A shade card & some humour

Mona

Post this Thursday you will love dark people, that is, if you choose to see Kala Shah Kala, and the claim comes from the much-loved actor of Pollywood - Binnu Dhillon. At PVR, Elante, on Monday the lead pair of this rollicking comedy, Sargun Mehta and Binnu Dhillon, have some chit-chat, laughter and big promises. 

Their first plea, “Take your loved ones to see Kala Shah Kala this Valentine’s Day, the world could sure use some laugh and more love.”

The film that plays on the typical North Indian obsession with fair skin has Binnu play a ‘kala’. In fact, so dark is he in the film that the first time he showed up for the shoot, the whole unit could not stop laughing. “It is so bad that as one day my daughter turned up on the sets and standing next to me, she was asking my friends, ‘where is papa’,” shares Binnu.

Happy, bubbly Sargun laughs while telling how one night as they tried to shoot a certain sequence, they kept missing the train and the bulbs kept getting fused. Finally when after many attempts the shot was done, they only found the footage of Sargun walking alone talking; Binnu was completely lost in darkness.” 

Jokes aside, the two make a serious case about ‘seerat not surat’ (character over looks). And, personally neither has ever given into the stereotypical ‘fair’ fantasies. In fact, Sargun likes sun-kissed, slightly tanned complexion.

Joining the duo is Jordan Sandhu and while he agrees with Sargun that nobody would have done the role better than Binnu, we ask Sargun on what made her pick up the part. Basking in the success of Qismat, she replies, “To begin with the script was amazing. I wanted to try my hands at comedy and to be able to do it with Binnu ji, was just the icing on the cake.” 

The fun girl shares that how in her TV career she has done plenty of rona dhona, “We would use glycerine and joke about it, ‘bring it on, there comes a BMW with it’ as the belief goes more tears fetch more audience, eventually more money.”

As for Binnu, he is in no mood for changing his genre, “See if someone’s samosas are doing brisk business, he wouldn’t sit and sell something else.” But within the genre, he is happy sharing different shades, “Sometime the comic tone is rather a melodrama, here in Kala Shah Kala it is rather subtle.”

This actor, producer requests the audience, “If you really wish to see Punjabi cinema and our language grow, please show up in cinema halls. Promotions are important but even if some films can’t muster huge promotional budgets, please see the trailer and if it touches the chord, do step in theatres.”

mona@tribunemail.com