For Rajkumar Santoshi and his movies (12 in 19 years beginning with the 1990 Ghayal), passion is never passé but always in fashion. He never makes movies for money alone and believes that filmmakers should entertain, but also fulfil duties as human beings.

Excerpts from an interview that has Santoshi in candid mode:

Have the indifferent fates of The Legend Of Bhagat Singh, Khakee and Family made you revert to your earlier successful genre of hard-hitting dramas in Halla Bol?

I am always charged by things happening around me. There are evils that have to be spotlighted and fought.

Why say “All Indians are my brothers and sisters” when you are indifferent to something bad that happens elsewhere? When there was a terrible holocaust in Kolkata, why cannot we express solidarity by at least wearing black bands to work? The various states of our country are like fiefdoms held together by force rather than a part of one nation. Tell me one politician today who can claim to be called a national leader.

I once read this news about Sia Devi, a lower-caste woman being repeatedly raped for days and then burnt alive in a place half-an-hour away from Kanpur. Her crime was that her daughter fell in love with an upper-caste boy.

I went down there the next day. To my shock, the police were not doing anything, no media was there, and no social activists were around. Even the victim’s family was unwilling to talk! That was the starting point of Lajja with Rekha as that character.

Halla Bol also says that true progress happens with an evolution in thoughts and mindsets and not with technology or improved gadgets. But in a democratic setup things can be changed — but with the voice of the awam. And that’s my title — Halla Bol, make a noise, raise a voice against anything unjust or wrong. But we have become vegetables, objects that grow — and then decay.

Why is your protagonist a film star?

It is shameful that instead of a leader, we have film-stars and cricketers as role-models today! We love these role-models so much that we neglect our responsibilities and duties to our families just to get a glimpse of them!

But the image is just a perception, and among them are either normal human beings or those jo hum se bhi gaye-guzare hain (worse human beings than us)!

In Halla Bol, the time comes when the hero is forced to ask himself, ‘Who am I? As an actor, I am doing my duty by entertaining my fans. But as a human being, am I doing anything at all for society?’

Halla Bol is your fourth film with Ajay Devgan, whom you have cast also as Lord Ram and King Ashok. That’s an extraordinary rapport.

My friendship with certain stars cannot be confused with how they suit my films. They will come in only when the roles demand them, otherwise Ajay would have been a part of my last film Family too. Ajay Devgan was preparing for a shot for Halla Bol when I noticed his profile — sharp, lean and muscular. I suddenly thought how apt he would be, for mythology also describes Lord Ram as moderately dark-complexioned!But I wondered whether I was getting influenced, so I consulted my cameraman and make-up man Vikram Gaekwad and asked their opinion. It was only after they felt the same way that I approached Ajay. As Ashok too he is perfect.

Why make an oft-told tale like Ramayan and take up Ashok after the Shah Rukh Khan version?

Why not? So many chapters in the Bible have been made into films in Hollywood. Why are we making just small-budget films on this timeless story? Even today, if an amateur Ram Lila is staged, people rush to watch it. I also want my Ramayan to look real and connect with today’s audience.

As for Shah Rukh’s film, it ended with the Kaling war, and my film begins there — for that is the beginning of Ashok’s most challenging phase and true evolution where he achieved the impossible — he ruled Magadha without allowing a sword to be lifted!

But we hear that a quickie will beat these films to the screen.

Yes, I am making a very touching saga of Hindu-Muslim harmony in the days of Partition based on the famous play by Dr Asghar Wajahat, Jis Lahore Nahin Dekhiya Woh Jamiya Hi Nahin. Dr Asghar will co-write the script with me.