The Hindu Business Line : Kukunoor gets his <I>Blues </I>again

Nagesh Kukunoor: "I understand the business well enough to know that second-guessing the film is the wrong way to go about it. It is the biggest guessing game out there. I think you have a better chance in a horse race."

Nagesh Kukunoor (Left) with co-stars in Hyderabad Blues. Kukunoor is making a sequel Hyderabad Blues-2.

Mumbai , June 13

VARUN Naidu is returning to theatres.

An unknown during his screen debut in July 1998, distributor Shringar Films arranged a "careful release," a two week-run at a Goregaon theatre for Nagesh Kukunoor's first feature film. Slowly, Hyderabad Blues simmered to a craze, making it to Delhi by December 1998, finishing its India run by February 1999.

"Hyderabad Blues will be the fondest memory of film making I have," Kukunoor who acted as Naidu, said on Friday. The film's cost, Rs 17 lakh, "an aberration to the point of being an anomaly in the field of marketing." He is now ready with a sequel costing roughly Rs 2 crore.

`Hyderabad Blues-2 Rearranged Marriage' will be distributed by UTV Motion Pictures and compared to the guarded market foray of its predecessor, be screened in eight Indian cities (Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Chennai) at start with likely simultaneous domestic and international release.

Six years since Hyderabad Blues' cautious opening, Kukunoor is a seasoned filmmaker, with three more films (Rockford, Bollywood Calling, Teen Deewarein) now to his credit. With that track record and an original title synonymous with successful offbeat films, Kukunoor had no difficulty getting support for the sequel.

He got the entire old cast, save Rajeshri Nair who played Aswini, wife of the main protagonist, Naidu. She was replaced by Jyoti Dogra. Further, Hyderabad Blues-2 is structured for an audience that saw the 1998 offering and those that didn't.

But sequels with the same characters and a story line carried over from the first film are rare in Bollywood. Kukunoor's film is Hyderabad Blues re-visited six years down the line. Naidu now runs a call centre, and his wife wants to start a family. But he is reluctant to commit; and has an attraction for his office manager.

In 1998, Naidu-from-US was a character quite real for many Indian families but as yet unarticulated for the silver screen. His perception of home and vice-versa was arguably a theme begging to strike a chord, which it did. Since then, several Bollywood and `cross-over' films on similar themes came, travel abroad became common place in urban India and the `techie' lost his curio value.

If Naidu's generation became regular by 2004, what is there anymore to his story?

Kukunoor disagrees with such a simplistic view, arguing that the original film had appealed for different reasons to different people. If some found newness to the NRI angle, there were those who liked it for questioning arranged marriage. "I have always kept the market out," he said of the tendency to work themes favoured by the market into movies.

"I understand the business well enough to know that second-guessing the film is the wrong way to go about it. It is the biggest guessing game out there. I think you have a better chance in a horse race." Kukunoor concedes that a prime reason preserving his creative control and ability to discount market compulsions is "the league I am playing in is small enough."

At two crore rupees, Naidu's second coming next month is low budget by current standards. Still, one difference will invite gaze on how the sequel fares. As Kukunoor himself said, "Hyderabad Blues was a life-changing event, an experience. Now, this is a film."

For Naidu, the journey may have just begun.