Kathmandu In the year 2014 we played Kabaddi with Kaji and his unreciprocated love for his soltini Maiya. The film starring Dayahang Rai, Rishma Gurung and Nischal Basnet was much appreciated, and the man behind the film was Ram Babu Gurung. A year later, the 34-year-old director, who wants his work to be known more than him, is back with Kabaddi Kabaddi — featuring Rai, Rishma and Saugat Malla — which is running to full houses in all the cinema halls that it is being screened. Having been successful in entertaining people, the film witnessed a good opening and did business in crores, and is still counting. His ways Kabaddi was Ram Babu’s first commercial film. Before this, he had made Anagarik (2007) — a community-based fiction film of the Gurung community — and later on eight to nine documentaries. Anagarik garnered “good and bad reviews that motivated me. I felt I can pursue a career in film-making!” After making documentaries for different projects and learning during his struggling days, he felt a commercial film should be made. And he wanted to do something different. Believing “we should make a film based on some culture and community — which has its own story, tradition and experiences (getting closer to reality) to make it different — be it commercial or non-commercial or art” and using the formula of hero, heroine and villain for commercial appeal, Kabaddi was envisioned (in 2012) and made. Ram Babu was not “satisfied” with the film-making that was going on then regarding mainstream films. With his first-hand experience — as he had hung around the film circle in his initial days in the industry (mid 2000s) — he got over with the Bollywood-inspired Nepali films with hero, heroine and villain. “That time got me interested in film-making but I didn’t want to do those kinds of movies. Perhaps I had matured. And my perspective on films became different as I started to mingle with film-makers like Tsering Rhitar and Nabin Subba of a different dhar. My link to that (mainstream) circle also distanced automatically,” he expressed adding, “I may be making film on their style (of Rhitar…)” Born for films “When I couldn’t become a lahure (British Gurkha soldier), I had no option but to turn to films and film-making. This is what I think,” Ram Babu shares. “We were filmi since childhood which we all are. It was limited to this initially.” Born in Okhaldhunga in the Gurung community where becoming a lahure is their first priority (for males), he grew up with this psychology of becoming a lahure. He tried twice but “my big lahure dream since school days” remained unfulfilled. Ram Babu, who was 21/22 years old then, enrolled in dancing classes in 2002/3 while getting to know people from the film industry and the circle expanded in the next few years. But as he matured, he felt the need to understand more about films for which he turned to “knowledgeable people like Rhitar, discuss and did research with them, read film-related books that were rare”. Later he also attended workshops on script writing and film-making. He was being directed towards becoming a film-maker that he is now. And he already had filmi side in him. It has its root in imitating hairstyles and dressing styles of actors. Bollywood actors Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt were his inspiration of which he elaborates, “It used to be monotonous wearing the same uniform to school, so I used to wear another shirt or a shirt that Salman Khan wore in one of his movies on the way and change to my uniform before entering school. And in school, the teacher would scold me but I grew my hair like that of Sanjay Dutt’s...” They also used to collect money to buy film rolls for reel camera and go to the rivers, streams, rocks and hills to take pictures posing in different actors’ poses and all dressed up like them. And Akshay Kumar’s films inspired him to learn martial arts for a few months. Comedy by default Kabaddi and Kabaddi Kabaddi are comedies, but Ram Babu’s interest in films is not comedy. “Even if I embark on making serious movies, comedy makes its way into my films somehow. I did not intend to make Kabaddi a comedy film. I believe we need to have humorous characters in a film to entertain people, so I designed those characters but Kabaddi became a complete comedy one way or the other. People laugh while watching the film and that’s how it made the film a comedy. I am not sure if comedy is my strength.” Kabaddi Kabaddi, that was recently released, is a sequel to Kabaddi. And another Kabaddi is likely to be made. However, the director is not in support of sequels. “I am against sequels. I feel that a creator has to move to a different creation after creating one,” he opines. As per him, they had designed Kabaddi in such a way that if it was to be successful, another film could follow. Kabaddi Kabaddi was not in the picture after Kabaddi. Since his next project Degree Maila couldn’t go on the floors, he went on to write Kabaddi Kabaddi. Moreover he remarks, “Kabaddi crossed a level and made me a director. I could no longer go asking for money from my relatives like I used to do earlier. This is my career and I had to survive. I had to do something for that year and I designed the second Kabaddi.” Correcting his previous mistakes, Ram Babu went on to make Kabaddi Kabaddi which has become successful. The third instalment of Kabaddi is in the picture but it depends on the audience’s reaction as well as on Ram Babu. “If the audience is not irritated with the Kabaddi elements, Kabaddi 3 will be made. We will have to wait a few weeks to see how much people will love Kabaddi Kabaddi. But that is not all — I should also be able to give a new taste of brand Kabaddi to the audience. Only then will the third version be designed, but after a few projects,” he explains. For now, Ram Babu’s films like Purano Dunga and Degree Maila are in the pipeline.   Trivia

• Ram Babu was a bit greedy and interested to become an actor for which he learnt dance and went to the gym. He has also acted in few films as character actors. When being a part of shooting and seeing the director telling actors to “cry, submerge in water, yell…I felt that I can’t do this and become an actor. It is not in my nature”.
• He doesn’t care about dhar. Be it made in any technique, a film has to be made in a good way.
• From Saajan till now, “I like Salman Khan. I don’t like his films but I go to watch his films anyway.”
• When he was studying in college, he thought to himself that he wouldn’t take a job — be it master, doctor or engineer — he would rather go to a village to plough the fields.
• He says, his film-making is inspired by Chinese film-makers like Zhang Yimou (The Road Home) and Ang Lee.
• He enjoys making fiction films. “I won’t do documentaries from now on. I did that for about four years where one documentary would last five to six months.”
• Ram Babu says he is shy by nature but insists, “I open up when I drink sometimes during parties. My real self is revealed then!”