"I am trying to outguess the audience and audience will be trying to outguess me" - Anurag Singh 
By IndiaFM News Bureau, April 26, 2007 - 10:57 IST
Anurag Singh is an addition to the new breed of bright and inspired filmmakers in Bollywood. After assisting to Raj Kanwar for seven years, Anurag is all set to make his directorial debut with Raqeeb produced by Kanwar.
Anurag Singh speaks to IndiaFM about his first film Raqeeb.
Tell us something about your background in cinema
I landed in Bombay around seven years ago. I struggled for a bit like I looked out for work and met people then I landed up to Raj Kanwar's office. Rajji's brother Mr. K Pappu was suppose to start a film that time. I joined him as an assistant director but that project got shelved and he told me to join Raj Kanwar. That's how I started working with Rajji and now it has been seven years that I have been with him. I started with the film Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega was shooting. Then I worked on Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke, Ab Ke Baras and Andaaz for which Mr Suneel Darshan was the producer. Humko Deewana Kar Gaye was the last film that I did with Raj Kanwar as dialogue writer.
I was the dialogue writer for Humko Deewana Kar Gaye
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How did Raqeeb happen?
It just happened like all good things happen without any hint as such. It just came out of the blue. We finished Hum Ko Deewana Kar Gaye and there were talks going about production house various directors and suddenly Rajji asked me about directing a film and I said yes. Raj Kanwar had a story with him he narrated that story to me. We started working on screenplay.
Raqeeb is another musical thriller
I know it's an overused term as it has become a popular phrase in Bollywood but this film has thrills and wonderful music. The plot has three heroes and one heroine in the film. She is playing triple role in the film. It is like a constant game of a hide and seek. I am trying to outguess the audience and audience will be trying to outguess me. They will try to find out that what character is trying to planning out and I'll try to fox them.
Rahul plays a rich businessman and Sharman plays his friend. Rahul is shy and introvert guy whereas Sharman is a loud extrovert playboy. Rahul falls in love with girl being played by Tanushree Dutta and then marriage happens and story takes twists and turns. Every character has their own hidden agenda for betraying people. Things don't turn up as people expect them to be but it doesn't happen the way they expect.
Doesn't the storyline sound suspiciously similar to Humraaz?
No not all. The only similarity is that both movies have same genre.
How did the casting happen?
I met Rahul Khanna for another project which got shelved. Rahul fits the bill for his character as he is quite shy, sophisticated and intelligent real life. I narrated my script to Sharman Joshi and the moment he heard he agreed to do the film. Sharman is a rising star and I believe that his potential has not been explore properly. Most of the filmmakers trying to cast him in stereotypical comic role but I feel has lot more to offer. For Jimmy Shergill's character we met lot of people but things didn't work out. I narrated the story to Jimmy and he liked it. Tanushree Dutta was considered right from the start. She is an upcoming star and good actress as well. This is how everything fell in place.
And since it's a musical thriller how good is the music?
Raqeeb is a musical thriller so the music is very important. In thriller, you expect something out of the box more than you expect from a guy like Pritam and what he normally does. He is usually known for his Sufi rock compositions. This film has something different than his other films. We wanted the music which could give the feel of a thriller. It has soft moody romantic numbers. He has given songs from different genre that gives different feel from each other. I like different songs for different reasons I like 'Tera Chera', 'Chana Ve Chana Ve' and title track 'Dushmana'.
Nowadays when everyone follows the bandwagon of promotional music video, doesn't Raqeeb have one?
Raqeeb doesn't have promotional song as such but yes its title track 'Dushmana' is a sort of promotional song. Its male version has been sung by Kunal Ganjawala and female version is by Sunidhi Chauhan. You can call it promotional song if you want to. Although, it was planned right from the start, we never thought of having a music album as such.
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Raqeeb doesn't have promotional song as such but yes its title track 'Dushmana' is a sort of promotional song
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Wasn't the film completed last year?
We finished major amount of shooting last year but we also shot in January. Most of the shooting was done last year but we still had a song and couple of scenes where we required these four people to shoot. If you have four people working in a film then you have to work out their dates. All of these people are busy in their other projects that it is difficult to work out on combination and my post production work got completed few days back.
Raqeeb is releasing with two big banner films. Do you think its right time for release?
We don't want Raqeeb to clash with Metro because both have Sharman Joshi, so we may pre-pone it. You can't always expect a solo release anytime of the year. There is always some film that's going to release on same date so you have to find out the right period and ultimately its producer and distributors workout between themselves.
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