one in billion girls look like katrina kaif - Kaizad Gustad

His recent film may not have exactly hit the jackpot' at the box-office but somewhere it broke the jinx in filmmaker Kaizad Gustad's life. After spending nine years fighting ignominy and allegations, the director has relit his romance with the movies. Jackpot, produced by Raina Sachiin Joshi, featuring entrepreneur/actor Sachiin Joshi and ex-adult film actress Sunny Leone, was inspired by film noir' - the 1940 Hollywood thrillers, which had a beautiful woman, a bag full of cash and guns!' And just as there's no black and white in such films, rather shades of grey', Kaizad's life is a metaphor of the same - replete with Kafkaesque elements of danger and determination...

BOOM & BUST
Once hailed as a futuristic filmmaker, Kaizad won appreciation with Bombay Boys (1998). The Tara Deshpande-Rahul Bose-Naseeruddin Shah starrer zoomed in on the metro's bars and slums and can be referred to as the first gay Indian film. A headstrong Kaizad apparently financed the film with credit cards and money borrowed from family and friends to see the indie film through. Later, breaking stereotypes, Boom (2003) celebrated the unholy alliance between the fashion world and the underworld. Apart from Amitabh Bachchan, supermodels Madhu Sapre and Padma Laxmi being in the cast, it also introduced Katrina Kaif. Slammed as soft po*n', the critics came down heavily on its exploitative content. "Whatever the fate of the film, it should make noise. Very good' or very bad' are powerful reactions rather than plain indifference. Amongst 10, 000 naysayers, I have a few fanatics who loved Boom. I guess it was too much too soon for the audiences. Today the film would have worked better," he defends.
The edgy Kaizad then launched Bombay Central. Little did he know that life would be derailed on the first day of the shoot itself, May 25, 2004. Incidentally, Kaizad was to shoot at the Mahalaxmi railway station in Mumbai when his assistant, Nadia Khan, a British-Pakistani from London, was hit by a suburban train and killed. It was alleged that Gustad had tried to pass off the incident as a road accident and that he didn't have the permission to shoot. Exactly six years after Nadia's death, on May 25, 2010, Gustad was put behind bars for a rash and negligent act' but only for a month.
Kaizad prefers to let the ghosts lie. "I don't want to go back to it. I have blocked it out of my memory. I have lived with it for six years 24/7. It made me stronger and hopefully better," he dismisses the topic. What helped him survive was his passion for cinema. "I got up every day, dropped my children to school, came to office and wrote, wrote and wrote. I survived by the grace of God and the skin of my teeth," says the 40 plus director adding sardonically, "Jail was boring."


MOVIES & MADNESS
He'd rather talk about his love for the movies instead, which sprouted during his childhood. "My grandfather had an open air theatre in the Wadi, a village in Karnataka. He projected silent black and white movies for the villagers who came in droves in bullock carts, carrying theplas for their evening under the stars," recalls Kaizad who was seven then. "They loved Charlie Chaplin movies as they could identify with the tramp and his struggles." His father later opened a theatre in the heart of Wadi city where Kaizad played projectionist, digging films from the distributors' godowns in Ahmedabad.
After finishing school, 16-year-old Kaizad moved with his family to Sydney. At 18, the bohemian youngster had travelled the world and had dabbled with odd jobs from being a pizza delivery boy, to a bartender to apparently even a stripper! In fact, his random travels became the raw material for his book of short stories, Of No Fixed Address, published in 1998. But it was his stint at New York University's film school that not only led to films like Lost & Found (1995) and Corner Stone Blues (1994) but his return to native Bombay. "Mumbai is home. If you embrace the city, it embraces you back. I love the thriving film industry here. I love the chaos." Yet he's not oblivious to the ruthlessness of the game. "You're as good as your last hit. A filmmaker lives and dies by his Fridays. It's unfortunate."

With Naseerudin Shah during the Bombay Boys promotion, with wife Alexandra and sons Zachary and Zahaan



THE GOOD & NOT-SO-GOOD
Though his career may have had bumps, one thing that's prominent on his rsum is the fact that he introduced the gorgeous Katrina Kaif to showbiz. "I met her in London for the first time. I saw her from my window, stepping out of a BMWX5, crossing the road to enter my building. It was freezing cold and she was wearing a long fur coat. Within 60 seconds of meeting her I told her she was made to be a Bollywood star. The truth is that one in a billion girls come out looking like that," he recalls his first impression.
Fame and infamy are strange bedfellows and Kaizad witnessed that too when rumours of his alleged link-up with Ayesha Shroff, who produced Boom, did the rounds. "One can't control the rumours, one doesn't bother about them. Ayesha had faith in me, stood by me, took a chance on Boom and backed it with her energy." He goes on to share his fondness for Jackie Shroff, whom he claims to know since the actor's chawl' days. "Dada (Jackie) is my first family in Bollywood. I've known him since his Teen Batti days in Girgaum when he would be in shorts and I, perhaps, was in something lesser! I admire him," he laughs. He adores Jackie and Ayesha's son Tiger who's debuting in Sajid Nadiadwala's Heropanti. "I know him since he was 12. He was already a star then. I am his fan."

FAMILY FIRST
All controversies behind him, Kaizad, once a wild soul, adheres to the Buddhist philosophy of detachment and a minimalist life'. Above all, he values his family foremost. "At the end of the day it's only about family. What helped me was my sheer resilience and my family." Incidentally, Kaizad married Alexandra Ritt in January 2004, the same year when the ill-fated accident happened. "My family was put through a lot. But Alexandra has been like the Rock of Gibraltar. She has given me two beautiful boys - Zahaan is five, Zachary is two. They are exotic. They have rare genes, being a mix of two tribes - Zoroastrian and Jewish. I live for them, they are my inspiration. I take my job seriously. I'm a hands-on father," he says, his face lighting up. And what lessons does he have for them? "Listen to your heart and do what feels right. Go out and seek adventure. Do something new every day," he says, adding with a lived-through wisdom, "Today, I know the price of nothing but the value of everything."

This is strange

In London its very cold weather people wear fur coats, anything to escape the cold n the car could be of friend . Katrina was living with her family , her mom working for NGO . She was not roadside , homeless , nobody to ask , and lastly I dont think kaizad knows her any better than media people . She has kept her life like a close book n let everybody assum anything yhey want to . She is in no mood to clarify. Be it her , past , love life , her father.

Even if its truth , she dint do it for fun right , she did to support her family , all her sisters were young and they needed something to feed them , for there education . She won a fashion pagent in hawaii , she was doing modelling before she entered into bollywood . And lastly katrina has indian features , she has kashmiri features .I have myself spoken to some kashmiri people online who said her father is from kashmir . Kaizad has time n time again used katrinas name for publicity , even right now , he never uses anybody elses name . Not even amitab bacchan , or gulshan grover. Only katrina kaif coz he knows nobody is there to differend her . And looking at katrinas personality for years now I dont think she would have just blurted everything about her life to the first person she met.