On Day 2 of Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2026, R Balki had an interesting chat with celebrity anchor Gaurav Sharma, aka SharmaG, about his debut film Cheeni Kum (2007) at the ‘Food! Camera! Action!’ session in a bar in South Mumbai. The screening of the Amitabh Bachchan-Tabu starrer took place after the conversation. In keeping with the film's theme, attendees at the screening were also served the Hyderabadi Zafrani Pulav.
R Balki explained how Amitabh Bachchan came on board, “One of Amit ji’s first ads after he came back in films was for Parker. I wrote it while someone else shot the ad. We had very few interactions and he glared at me too often! A week after this ad shoot, I went to watch one of his films at Metro. I didn’t like it. Since I had to exchange scripts with him, I had his number. I wrote a lengthy message about what Amitabh Bachchan stands for to me, what his brand means, etc. It was a long SMS, as in those days, there was no WhatsApp. I sent him at 2:30 am. At 2:33 am, I got a reply from him. It was exactly the same length as my message and it simply said ‘Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm’. That’s it!”
As the audience laughed, R Balki continued, “That was my first message from Mr Amitabh Bachchan. The next day, I was in the office, quite disturbed, and was struggling to do a Lifebuoy ad. I was sitting with one of my creative directors and jamming on ideas. I went out of the loo, came out and said ‘I got it’. He assumed I got an idea for the ad. But I replied, ‘No. I got an idea for a film’!”
He added, “I messaged Mr Bachchan that I have an idea for a film and if I can discuss it with him. He said, ‘Come’. I went and met him. I shared a 2-line idea, ‘a 64-year-old man meets a 36-year-old woman. Father-in-law is against their relationship. It’s a romantic film with sarcasm’. I asked him if I should invest in writing the whole film. He just told me, ‘Write it’!”
R Balki then stated, “So, I wrote it on weekends and spent sleepless nights. Once done, I narrated it to him. I thought I wrote a funny script. But not even once during the narration of the first half did he smile or laugh. He kept staring at me. That’s when I suddenly realized that I narrated the whole film in his voice to him!”
R Balki then said, “No wonder he kept looking at me and wondered, ‘This idiot with his grammatically wrong Hindi is trying to imitate me’! I then narrated the second half in Tabu’s voice (laughs). At the end of the narration, he said ‘Let’s do it’!”
More Pages: Cheeni Kum Box Office Collection , Cheeni Kum Movie Review
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