Covering Bollywood and the Hindi Cinema

Farah Khan admits that the basic idea of Om Shanti Om originated from her show "Bombay Dreams" and she also wanted to pay homage to Bollywood in the Seventies.

"While I was watching the show, I realized that for the NRI audiences, black-and-white films have been frozen in their hearts forever, especially because

of the kind of costumes that the actors used to wear," Farah said when I met her for this interview at Hotel Land's End in Bandra.

She continued: "I thought that the 70s were the most interesting period, be it "Sholay" with Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra or "Amar Akbar Anthony" with Amitabh Bachchan, Rishi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna. Things went downhill only from the 80s. Styling was very unique in the 70s."

Om Shanti Om" has been set 30 years back, in 1971. Even in "Main Hoon Na", Farah's maiden venture as a director – she made Shah Rukh wear bell-bottoms like in the good old 70s. Now, "Om Shanti Om" has been treated like a period film. "We made it a point to do a lot of referencing during the pre-production stage of the film. We got lots of junior artistes from the 70s. In fact we had to hunt for the cars which were in vogue back then. Ultimately, we managed to lay our hands on the Mercedes that once belonged to Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini. We hired the godown of R.K. Studios where a lot of used costumes and cars were lying," the director recalled.


King Khan, too, promptly agreed to Farah's proposal to get six pack abs. "Shah Rukh just asked for three months and he worked hard. He told me that if he did not get the six packs he would not take off his shirt in front of the camera. I always felt that he should do an item song at least once. I think it is a great makeover at the age of 42 when others become too old. I have shot Shah Rukh like Ram Gopal Varma shoots his heroines."

Post-release of "Om Shanti Om", Farah would start work on the script of "Happy New Year". "The script of that film was not happening the way we wanted it to. Hence we have kept the project on hold till "Om Shanti Om" is released," Farah explained.

As of now, Farah is basking with pride for the way "Om Shanti Om" has shaped up. She had loved the compositions of Anu Malik in her maiden venture as a director "Main Hoon Na". "But I wanted a change in "Om Shanti Om", especially after Indian Idol 3. I desperately needed a break from Anu who was my co-judge on the show Indian Idol 2," said the plain-speaking woman.