of your seats thriller with global terrorism as a backdrop. And that's all I'm saying about that for now!

“Koochie Koochie Hota Hai” is Dharma’s foray into the animation world. We’re co-producing the film with Prana (a seasoned animation house.) The film has the soul and narrative of “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai”, it just belongs to a different world; an animal world devoid of any human inhabitants. The core love story is between three dogs, and the supporting cast has roosters, bears, pigs, cats, and many others from the barn. Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol, and Rani essay the voices for “Rocky”, “Angie”, and “Tina” respectively, (minor tweaks on the original names.) It’s being directed, again, by Tarun Mansukhani, who also assisted me on “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.” It would be interesting to see his animated interpretation of my debut film. Potential release date: late summer of 2009.

“My Name is Khan” goes on the floors in November of this year. The film is going to be shot extensively in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and Mumbai. If all goes well, we should be out late next year. What do I say about it? At the heart of it, it’s a love story. At the soul of it, it makes a social comment, and at the whole of it, it’s a human triumph tale.

All your good wishes and energy will truly help the karma at Dharma. Please keep it coming, every word of support counts. It's a full plate, and it's never looked more appetizing. I’m going back to work now, I’m feeling much better. Lighter.

Love and koffee,

Karan

p.s. I’m going to be traveling extensively for the pre production work for “My Name is Khan”, so my blog postings might be a tad irregular. Bear with me, and don’t stop commenting. Thank you for listening…

I love the film fraternity. I love everything about it. Nowhere in the world will you find such a cocktail of complexes, complexities, contradictions, and of course, charisma. We are unique and our DNA must be preserved for posterity. Why deny generations ahead of our vanity and our insanity? Pardon the rhyme; it’s with good reason. So what makes us so special? Well, read on.

In Denial:

We deny our relationships, affairs, infidelities, and enmities. We love denial. God forbid if we started admitting to things, the speculation would stop, and we just can’t have that. We like to be in the news, and to make sure of that we employ publicists who plant stories under our surveillance that we later deny with an absolute straight face. It’s called "The Art of Convenient Alzheimer’s." Of course within close, or not so close circles, we go on about the invasive paparazzi and the trashy tabloids. The truth is we love the invasion and we feed off the trash. We deny this of course. It’s a vicious circle that we’re completely square about.

Star Hatings:

Favorite conversation piece at fraternity affairs: critic bashing. It’s more fashionable than bling (Bappi’s back!) From saying they are bought to calling them biased, we don’t leave a single stone unturned. We take all the critics’ comments personally and feel it’s a vendetta against us. But we love the persecution complex. It’s our favorite emotion. To think of it as an objective point of view is something we just cant wrap our heads around. Maybe we actually made a bad film??? Oh god, how could I have just said that?! We never make bad films, we make “misunderstood cinema”, understood? All this can change because all it takes is a 4 star review (5 stars would be pushing it) and paragraphs of gush and we’re back on track. A critic is on our speed dial, he’s a member of our family, it’s all about loving the critics all over again. The next step is to give full-page ads in leading newspapers highlighting the critic’s comments in “inverted commas.” Double standards?? Don’t be silly; we think it’s our birthright.

Disease of Delusion:

The fastest spreading disease within the fraternity is the disease of delusions. It can give any viral a run for its medicine. We are delusional about the box office figures of our films, our current star status, our lover’s fidelity, and our physical appearances (though thanks to Photoshop, that gets taken care of.) Sometimes I wonder if we just turn a blind eye or have genuinely inhabited planet delusion. I’m hoping for the former, it would make us more real. Hmmm, being real…wonder what that feels like. Anyway, moving on….

And the Loser is…:

A very wise man once told me, (oh forget it, lets give credit where its due) Javed Akhtar once told me, “Take the awards seriously the year you get them.” Year after year we’ve been going on about the commercialization of our film awards. The rigged decisions, the lobbies and the camps, the jury villains and the vamps. Yet year after year we land up in our shimmering saris, ill fitted gowns and tacky tuxedos. The criterion for turning up is simple; either we’re winning or performing. A combination of the two is ideal. The only other reason to turn up would be to market a close to release film or give tight television close-ups to ex, current, or potential lovers. The spirit of competition??? What’s that? Please lets not discuss alien concepts.

I could go on and on but I must practice some restraint. Also, I’d like to add that I’ve used “we” everywhere because I’m very much a part of the above disorders (barring maybe the tacky tuxedos, I think mine are quite nice.) To be fair to us, the stakes are high, competition is fierce, and stress levels are cardiac friendly. Nowhere in the world is anyone’s work judged globally like ours is and we wage battles everyday till we reach the “Friday wars.”

So please allow us our quirks and shortcomings. We never claimed to be perfect; you put us on that pedestal. Chew on that while we go back to making movies, for what in the world is better than that?

Amen.

