"Sikandar isn't message oriented" - Piyush Jha 
By Joginder Tuteja, March 25, 2009 - 12:02 IST
Talk about a film based in Kashmir and two immediate thoughts that come to mind are - a) It will involve a terrorism angle, b) It will aim at conveying a message in the end.
"You are right about the first part to some extent though the second part isn't entirely true", smiles Piyush Jha the director of this Parzan-Ayesha starrer. "Even otherwise, the terror element is just a backdrop. Otherwise the film is mainly centered on the story of this young teenage boy called Sikandar (Parzan), who stumbles upon a pistol. How events unfold from this point on forms the narrative of Sikandar ."
How about the messaging part? "No, Sikandar is not a traditional message oriented film", comes an outright denial from the young filmmaker, "I have not set myself up to making some boring issue based cinema. I can't blame the general perception though if one feels that Sikandar could be on the same lines. After all, you do get that tag once you film a movie in Kashmir."
In fact the director of King of Bollywood and Chalo America insists that his own sensibilities do not allow him to venture into such subjects. "Honestly, I myself get bored with such kind of cinema where audience end up saying that intentions were good but the execution is boring", says Piyush, "Come on, what's the point of making such cinema which can't keep the audience engaged enough. I wanted to make a story which is exciting and keeps the audience involved from beginning till the end. Sikandar stays on to be a suspense thriller."
Piyush believes that if at all there is a message to be conveyed, it has to be more implicit rather than explicit."You can convey a message only if you have your viewer interested in the story that you are trying to tell. If you try to hammer across a point, it will only end up hurting people's throats. I don't want to do that; I don't want to shout from the rooftops that I have made Sikandar for the sake of humanity", says Piyush honestly, "Sorry, those were never my intentions to begin with. More than anything else, first of all I want my audience to enjoy the cinematic experience and then think about the other subtexts."
Also starring Madhavan, Sanjay Suri and newcomer Arunoday Singh in principal roles, Sikandar releases all over on 27th March.
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"Yes, Sikandar deals with violence" - Piyush Jha
