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Anara's ordeal to find echo in Bhatt film
By Sudeshna Sarkar
January 17, 2005
Kathmandu - A former Indian beauty queen who was accused of acting in a
pornographic video CD will have Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt taking up
cudgels on her behalf through a film with a similar theme.
"It takes off from Anara Gupta's case but moves on from there," Bhatt, who was
in Kathmandu in search of a heroine, told IANS.
Former Miss Jammu Anara became an object of negative publicity last year when
police arrested her on the charge of appearing in a pornographic video film.
However, forensic experts later cleared Gupta who claims she was coerced into
making a false confession.
"Blue Film", one of the three to four new projects that Bhatt plans to complete
in 2005, will echo the plight of a protagonist who becomes a victim in a
billion-dollar blue film industry.
"In the part of the world I come from, pornography is called 'neel zaher'
meaning blue poison. 'Blue Film' is about the cyber pornography that has
erupted in India today. It is the story of a victim who locks horns with the
industry," says Bhatt.
To be played by Bollywood actor Kunal Khemu, who debuted as a child artiste in
one of Bhatt's earlier films, "Zakhm", the protagonist, like Gupta, is a
Kashmiri.
"I chose a Kashmiri Brahmin because they are among the most orthodox people,"
Bhatt explains. "Also because my character is already uprooted from his home
town, his family. The drama is strongest when an orthodox individual is
subjected to that kind of outrage."
Struggling to survive in his adopted city Mumbai, Bhatt's character falls in
love, marries and goes on his honeymoon little knowing his bliss is going to
turn into poison soon.
A hidden web cam photographs the intimate scenes of the newlyweds and soon, to
his consternation, the hero finds the images splashed all over the Internet.
But instead of regarding him as a victim, people accuse him of being involved
in the smut trade.
The second, yet to be titled script, which he plans to shoot in Portugal or
Spain, will revolve round a gangster, his girlfriend and a stranger who comes
in between them, while the third, "Fana", is a love story that moves from Dubai
to Venice following the Indian diaspora.
He is also tentatively planning a film, along the lines of "The Young Ones", in
which he would narrate the tale of four youngsters - an Indian, a Pakistani, a
Bangladeshi and a Nepalese - struggling to make ends meet in Bradford in
Britain.
The tsunami, he says, has opened his eyes to the fact that the world is
interlinked.
"There is a quake in Asia and it affects distant Seychelles," he says. "We are
all connected. There might be local problems but we have to see ourselves as
part of the whole."
As a step towards that, he says, he shot "Nazar", his thriller casting
Pakistani actress Meera at a time when relations between India and Pakistan
were far from cordial.
"I took a risk," he says. "And now it is being regarded as a positive step."
Bhatt plans more India-Pakistan ventures once "Nazar" is released in February.
His vision sees a South Asian Union with the different film industries working
together. It has brought him to Kathmandu to see if he can find his new leading
lady there.
"I have always worked with new talent," says the man who introduced Sushmita
Sen and Rahul Roy to Bollywood. "If I get the right face here, that will be
part of a larger dream. Lack of budget doesn't mean lack of talent. A region
becomes poor only when it stops dreaming."
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Anara
Gupta may have to face lie detector test
1-16-2005
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in porn CD not Anara: Lab
1-5-2005
Tainted
Miss Jammu gets offers from Bollywood
11-23-2004
Ex-Miss
Jammu caught for starring in a porn CD
11-9-2004
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