Message on a platter

Habib Faisal

Having made his directorial debut with the very endearing Do Dooni Chaar which highlighted the problems of school teachers, Habib Faisal followed it up with the hard-hitting Ishaqzaade that focused on honour killings. The director is now in the limelight for Daawat-E-Ishq, that talks about falling in love over food and about the evil of dowry, but in a humourous way.
The idea, says the director, struck him when he read about a woman in North India who duped some 10 men by marrying them and soon after would inform the police about dowry harassment.
“What fascinated me was the slant of the story, of who is duping. I found it ironic that this woman was using law (Article 498A under IPC) and turning a tradition on its head! But then what about those millions of people who, on a daily basis, are harassing women. The thought disturbed me and I know, for a fact, that even the richest of rich ask for dowry which, in a way, is directly linked to female infanticide. For me, it was very important that the hero of the film becomes a role model for today’s young men and that’s what Aditya Roy Kapur’s character Tariq does at one point in the film. I could have chosen to make a film which was dark, hard-hitting and disturbing but I felt if I tell the story with humour and irony then the audience would be able to look at their lives more light-heartedly,” said the director.
The film’s promotions, as one must have noticed, suggests falling in love over food and even had lead actors Roy and Parineeti Chopra going on a food yatra to promote the film. So how did food come on the plate of a dowry-based film?
“I had always been quite fascinated by the small restaurants in Lucknow, a city which is synonymous with food. That’s how I made Aditya a chef of a restaurant in Lucknow and food became the flavour of the film. Then I had Parineeti, who belongs to Hyderabad travelling to Lucknow, with her dad. Even otherwise I love my characters eating because when food becomes part of a scene, it gets a different flavour. Like Rishi Kapoor ate in Do Dooni Char and Ranveer Singh munched on bread pakoras in Band Baaja Baarat,” smiled the director.
The director confesses that he has been highly influenced by the Hrishikesh Mukherjee kind of cinema that always talked about an issue but sprinkled it with humour. While his Golmaal talked about the problem of unemployment, Chupke Chupke showed how the English language was butchered and Anand spoke about cancer. “ I was fascinated by the craft of writing and telling relatable real stories with songs and humour. That is what I grew up on, and that has always been my benchmark of making films,” he said.
Every director has expectations from his films and Faisal hopes that the audience is not only entertained but provoked to think after watching Daawat-E-Ishq. “I hope it is appreciated. I won’t deny that I am nervous about how the audience will accept Daawat-E-Ishq which is not your conventional story.”
And now Faisal is on to his next film, not as a director but as a writer. He has penned Fan, the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer directed by Maneesh Sharma. How excited is he about the superstar coming alive on screen in a story written by him. “It’s a very exciting and amazing how Shah Rukh is working on the film. I have been on the shoot and I have seen him at work and witnessed his discipline and commitment. He is one of the first to arrive on sets. And once there, he does not make calls, he is listening and even if he is chatting his eyes are always on Maneesh, when he is setting up the shot,” said the director visibly excited.

geety.sahgal@expressindia.com