Finding friendship

Finding friendship

After working with his own production house for a long time now, Jackky Bhagnani is all set to step out of his comfort zone for Nitin Kakkar’s Mitron, which hits theatres today. Jackky will be seen sharing screen space with Kritika Kamra, who has worked in television but is starting her Bollywood journey.  

With great enthusiasm, Jackky and Kritika visited Sakal Times office to talk about their film. Excerpts from the interview:

'Mitron' is a word which has been made popular by our Prime Minister. Does the movie have any reference to him or Indian politics?
Jackky: Since the film is based in Gujarat and encompasses the bond of friendship, our director Nitin Kakkar went on Google and searched ‘What is the most popular word for 'friends' in Gujarati?’ and 'mitra' and 'mitron' came up. There is nothing about politics in the film. Since our PM has already made this word famous in real life, we hope we will make this world famous in the reel life through our movie. 

Tell us about your characters Jai and Avni in the movie?
Kritika: A lot of today’s girls will relate to the character of Avni, including me. Avni is a small town girl with great career aspirations. She wants to start a business, but she is struggling with a constant conflict in her mind about unequal opportunities due to gender disparity. She meets Jai, who is completely opposite to her. Avni is a very organised and a sorted person, whereas Jai has a very casual attitude towards life. They're from two different worlds, but they find a common connection and partnership which you can see on screen. 

Jackky: Jai represents 90 per cent of the men in India. There is no shying away from the fact that girls are more driven and sorted about what they want in life these days as compared to men. Jai is low on confidence and has absolutely no hope. There is a dialogue in the movie which Jai says to Avni and it's my favourite, “Duniya mein teen kism ke log hote hai – ek jo job ke liye paida hote hai, dusre business ke liye, aur tisre jo kuch nai karte hai. Toh mein woh tisre type ka hu aur yeh baat mein janta hu. (There are three types of people in this world— those who take up jobs, those that run businesses and those who don't do anything. I belong to the third category and I know it).” This explains a lot about the character. But when he meets Avni, she becomes his driving force.

Before signing this film you specifically told your director that you want to do a screen test, why?
Jackky: I've been meeting Nitin sir for a year before this film started. He had an amazing script and I wanted him to do it as FALTU 2. But he refused because he wanted to direct it himself. I eagerly wanted to work with him, so much so that I even told him I can produce the film if not act in it. So when this project finally happened, I wanted to give it my all. This film required a Gujarati boy from Ahmedabad who doesn’t have money, and I am a boy from Mumbai, that too Bandra! To become Jai, I stayed in Ahmedabad throughout the shoot. Other members of the team used to go home for few days, but I did not because I was scared that I might lose the character. We also learned Gujarati because we did not want to mock the language, like we see on television. Our director made sure we learned the language by keeping the authenticity intact.

Kritika: You cannot completely ace a language in such a short span of time, especially when it’s not your mother tongue. I did not learn the language like a pro, but I understand the language. Both our characters represent the urban youth of Gujarat who don’t speak typical Gujarati like their parents or grandparents. We belong to the cosmopolitan generation who speak the language differently. 

Kritika, you've worked in a lot of daily soaps. Is working in a film more stressful than TV?
Kritika: My journey to the big screen has been beautiful. As an artist, I was craving for something like this. Television is more about volume and quantity, and less about quality, whereas films are more about the quality. Films have more finesse and there is so much you need to work on. Television just focuses on how they will air the episode the next day. The two-hour performance you present to your audience should be flawless in a movie. 

Television is all about female-centric serials, while films are more about the hero and his character. How does it feel to share that attention?
Kritika: I've been associated with films in the past which did not work out, but Mitron did because I know I'm not just an accessory, I play an important character. Films are male dominated, but now there are scripts for women which are equally important.

How was the experience of shooting the song Kamariya which is all over the internet?
Jackky: This song was initially rejected when everyone heard it. Only Nitin sir and I were confident that it will do well. It is a perfect blend of folk and modern music. With such a great audio, we had to have an awesome video too. We finished the song in one day. Usually, it takes three days to shoot a song, but since it wasn't my production house, we had to be careful because the budget wasn’t huge. We had to use available resources to the fullest.

Kritika: We danced for 18 hours straight! All the hard work we put in was totally worth it. I'm so glad everyone is liking our song, we have hit 20 million views already. I'm going to dance to this track during Navratri, I'll proudly go and tell the DJ to play my song Kamariya. 

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