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Having developed a knack for leather products early on in their lives, Riddhima and Saloni from the brand Risa followed into their father’s footsteps of working with leather products. The brand ‘Risa’ does not just provide premium quality leather handbags but also provides an opportunity to customers to express their individuality through customisation. We met the two sisters to find out all about their journey and here are the excerpts from the interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg98rFjn_Uw
Meet Riddhima and Saloni, two sisters who combined their knack for creativity with their business acumen and started their own label Risa which specializes in leather handbags. The siblings take pride in the fact that their designs go beyond the usual and offer customers much more in terms of quality and styles.
“The kind of people who come to buy the products are those who appreciate new techniques and designs and are not just limited to classic bags. They do not just want blacks and beige, but like to explore more stuff and colours. There are a lot of foreigners also who come to the store, and they are the ones who have now become the main market customers, since they like exploring new stuff, and we are mostly catering to them.”
A quick glance at their store in Delhi’s Mehar Chand market is good enough to help you understand their design sensibility. Intricate detailing and a touch of uniqueness are prominent in their craft and their products speak the same story.
“We do a lot of hand-weaving, and hand-tooling, hand-painting, embossing and perforation whichis something very different and not in the market as of now. We are trying to make something very unique and different in terms of leather handbags in the market. The next collection coming up will be a tie and dye collection with a lot of weaving incorporated into it and hand-painted leather.”
You can choose from a wide variety of bags for men and women available in their various collections or even have them customise a bag for you. A new feature in the Indian market, Risa lets you add little details to your bag as per your liking.
Handmade shoes are a thing of the past. But we caught up with Rameshwar Arya who is keeping the trend of making handmade shoes alive…This is his story.
Meet Rameshwar Arya, a shoe maker who works out of Delhi’s Nizamuddin area and has been in the business from the age of 17. While high-end international brands of shoes dominate the mind space of the Indian consumer today, Bollywood’s veteran lyricist ‘Gulzar’ gets his shoes custom made by him.
Rameshwar makes shoes for the differently abled and also for people with big shoe sizes.
He is one of the few people who is keeping the trend of making handmade shoes alive even today.
Music composer Amit Trivedi’s score for Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D in 2009 set a new trend as far as Bollywood film music was concerned. The composer delivered an eclectic mix of numbers which incorporated varied genres of music ranging from brass-band sounds of ‘Tauba Tera Jalwa’ to rock with ‘Nayan Tarse’, a first for any Hindi film.
Amit Trivedi: While I was making the music of ‘Dev D’ in 2007, I’d listen to the radio every night to understand what worked. My biggest fear was the difference between my compositions and the type of music people liked back then. There was absolutely no connection in the hit Bollywood scores and my music, which was when I decided to leave everything to God and see how it goes.
Trivedi’s gamble paid off and he bagged the National Film Award for Best Music Direction that year. The modern day Devdas’ narrative was strung together with tunes which were relevant for the times.
Amit Trivedi:I thought let me do a sound track or a score based on how someone with a broken heart would react today. He won’t obviously indulge in ‘Madira’ or ‘Pan’. There are other stronger substances available now. Keeping that in mind, I wanted to make the music trippier, edgier, more laid back and grungier, which comes from the story itself.
While Trivedi made everyone sit up and take notice with his tracks for ‘Dev D’, the film which marked his debut in Bollywood was Rajkumar Gupta’s ‘Aamir’ in 2008. Soon Trivedi was also roped in by Vikramaditya Motwane to compose the soundtrack for ‘Udaan’. The composer considers himself lucky to have started his career with films which had some of the best scripts and also gave him the opportunity to experiment.
Amit Trivedi: For someone who had just started his career, getting to read scripts like ‘Udaan’ and ‘Aamir’, was very overwhelming. We all know what works in Hindi films; the romantic ballads, item songs, dance numbers or disco numbers and these two films had none of these elements, that’s what excited me the most.
From the rock anthem ‘Dilli Dilli’ in ‘No One Killed Jessica’ to the kitschy burlesque dance number ‘Dreamum Wakeup’ in the movie ‘Aiyya’ or for that matter the playful love song ‘Pareshan’ from ‘Isahqzaade’, Trivedi’s versatility has been his biggest strength. The composer also does not shy away from using new genres like ‘dubstep’ in Bollywood film music.
