As they say, the BOSS is always right!! And so was my boss Vikram Bhatt when he opined to all of us a year back that the digital medium is going to be the FUTURE!! I did not believe in that then… But today, I see it as a medium that is in trend…

As I gear up for the shoot of Twisted 2 as Director, I look back at my journey filled with learnings and growth!! From being a clapper boy with Vikram Bhatt, I have today grown to become the Director. That is the manner in which my boss (Vikram Bhatt) mentors and educates his team members.

I started my career 12 years back as assistant director for music videos. In 2010, I joined Vikram Bhatt and there has been no looking back since then. Yes, there have been ups and downs!! There have been phases where I have been out of work. I have made mistakes and learned; to tell you more, I have committed big blunders at work too (smiles). But I have kept on going and learned from the mistakes I have done. As I look forward to heading the troupe as Director of Twisted 2, I look ahead with confidence with a thought that Twisted 2 will do better than the success story of Twisted 1.

Talking more about me, my career has been a roller-coaster ride and I now visualize before me the dream that I had seen when in college. I joined Boss as an Assistant Director on Haunted -3D. Vikram Bhatt’s grooming helped me a lot, and I got to be the Associate Director in movies Love Games and Raaz Reboot. I have also honed the role of the Dialogue Writer for the movie Hate Story – 3. It so happened that Boss added a new sequence which was not in the script. Hence there was a need of writing the dialogues quickly. My instinct pushed me and I told Boss that I will write it. And when the day to write came, I took an hour or so to write the scene. This was a happy moment as boss appreciated my dialogues and said they were bang on!! Not a single change was asked for… This is how he noticed and encouraged my talent as Dialogue Writer. Later, I went on to write dialogues for Maaya.

Now the task before me is to make Twisted 2 all the more exciting, thrilling and intriguing. The dream script is of course, made ready by the boss. Talking about writing and its value, I feel that writing has not been given much credit in this country. We need to remember always that the idea is first born on paper. Then comes the execution part. This is where he excels in his stories and writes them so beautifully. As a Director, the task gets so very easier when you are executing a great vision. I am very confident of Twisted 2 and carry no pressure owing to the huge success of Twisted 1. My confidence in the writing and acting talent in the series is humongous. Nia Sharma and Rrahul Sudhir along with the power-house performer Achint Kaur will give their best shot and I know that.

We will be continuing from where we ended Twisted 1. If you ask me, what is different about Twisted 2, I will say exactly what my boss says. He calls Twisted 2 not as a ‘love triangle’ but a ‘crime triangle’. I am treating this series as a completely fresh story. Twisted 1 has given me huge recognition, something that I did not even believe it to be.

Digital medium is the future, as I said earlier. With so much free data available and it being freely accessible, there’s nothing like it. Cinema will not perish. But mobiles have become the first screen for all of us.

I am glad that there is no censorship rules laid for the digital medium. I certainly do not understand what it is all about. We are a democratic free country. However, we get blown away by cultural sentiments. A person is called an adult and can start voting once he is 18, to the extent that he can select the Prime Minister. However, the same person cannot get married until he is 21, but for a woman, she can marry when she’s 18. I find the whole system flawed. If you have already declared a movie as an adult movie, then why imply cuts? You have already raised a fair warning about the movie being not watchable for people below 18 because of its sexual / violent content. If you have done so, what is the point of adapting to cuts? Take the whole fiasco around Padmavati. Every other state has ended up banning the film and it is a huge political game. The sufferer is the maker and the film. The people banning it have done it without even watching the film. I hope the film releases as I am a huge fan of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Seeing all this, it feels as though irrespective of how popular and famous you are, you are still a common man in front of any Government in this country. And this country is still partly dictated by its culture. Guess this should change and we should be allowed to think freely and react freely!!