The glow within

If Sabal Singh Shekhawat had his way movies would be more compelling and realistic Son of a tea planter in Assam Shekhawat made his way to Mumbai after his schooling and graduation from Delhi After 18 years of producing and directing commercials such as Dabur Real Juice Jeevansaathicom Ford Fiesta and Hero Honda the 47yearold started Wild Geese Pictures in 2012 mdash a feature film production company and is ready with his debut movie Fireflies starring Rahul Khanna Monica Dogra and Arjun Mathur The English movie premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival earlier this year and is set to release on October 31 Excerpts from an interviewRahul Khanna plays a pivotal part in FirefliesQ Your profile describes you as somebody who has numerous awardwinning commercials to his credit Can you tell us about some of them A We won an award at Cannes for a public service commercial However awards donrsquot really matter to me My exboss Shantanu Sheorey used to say that awards are given and made by people who decided to get awards among themselves I believe you canrsquot really judge a piece of work against another piece of work which has been given a completely different brief I agree with thatQ How did you start writing and eventually think of directing a feature filmA I started writing commercials because the scripts we got needed much rewriting Then I received a few offers to direct features for studios but I wasnrsquot too keen Also I wasnrsquot ready to do a feature because I always believe that you need to have lived a certain number of years to have perspective I felt that the kind of stuff I wanted to do could not be written by someone else as the stories and perspectives are really personal They are inspired from events people situations music and itrsquos very hard to communicate that to somebody elseQ You had written a script which didnrsquot end up being considered for a filmA I wrote a script and sent it to John Abraham whorsquos a good friend It was an action film called Kafan Studio 18 was also involved but they shelved it because the studio changed hands and decided that the budget was high Other studios wanted us to compromise in terms of casting music and other things I didnrsquot want to do it that way Fireflies was written a couple of years before this script and we decided to pull it out of cold storage raise our own money and go ahead with itQ Wersquore intrigued by the fact that you got mugged in New York and thatrsquos where Fireflies began A I was in New York in 2005 when I came across a group of drunk men It was like a scene out of a Bgrade movie They wanted to mug me A few blows were exchanged but I managed to escape The next morning I woke up with a heavy fever and was in much pain I was really upset so I started to write It was basically about what makes people react the way they do It loosely culminated from what I thought those guys had against me I then kept going to the idea of the battle which might have raged inside those muggers to create the ugliness on the outsideSabal Singh Shekhawatrsquos next two films are in HindiQ What is the significance of the firefliesA I grew up in the tea gardens of Assam where we would look forward to fireflies twice a year There would be millions of fireflies from nowhere and they were mesmerising to watch I remember a cousin telling us that they live only for a day That stuck in my head that these things that have come in the night with no history come glow and are gone So Irsquom trying to draw a parallel here with human lives All that we do is to take birth exist and go In short life is short Another aspect is that they can see in the dark because theyrsquove got a glow within them and hence they donrsquot fear the night So the metaphor is that if you have the glow within you you will not fear darknessQ Whatrsquos the vision you have for your film production companyA I want to work without the constraints of peoplersquos egos and diktats and create compelling films They donrsquot have to be in English mdash our next two films are in Hindi They must be thoughtprovoking