'Never Put Anyone To Sleep During Sex'

'Imagine having a conversation with your parents, where you say, "I want to break up with someone because he's bad in bed".'

Modern love and sex are depicted very different in films and Web series these days, with rom-coms taking a very different variation from before.

Break Ke Baad Director Danish Aslam feels this is the fastest changing genre and explores a version of it in his latest film Khwaabon Ka Jhamela , starring Prateik Babbar, Sayani Gupta and Kubbra Sait.

"In the last 10 years," Danish tells tells Patcy N/Rediff.com, "we've shifted to Badhaai Ho and Bareilly Ki Barfi, which are great films and have great actors but aren't traditional rom-coms. I wanted to make a rom-com without being cliched about it, without making it exactly like how we would in the '90s."

Your films, Khwaabon Ka Jhamela and Break Ke Baad, seem to have commitment issues. Why is that?

There are two reasons.

Firstly, I love dysfunctional relationships.

I love a story which takes a conventional romance like KKJ, and a standard rom-com trope like the previous one, and turn it on its head.

In Break Ke Baad, it was living with the ex. In this, it's a host of other issues.

Secondly, the story wasn't mine. It was something Harman (Baweja) and Vicky (Bahri) had pitched to me.

I liked the basic skeleton and changed a lot of stuff.

But the idea of commitment is not so strong in this. It's more of a coming-of-age story of a guy.

It is an adaptation of the 2012 Canadian film, My Awkward Sexual Adventure. How did Harman Baweja and Vicky Bhari came on board?

The adaptation bit is mentioned in the opening credits.

Harman and Vicky had the rights to the film, and had a story based on that.

I feel that the rom-coms we used to make in the 2000s and 2010s like Salaam Namaste, Hum Tum, Kal Ho Naa Ho have gone away.

I grew up on those, worked on them when I was an AD (Assistant Director) and feel that there is still a huge audience for them.

In the 14 years, since Break Ke Baad, Imran (Khan) and I have been approached by so many people saying, 'We really like that film.'

My standard answer has been, 'Bhai, 2010 mein kahaan they? Theater mein jaake dekhi thi na? Ab kyu bata rahe ho?'

Jokes apart, I feel people miss that genre.

In the last 10 years, we've shifted to Badhaai Ho and Bareilly Ki Barfi, which are great films and have great actors but aren't traditional rom-coms.

They are heavy on drama and social messaging.

I wanted to make a rom-com without being cliched about it, without making it exactly like how we would in the '90s.

In both the films, it is girl who is shying away from commitment.

I skew a little bit towards strong female characters.

There are many reasons.

First, it's not conventional. The norm is always to have a stronger male character, in Indian cinema at least, and I find that boring.

Secondly, in this film, you can't really blame the girl for having commitment issues.

He puts her to sleep (during sex). It doesn't get worse than that!

Movies and love stories are derived from our personal experiences and the people around us.

I thought I'd be asked this question in every interview but I've only been asked this twice or thrice.

I have never put anyone to sleep (during sex) to the best of my knowledge.

Why are you fascinated with that?

The original film is more sexual because it's about a guy who wants to get better at sex.

The person he depends on is a stripper.

Zubin's (played by Prateik) character's coming-of-age is on something that is so relevant.

Kubra (Sait) has a line in the film: 'Now imagine having a conversation like this with your parents, where you say, I want to break up with someone because he's bad in bed.'

Imagine having that conversation in India!

This setup was attractive to me.

We are evolving as a society, so a lot of our dilemmas are not the same as they used to be 20 years ago.

Rom-coms need to be updated every 10, 20 years.

If you see a film from 20 years ago, even if its Salaam Namaste or Hum Tum, there are so many things that you will find dated.

During the lockdown, my wife started watching Friends again, and we realised there are so many problematic episodes.

In the past, we used to communicate via letters, then it became trunk calls, then cell phones, WhatsApp... now, it is Tinder, Bumble...

The language in which love stories are told needs to be updated constantly.

