| | | Ready to sell soaps? Kareena Kapoor | Onir's next is a remake of Sai Paranjpye's frothy working-class comedy Chashme Buddoor, made in 1981. And no, it won't star his favourite actor Sanjay Suri –– although the affable actor strikes you as the ideal new-millennium Farooque Shaikh. "We need a break from each other," says Onir. "And I want to re-make Chashme Buddoor with other actors."
Onir, who has so far made two extremely heavy-hearted social dramas My Brother Nikhil and Bas Ek Pal, is all set to let his hair down. And to help him in this endeavour he wants Kareena Kapoor to play the role of the soap-selling salesperson Deepti Naval immortalised in Chashme Buddoor.
"I've already sounded off Kareena for another film. I feel she has a terrific sense of comedy. I'd like to tap that. My take on Chashme Buddoor would follow the original in principle. But the times have changed. My script would incorporate those changes," adds Onir.
But why Chashme Buddoor? Onir says, "I wanted to make something blithe, something light, something that I hadn't done before."
The constant barrage of angst that Onir had to take on in his first two films had begun to take its toll on the young filmmaker's psyche. "It wasn't easy making those two films. And yes, I needed to lighten the load. It's then that I thought of my former boss Sai Paranjpye. I had assisted her when she made the environmental film Papeeha. And when Studio 18 (the filmmaking concern who lately put out films like Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and 1971) approached me with the idea of doing Chashme Buddoor, Sai Paranjpye was on my mind. Given my heavy state of mind everything fell into place," he says.
| | Deepti Naval and Farooque Shaikh in the 1981 film, Chashme Buddoor | Onir has now put plans of doing Shakespeare's Hamlet on the back-burner. He says, "It would've been another psychologically and emotionally wrenching experience for me. But let me say, I'm not jumping on to the remake bandwagon. I'm doing Chashme Buddoor because it's one of my all-time favourite films. This would be my homage to my mentor."
Sai Paranjpye reacts: "I have nothing to say about this since it's not my production," was all she had to say. |
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