Love and koffee,

Karan

p.s. I continue to read all the comments. Thank you again from the bottom of my heart. Many inquiries on “My Name is Khan” I promise to tell all in good time. I do wish to correct some misconceptions, though. The film is not based in New York, and Shah Rukh Khan is not playing a terrorist. I love you all, and if you haven’t aleady watched “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na” go right now and watch it. It’s fresh, it’s real, and completely audience friendly.

This is a humble and honest plea to anyone about to enter our domain. To the Disneys, and the Foxes, and the Sonys, and of course, those Warner Bros. With your vivid, soaring, global logos, your Oscar counts, and your bags of cash, We, the Indian film industry, welcome you to India.

Splashed on yards of paper; the trades, the economic pages, even the society columns, the news of almost every leading Hollywood studio sniffing around for real estate on our side of the world was hardly shocking news. We saw it coming for a while. It does, after all, make perfect, financial sense. It's the biggest benefit of these soon to be solidified deals; the coming together of capital for scintillating, groundbreaking, and oftentimes overindulgent, cinema. It's what we here in "Bollywood" do very well. So welcome, swagatam, take a moment, put down that copy of Variety, and give this a thought:

In our film fraternity, relationships are stronger than contracts. They always have been. It's why I can drop the F word (fraternity, what were you thinking?) so often and know in ever sense, that it's true. Our word is as permanent as ink, despite the bad apples that sometimes give us an amateurish reputation. We’ve been nurturing these equations for years, and we do it sans agents and managers and assistants. Those of us lucky to be raised within the industry have the word of our fathers, our siblings, and those friends that might as well be family. We're small, and we may bicker, but we've sat in each other’s living rooms, and we've built this industry to what it is.

A gesture of support, or an extension of an apology appeals to us more than those big corporate presentations. We like bold and we like technology, but give us a narration, not a pie chart! We might be a little old fashioned in our pitches, but we make films because the nation's heart thumps for it. Appeal to that sentiment, and understand our culture. Employ people who understand this about us, as an industry, and as a country. We're emotional, and we're more connected than you’d think, but we have our patterns. Try to understand who we are as an industry, what works for us and more importantly, for our audiences. What do they reject with morchas and embrace with jubilees? When sitting with your analysts, conduct a human analysis, not a business one. Deconstruct us if you must, but understand us at the end.

Alright, I'll admit it, I was trying to reel you in with emotion. Now let’s talk business. This isn't the age of vaudeville, we like our returns more than the next guy. Win my heart, but definitely, absolutely, help me win some of that gold. We Indians have some sharp acumen, so give us both. Blend the business with the creative. Understand why we know that an item song done right will make you money, and we’ll try to make heads or tails of your paperwork. We've been doing this for years, and our mines are filling up fast. To successfully comprehend us, try a cocktail of de-Americanization, and matkis full of Indianization.

Don't mock. Appreciate. All our formulas? They work! Ask anyone in Peru. Of course, you know this already; you've done your market research, but start to have a little fun with it now. We're a country that experiences almost everything in tsunami-proportioned waves. Cinema, Cricket, Politics. Eat, Sleep, Breathe. This is our pulse and our tipping points, and our fads are certainly worth a study. Tuck away some of that logic, we're built on escapism after all. What's the point of entertainment if it's not just a little bit shocking? In the next meeting, replace "just because" with "what if?" and your entire frame will start to speak cinema scope.

Before I run the risk of sounding too preachy, it is imperative to communicate that the impetus of this thought comes from a place of deep sincerity, written from a spirit of hope, and with the anticipation of successful partnerships in the offing. The future is looking well lit for both of us. We like your films. We copy half of them. We even gape at your process and infrastructure, but respect that we've got one too. This “Bolly” isn’t in a wood, it’s in a jungle, and you've got to understand the law of this jungle.

Love and koffee,

Karan.

The lights came up at the premiere of the highly anticipated “Saawariya.” The crème de la crème of the film fraternity walked out in silence. The customary praise and calculated adulation was shared with the cast and crew of the film. Everyone got into their cars and left the venue. And then…the mobiles came out. The real reviews came crackling through Nokia Communicators and bejeweled Motorola’s. Opinions from the color palette to the pace of the film were animatedly discussed. The fraternity was happy. The fraternity was celebrating. Celebrating the failure of a film. Celebrating the failure of a filmmaker.

I went back home that night and sat on my bed. Something was bothering me. I asked myself if a part of me was secretly happy that “Saawariya” might bite the dust. Was I happy that a competitor might have erred in judgment? And the truth is, I was happy, and that made me feel sick.

It took me back to the weekend of the release of “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.” My first film, “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” was a hit and was received wonderfully by the industry and audiences at large. With my second film I had set out to tell a story with the unity of family as the primary sentiment, but all anyone had to say in the lobbies of screening rooms, the columns of newspapers, and hallways of production offices was that it was overtly melodramatic. The critics said it was over the top, and the trades claimed it to be a disaster. That was the buzz, and it got louder and louder with each passing show time.