Amit Trivedi:While working on ‘Ishaqzaade’ Habib Sir (Habib Fasial) wanted me to compose music for one of his promos that had a lot of pace in terms of the visuals. I had to create a tempo which would fit the parameters of that pace so I decided to break the composition down into half. Breaking the music down into two parts sparked the idea of including dubstep. When I pitched the idea of dubstep for the promo to both Habib Faisal and Aditya Chopra, they had no idea about that genre. I was insistent and instead of denying, they asked me to compose a song for the movie.
His songs for Vikramaditya Motwane’s period film ‘Lootera’ garnered him the bouquets as well as the brickbats. Allegedly the film’s theme music was uncannily similar to that of Hollywood film ‘One Day’. But that did not take away from the overall reception of his songs.
And we leave you with Trivedi’s thoughts on his upcoming project with director Anurag Kashyap, ‘Bombay Velvet’, yet again a period film for which he will be experimenting with Jazz music.
Amit Trivedi:The most exciting thing right now is ‘Bombay Velvet’, because for the first time probably I am trying to do Hindi jazz. The film is set in the fifties and the sixties and it is about life in Bombay in that era. At that time jazz was very active and there were a lot of jazz clubs. It was very exciting for me to jump into that territory, to do jazz from back then. It was a big challenge to bring that style of music to fit in the Bombay culture and environment while keeping things contemporary. The movie stars Ranbir and Anushka, so the music had to be able to speak a contemporary language.
Meet Akanksha Gupta, an architect-turned-designer who is set to launch her fashion label, I.AM.ME. The collection takes inspiration from the fact that every individual has a unique take on style. The label promises to enable every woman to embrace her innate flair for dressing with confidence and panache. Launching in December this year, I.AM.ME merchandise will be available at South Court Mall, Saket, New Delhi. Here are some excerpts from our conversation with the designer.
Formerarchitect turned fashion designer Akanksha Gupta talks about her label ‘I.AM.ME’ and how it’s a confluence of her love for design, be it in architectural spaces or in fashion.
Akanksha Gupta: I’ve always been keen on designing, on designing everything that comes in my way and designing basically is a way of life for me. So I always wanted to combine different paradigms of design and see what all one field of design can offer to the other and how all of them can marry and how all of them can go together hand in hand.
Catering to a market that’s confident yet comfortable in its own skin, the designer believes that her collection cannot be stereotyped. It is simply an everyday celebration of a woman’s identity and personal style.
Akanksha Gupta: Each piece is unique by itself. Like every individual is unique by itself, like the attitude is so unique and the inherent style of everybody is unique; similarly each outfit from I.AM.ME is unique and we do not want to do copies of any of the styles.
I.AM.ME takes pride in offering an exceptional and inimitable way of turning a day dress into nightwear in less than a minute.
The Reversible Dress
Akanksha Gupta: Right now the collection we will launch with will have a few ranges of sub collections if I could say, one of them being a reversible dress which is for those women who work hard and party harder. For those who go to office and then they go to party directly after office. So it’s a simple dress where in you go to office wearing a nice color which is soothing and when you are working it will put you in the frame there and when you want to go to a party right after that you just unzip it, reverse it and you are ready to go.
Launching in December this year, the brand promises to be a one stop destination that will capture the exuberance of a woman’s everyday life.
Akanksha Gupta: We will be launching through our first flagship store in South court mall, Saket. So around New Year we’ll launch our first flagship store with our first collection as well.
Designers Pankaj and Nidhi launched their label in 2006 and have been a part the Indian fashion industry for almost two decades. They have many international accolades to their credit like the iconic International Woolmark Prize, Elle Style Awards and much more. The designer duo showcased their breath-taking collection ‘House of Cards’ for the A/W’14 edition of Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. Designer Pankaj Ahuja talks all about the collection that took its inspiration from Spanish elements. Here are the excerpts.
Pankaj Ahuja:Fashion weeks in India have really come of age now from the time they were when they first started out; fewer designers, much smaller scale but it was an idea that had finally arrived. Thanks to sponsorship umbrellas, I think we’ve been able to put fashion week under one roof. Buyers get to come and see all designers in one location which doesn’t generally happen in London or Paris so it’s obviously a great place to be in right now.
