Looking for a sabattical

Brisk and no nonsense would best describe award winning film-maker Madhur Bhandarkar’s approach to life. Probably, that’s also the secret of his success. In the City to promote his film Jail, he talked to Metrolife even as he was interacting with Radio One listeners on air and rushing off to a bookstore, as part of his hectic schedule.

“I am going to take a sabattical after Jail is released. Travel is high up on my list of things to do. Besides, I have a lot of reading to catch up with as I am a voracious reader. I also have a lot of films to watch. I need to recharge my batteries after making an intense film like this,” he says a tad wearily. Rome is on his holiday itinerary and so is Berlin. “I must see the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. I’ve been to parts of Europe but never to Italy,” he adds.

Not really thinking of future plans just yet, he describes himself as an entertainer in touch with reality. “You don’t have to have way off plotlines and unbelievable characters to entertain your movie going public,” he says.
Unpretentious about his simple origins, Bhandarkar describes his palate as being easily satisfied with dal-chawal.

     “Yes, if someone had to ask me what my last meal would be, I would probably answer dal kichidi! I have truly simple tastes,” he laughs.

New York is his favourite city in the world for its high octane energy and buzz. He sees a great future in Bollywood and Hollywood collaborating. The  two favourite actress he would love to work with are Penelope Cruz and Angelina Jolie. “They are super hot and great actresses too.” he says. Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks are his favourite actors and he says he would love to work with them some day. Old-time Bollywood directors like Bimal Roy inspires him and his all-time best film is Guide which starred Dev Anand. As a passionate reader, he loves biographies rather than fiction and says life is really too short to read all the books he wants to read or all the films he would like to watch.

“I worked in a video-cassette library and that gave me access to hundreds of films from all genres and that’s where my fascination for film-making started,” he says candidly.

His fitness regime means working out at a gym whenever he is not shooting a film and he is definitely not hung up on big brands preferring to dress for comfort and neatness rather than style, he says emphatically.