I personally don’t want to remake any old movies

Kathmandu:

Director Ashok Pandit rose to fame with his hit comedy show called Filmi chakkar, which created quite a storm in the early days of satellite television. In a country like India where movies are a huge part of the lifestyle, the show that revolved around a family of movie buffs became an instant hit. Pandit delivered another landmark show called Colgate Top Ten, which is one of the first countdown shows of India.

Although Pandit became popular with these two shows, he had been associated with other hit television shows like Nukkad and Yeh jo jindagi hai. He also directed two other shows called Tere Mere Sapne and Muqammal.

From television Pandit ventured into big screen with movies like Meri Zameen and Sheen, both of which deals with the plight of the Kashmiri Pandit community to which he belongs. For a director who considers comedy his forte, the change in the genre of his ventures was an affect of the suffering that his community had to go through.

“Your thought process changes when you witness such incidents happening to your own community and when there is so much pain around you. So it occurred to me that if I don’t make it, then who would?” he opined.

Pandit even made a documentary on the issue called Sharnarthi apne desh mein, which won the RAPA award for the best documentary in 2000.

His movie Sheen, which is closest to his heart, was screened at the Human Rights Conference in Geneva and his documentary And the world remained silent was screened at the House of Commons in the UK.

For a director who has tried his hands at different genres, it is comedy that he finds difficult. “It is very difficult to make people laugh as there are so many tensions in people’s life today,” he said.

In terms of television and movies, Pandit opined that the former is far more “demanding and tiring”.

“In television you have to produce everyday, and that isn’t easy. It takes a toll on your health as well.”

How about the fact that the Indian television today enjoys equal popularity as the movies?

“It is great that television has emerged and has grown so fast. Everything has improved right from production value to characterisation. The impact it has on the people shows that television has become a very powerful medium,” he said.

Pandit further mentioned the variety this medium has — sitcoms, reality shows and

game shows among others. However when asked he expressed his disapproval about the musical reality shows. “An entire generation is being given a dream. But what they do in such shows in sing the old songs, which are already popular. They should emphasise on originality, then it becomes the real test for newcomers.”

While talking about the trend of ‘remakes’ in Bollywood he said, “I personally don’t want

to remake any old movies as I feel that such great works should not be touched but be left as it is. Further I don’t think we are bankrupt when it comes to ideas. So why should we go for remakes?”

Pandit who himself has made issue based movies opined, “It is the gripping element and brilliant narration with lot of soul in the story that works these days.”

Elaborating further he talked about the audience. “The audience were always mature. It was us who did not realise that it is the content they want. We have started realising this when the audience started rejecting our movies.”

The producer/director, who was in Nepal for a short visit, was much awe of Mount Everest. He talked about his experience of the mountain flight.

“It was an amazing experience to see this magnificent structure standing there with so much grandeur. I felt such vibrancy from within that it was almost like internal cleansing. It really made me think about life.”

He informed that they — his friend director Madhur Bhandrakar and he — were so impressed that they have already planned their nest trip to Nepal with their families.