Heartfelt stories

Though he completed his graduation and even worked as an environmental consultant for six years, he simultaneously attended acting classes, workshops and filmmaking courses.

He even acted as a villain in a 1997 English film, Mobius, and simultaneously penned a simple script that he sent for feedback to a close friend who was a filmmaker, who loved the script.



Kukunoor came back to India to try and achieve the impossible — turn that script into a film on a shoestring budget, sans frills, stars, songs or any masala elements — and in the language he was familiar with — English. He wrote, produced and directed the film, called it Hyderabad Blues, and even acted in it. The constraints were all too clear in the film — the camera movements were jerky, the cast was largely amateur, and there were technical shortcomings galore.

Inspired by life
But if there was one film that proved that content overrode packaging, it was this small David that took on the Hindi and Hollywood Goliaths of 1998 and became a path-breaking hit at the box-office, not only kick-starting Kukunoor’s career but also setting the trend of what are still known as ‘crossover’ films, that is, comic dramas with dollops of emotions about how NRIs are sandwiched between roots and the culture they adopt. Not only was the movie the first-ever Indian made English film to be a hit, it even completed a silver jubilee.

Because of his budgetary constraints, Kukunoor was put in touch with Elahe Hiptoola, who ran a designer store in Hyderabad and had great contacts in the city. “When I came to know that she had acted in a small way, I auditioned her and she was in. Since I had no assistant and was also one of the lead players, I would frequently find Elahe helping out other actors. So I asked her to be my assistant director,” recalled Kukunoor once. Later, Hiptoola even became associate director and finally, co-producer.

In Kukunoor’s school of thought, there was no stereotype, and his ambitions soared with this film. His mother had discovered his school-time diaries when he was celebrating his debut film’s success.

“Luckily, she was unable to understand my writing, for it was all about incidents from my boarding school!”

From these jottings was born Rockford (1999), produced by Padmini Kolhapure no less, and this time in a mix of Hindi and English with big names like Gulzar, Nandita Das and the then fast rising Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Though critically appreciated, the film did not do well at the box-office. Next came the moderately-successful crossover comedy, Bollywood Calling (2002), about problems faced by an NRI filmmaker while making a film in Mumbai. Says Kukunoor, “Every incident and scene in this film has happened to me. Back then, I could never understand why things functioned in such a chaotic manner on the sets.”

But Kukunoor rightly thought that he had to move beyond films reflecting on his life, and so came his most intriguing film, Teen Deewarein/ Three Walls (2003), marked by brilliant performances by Naseeruddin Shah, Jackie Shroff, Juhi Chawla (“I had a crush on her and she was the only one I had in mind when I wrote the film, because I also wanted to break her image!”) and Kukunoor himself. When the film flopped because of its serious tenor and negligent marketing by the producers, he did what he had decided never to do, make a sequel to Hyderabad Blues.

But, Hyderabad Blues 2: A Rearranged Marriage, bombed and Kukunoor entered his most productive phase with Iqbal (2005) and Dor (2006). Though they didn’t do well at the box-office, these two films were not just critics’ favourites but were applauded by the discerning audience. The former film launched Shreyas Talpade, and the latter brought out the actress in Ayesha Takia. Both films were inspired by true incidents.

After this, Kukunoor’s luck dipped. Two films, Aashayein and Yeh Honsla, based on serious subjects, were delayed. The former was released in 2010 and tanked. But the late Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Kukunoor’s icon, had heard his script about a dying man inspiring others and had complimented him with the words, “This is your Anand.” Yeh Honsla, an inspirational saga like Dor, with its title derived from that movie’s hit song, is yet to see the light of day.

Bombay To Bangkok and 8X10 Tasveer, Kukunoor’s efforts to make his own brand of mainstream cinema, crashed. “Bombay… was a classic case of disillusionment for the audience who had now come to believe that I was making uplifting films like Iqbal and Dor,” explained Kukunoor. “And with …Tasveer, the common perception was that I was selling out and making commercial films. But that was never the motive, the intention was to mix it all up!”

But here is where Kukunoor showed that he had not really learnt the cardinal rule of success in India — to unlearn foreign filmmaking fundas and tweak one’s sensibilities towards a mix of audience-friendliness with the realistic. His new film, Mod, once again starring Ayesha Takia Azmi and Rannvijay, is his first love story that he describes as “Unlikely, quirky and layered.” Clearly his latest attempt to make a hit film that has been eluding him since his debut, here’s hoping that his new film proves to be that turning point in his career.