Manoj Kumar to direct DNA Report

By Subhash K. Jha -

June 18, 2012 - 12:41 AM IST

Manoj Kumar is all set to return to direction with a film called DNA Report. This would be Kumar's first directorial venture since the badly-received Clerk in 1989.

Informs the veteran director, "I haven't been able to make any film because of my back problem. But now my script is ready. It's a film called DNA Report. It's about how a man becomes a victim of a DNA test when he has never had any emotional or physical relationship with a woman. Then how does the DNA report say he's the father of the woman's child? This is a subject I've never been into."

Says Manoj Kumar regretfully, "I don't have the comfort of working with Manoj Kumar the actor anymore. He is capable of telling home truths in the most understated manner. So I've to select from the stars today. It's an expensive film. I have zeroed in on an actor. But until everything is finalized I can't talk about it."

Manoj may go for a completely new leading lady.

Says the actor, "I have an eye for talent. Do you know in Shor when Sharmila Tagore ditched me (she was supposed to play my wife's role that Nanda finally played) I had offered that role to Smita Patil. She politely told me she was not interested in acting at that point of time. God has given me honest eyes and pure ears."

Talking about him getting into direction, Manoj says, "I never intended to be a director in the first place. I became one by default when during Shaheed, I had to direct the film unofficially. Then Lal Bahadur Shastri raised the slogan of 'Jai jawan jai kishan'. That's how I made Upkar. I give credit of my success to my parents. My father was a poet philosopher. I came to Mumbai with two targets. One was to be a hero, the other was to make 3 lakh rupees,1 lakh each for my two parents and 1 lakh for my siblings. When I had left home in Delhi in 1956 to come to Mumbai to become a hero, my father gave me a letter. In that letter he said, 'My blood can never commit blunders, only mistakes'. I made mistakes in my career. But not blunders."

Commenting in his long absence from direction says, "I am not a greedy film person even as an actor. While my contemporaries Dharmendra and Shashi Kapoor acted in nearly 300 films each, I've done hardly 35 films in my entire career. One of my last directorial ventures Kalyug Aur Ramayan was my best script. But because it went through a lot of changes it lost its sheen. My characters were called Ram and Sita. There was a song in the film 'Kalyug ki sita milne judge ko chali/Sau chuhe khake billi haj ko chali