Mismatched personalities has always been a recurring theme in Bollywood. Now what if you add role reversal to it? 'Challo Driver', a laugh fest starring Kainaz Motivala of 'Ragini MMS' fame, is all about that. Kainaz will slip into the driver’s seat to play a chauffeur in the film directed by debutant Vickrant Mahajan. The film’s song, Kudi pataka driver, sung by Mika Singh and Hard Kaur, is already creating a buzz.
So how did Mahajan stumble upon the unusual idea?
“In 2009, while driving in Delhi, a car passed me by—with a lady behind the steering and her male domestic help sitting diagonally behind her. A flashbulb lit inside my head. What if one were to reverse the roles? The lady, instead of being the employer would become the employee and the man would become the employer. The whole dynamic would change.”
Donning many hats, Mahajan has written, directed, produced and played the lead role in the film. While many termed his decision as ‘hara-kiri’, for him it was about following the bumblebee cliché: “I was ignorant of what I couldn’t do.”
For somebody who had never assisted any director and hadn’t been to film school, Mahajan had his own learning mechanism. “I bought close to 50 books on filmmaking and read them over a year.” The decision to act was taken during a spiritual trip. “After a year of meeting stars and auditioning hundreds, I went to Ladakh and stayed at a monastery in Leh. One day, meditating on the hilltop, the proverbial moment of epiphany came to me. I saw what my destiny was pointing towards: to act in the film. And then, there was no looking back.”
His first choice for the film was Katrina Kaif, who could not take up the film due to date issues. Post that, he approached several other stars as well, but nothing materialised. Kangna Ranaut was keen to act in the film, but she too had several films on the floor. Finally, Kainaz was chosen to play the lead.
After refining the first draft for a year and a half, Mahajan finally filmed the 18th draft, which was shot in Delhi and Gurgaon in 2011 and was completed in 29 days.
Not the one to compromise on his creative freedom, Mahajan decide to produce the film himself after meeting several studio executives. Thus came about Orange Canvas, a production house under which he and his wife produced Challo Driver. “I essentially followed the Woody Allen model,” says Mahajan.
Raising finances, according to him, was the most difficult aspect of this process. “My wife and I put in all our savings as the seed capital and then went around enlisting support from family, friends, investors, essentially everyone that we knew.” And the most satisfying part? “Writing the script, lyrics (I wrote all the songs of the film) and directing.” Mahajan’s next film would be a spiritual comedy set in Ladakh. “I have realised that I’m happiest creating feel-good, fun, unpretentious content,” he says.
The film is due to hit the screens on July 20, and would also star Prem Chopra, who was last seen in Agent Vinod.