Sayani (Gupta) plays an intimacy coordinator but that job didn't exist until five years ago.

Imtiaz Ali did that really well in Love Aaj Kal, where Saif (Ali Khan) just went and stood outside the girl's window for a day. That was such a beautiful scene. But if you ask somebody from today's generation to stand outside somebody's window, they will say, have you lost your mind?

It will be called stalking.

Exactly.

What Saif did was romantic in its time.

Times keep changing and I think romantic comedies are one genre that has changed the fastest because the way we talk and live keeps changing.

Cinema helps people fall in love.

Some of the biggest hits in the last two years are rom-coms like Anyone But You, Something Of You, Image Of You, Idea Of You...

There were five movies with 'you' in the title that released in a space of four or five months and they are really working.

That show on Netflix, Nobody Wants This, everybody was talking about that for a really long time.

So there is a huge market for rom-coms because people miss that in their lives.

Love stories are eternal. Their relevance never goes away.

My daughter is 10. She is going to start going through that phase in a few years.

Everybody who discovers When Harry Met Sally for the first time thinks I'm the only person who understood this movie.

I feel people will continue to get inspired by movies to fall in love, and also fall out of love.

You made Break Ke Baad in 2010. Why did you take so long to make your second film?

The first two-three years after Break Ke Baad were spent in trying to make another film. Twice, it almost happened with two different production houses.

In 2016, I started making a Web series.

I consider this as an achievement; I was doing Web series even before Netflix and Amazon came to India.

Voot was one first one to do it.

I did a show for them called It's Not That Simple with Swara (Bhasker).

At the time, nobody knew what a Web Series was.

If somebody would ask me what I was doing, I would say, I am doing a series.

They would ask, 'So you're doing TV?'

'No, it's not TV.'

'But does it have episodes?'

'Yeah.'

'So it's TV.'

'No, it's not TV.'

That was the conversation I had to go through in 2016.

Then suddenly everybody knew what a Web series was.

I directed about five Web series in seven years.

Swara Bhasker and Jaideep Alhawat are fantastic actors and good friends. They can lead a show.

It would be very difficult to mount a movie in the traditional Bollywood set up with these people, so I enjoyed Web series simply because they gave me a lot of freedom.

I did Flesh, a dark thriller, again with Swara.

Any plans of you reuniting with your Break Ke Baad hero, Imran Khan?

I am working on a movie with Imran. Hopefully, we will be able to announce soon.

Being a director, is there a constant struggle to prove yourself?

It's very easy to say that I only make films for myself.

Show business is money-minded but I don't subscribe to both views entirely.

I'm somewhere in between where I feel that at the end of the day, all art is performative. When you're creating something, you're bringing it in the world and putting it on a platform for other people to see. Opinions matter.

For some people, that is the only validation.

While it is important, that's not the end of it.

Rs 400 crore, Rs 500 crore (Rs 4 billion, Rs 5 billion) blockbusters are rare.

Streaming has given niche content to the audience. If 20 percent of the subscribers are into your show or film, you're good to go.

Everything doesn't have to be a Squid Game or an RRR.

Look at Panchayat.

Exactly. Who would have made that in the non-streaming era?

You don't have any A-lister stars; it's a story set in a village.

There are so many avenues of validation now.

Earlier, it was just hit or flop.

You can find validation even if you've made a terrible product.

Any regrets?

Mom told me to become a doctor. I think about it everyday, especially when a film releases and it isn't promoted. (Laughs)

But I don't think I have any big regrets.

The high I get here, I don't think I can get that in any other profession.

I would love to live in another city because living in Bombay is becoming increasingly more and more difficult and unhealthy.

Unfortunately, we are tied here through this profession.

I've somehow been tethered to one city now for 20 years, that's probably my only regret.

We had gone to Oxford last year because my wife (Shruti Seth) was studying there. We were like, I want to live here, this is such a beautiful place.

Why can't I live there? We remembered that we have to come back to work.

But career wise, I don't think I'd be able to do anything else.