And that’s fine. I’m perfectly okay with people not getting into my films. I’ll admit, I had set out to make a moving, poignant film, a classic, if you must. I truly value the opinions of other filmmakers and am always ready to swallow a reality pill, but I couldn’t understand the excitement in pulling me down. The irony is that K3G was the biggest box office success of that year, the highest grossing Hindi film overseas. I’m still not saying I made a masterpiece, but it left me questioning why the industry that raised me would be so eager to love to hate my work. Why were some of my peers so keen to bash a film that was, on all box office accounts at least, booming?

It doesn’t really matter how hard you introspect for that answer, the reality is that it’s just human nature. It’s how we’re wired, more so in a creative field, where it’s just too easy to wrangle a good idea into the flop bin. It is our natural disposition to be jealous of someone for his or her success, or for his or her ability to tell a story better than the rest of us. Yet here I was, six years later, feeling pleasure from a colleague’s imminent pain.

Why is it so easy, so natural for me, for the rest of the industry to feel a tinge of excitement when another filmmaker misses the mark with their film? What collective ego are we trying to feed and pamper here? Why is a section of the fraternity secretly (or not so secretly, you be the judge of that) thrilled that Yash Raj hasn’t played the greatest hand this year? That company has provided us with some of the greatest films to ever grace our screens. Why are people celebrating? What’s the matter with us? If the very thing that derives pleasure stems from a place of negativity, it’s only a matter of time before it turns into poisonous resentment. It just doesn’t seem very neighborly to me anymore.

We’re all competitive, and that spirit is exhilarating and bold. But how much more evolved (and resolved) would we be if we collectively took the hit (pun unintended) for a poorly received film? Wouldn’t it speak volumes of us as leading contributors of world cinema to act as a co-op, supporting the highs and the lows in tandem, with respect?

Idealistic, I know. It’s too tempting to relish someone else’s cinematic failures, but if we could turn that debilitating jealousy into the more socially acceptable cardinal sin, envy, I think we’d give solidarity a run for it’s money.

I sat for days thinking of what I should write. Frivolous and intelligent thoughts kept oscillating in my “gemini” head. I read many blogs written by prolific and evolved personalities. And so, after suffering a persecution complex and a feeling of insecurity, I decided to be myself, which most of us in the film fraternity very rarely do.

Over the years I’ve surfed the net to read about how people perceive me. What they think of me as a filmmaker, a chat show host, or just as a human being. Initially what I read might have driven me to the closest therapist, and Prozac might’ve been my soul mate. But a good mother can always bring you back on track. I read bloggers attack my “bubble gum cinema”. I strolled into chat rooms discussing my sexuality. I read about my alleged link ups with leading mainstream actors. So should I have felt like a controversial celebrity? Or just plain and simple, sad? The latter has so much more drama. But fortunately, I settled for old-fashioned indifference.

It’s important to be honest. Yes, it’s important, but certainly not possible. So most of us in the film fraternity (notice how I use that word a lot?) have mastered the art of “dishonest honesty.” What is that? It’s the art of concealing the truth and yet coming across frank and forthright. It’s a gift we all have. But just like classical singing, it takes many years till you hit the high notes. My endeavor on this platform is to be a little less “dishonest honest”. I’m going to try. I promise.

So let me start by saying, I am star struck, and have always been. I love, adore, and am obsessed by film stars. I like to befriend them, I enjoy meeting them, I love having them in my inbox, and more importantly, I’m constantly trying to add to my collection. There, I said it. For many years, I had a desire to be popular. It’s like I wanted to win every congeniality contest in the world. It made me artificial. I didn’t quite like that about myself but I also didn’t know how to get out of that zone. I used to gush about women in terrifying clothes. Appreciate god awful celluloid performances. Hug and kiss people I wanted to send to jail and even applaud films that should never have been released. I had become the Godzilla of fake.

I lost my father. June 26th, 2004.

My perspective on life and relationships changed overnight. Death has a tendency of bringing you back to life. My new headspace at that point of time led to me making my infidelity saga, “Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna”. There was good news and bad news at that end. The good news was a bolder, newer, directorial, ME. The bad news was the old hangover that still made its way into the film; opulence, star image maintenance, and item song were some of the features of the film that I don’t really place on my pride mantle. Honestly, I don’t really have a film I want to scream and shout about. But then again, I never claimed to be a path-breaking cinematic genius. I was always an eager cinegoer who turned into an eager to please filmmaker.

Today I want intellectual acceptance. I want critical acclaim. I want blog praise, and I want festival applause. Don’t get me wrong, I still want the box office. Am I asking for too much? Of course I am. But I believe the universe, apparently, can be asked for the impossible. It’s no secret. I’m doing just that, everyday.

So, welcome to my bloggers park. I hope you find yourself a bench.

Love and koffee,

Karan.

p.s. my film is finally titled, “My Name is Khan” (alvida, “K’) and it stars Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. This is my first official announcement.