Pankaj Ahuja:The collection is called ‘House of Cards’. These are two parallel things actually, the cards obviously are from playing cards, deck of cards, 52 cards, hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds, we love the motifs, we love what they represent.
Pankaj Ahuja:So we’ve done the collection by way of prints, we’ve done it by way of embroidered motifs which have been formed by the four suits of cards. And there is also a very strong Spanish inspiration which is running through this which has inspired the silhouettes, bolero jackets, capes, very strong colours, very Spanish vibes, and matador actually. There’s lots of gold which we’ve used in our collection for the first time. So it’s an interesting combination of two unusual ideas.
Here’s all you need to know about the designer Troy Costa, the man who designs clothes for Bollywood A-listers and now also for PM Narendra Modi!
Mumbai based fashion designer Troy Costa began his career in the Indian fashion industry in 2003. And in the last 10 years he has established himself as one of the foremost men’s wear designers in the country
Troy Costa: My focus was not on the glamour or the fashion weeks of this country. Once I was able to build a group of tailors who were able to excel in finish and quality and then planned to go to the next step which was starting a made-to-measure label called TroyCosta or TD Costa designs
And Troy’s designs have been donned by Bollywood A-listers including Hrithik Roshan, Saif Ali Khan, Anil Kapoor and Arjun Rampal
Troy Costa: We don’t follow any Bollywood diktat as such. Our focus is on making amazing clothes and we also are wanting to dress up Bollywood in a TC signature or a TC style. We don’t want to dress bollywood as per each individual style. That is the only one way we make clothes, tailoring, tailoring and tailoring.
Looking back at the decade spent as a designer, Troy affirms that fashion trends are cyclical in nature
Troy Costa: In 2003, we had the double breasted suit being made a part of the menswear movement then we moved to the single breasted and from 2010-11 going forward we’ve been wanting the double breast to come back and finally its come back in 2013 so that is one aspect. We’ve gone from the small collar in 2003 -2004 to the big collar in 2007-08-09 and we’ve come to the small collar again in 2013. So, that way fashion in a continuous circle its always travelling it goes into various forms it goes into footwear, hairstyles… we had long hair in 2001, and then we had long hair again in 2008-09 and then short hair in 13 and long hair in 16. So it’s constantly evolving but each time taking a new form
His winter festive 2013 collection titled ‘The London Eye’ for men was showcased at the Lakme Fashion week last year and his showstopper was none other than Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Here’s Troy’s take on his latest collection
Troy Costa: It meant that while the merry go round moves you would see color and you’d not see color and technically saying that in menswear fashion color was there in some seasons and then it was not there in some seasons. So, you don’t have color all the time. The man is not a metrosexual like yesteryear, he is ubersexual, he loves his color, he wants it to be a part of his everyday life. He is now more keen on dressing up or doing things of his own unlike yesterday where he asked his wife or his girlfriend to decide or choose his clothes. So, I am seeing a man who has graduated to a more…to a higher level technically.
And we leave you with Troy’s trend predictions for the upcoming season
Troy Costa: Internationally I think there are beautiful trends for menswear and the trends are going to evolve further and further, we have the new wedge brogue which has never been a format for shoes before so this was also showed in the TC London Eye show, coloured wedge. That’s going to be a very big international trend in 2014. The double breasted jacket is going to be a very big trend moving forward. The paisley jacket, the paisley print, all forms of botanical prints in menswear with regards to the shirts being floral based and that’s gonna be a big trend moving forward which is beautiful for menswear, it talks of going away from stripes and checks and creating new spaces with regard to menswear.
Here’s a look at the highlights of the third instalment of the India Runway Week Winter/Festive 2014.
The third season of the India Runway week held in September this year showcased the talent of over 35 young designers in the country. Organized by the Indian Federation for Fashion Development (IFFD), the winter/festive edition of the event was a riot of colors with surreal designs on display along with an amalgamation of traditional and western wear.
Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui has graduated from playing blink-and-miss roles to being the most-looked-forward-to element in highly acclaimed films. His journey may have been a spectacular one but his humble demeanour reveals how he hasn’t let fame get the better of him.
He smiles self-effacingly as he shares how his journey began in a small town where his only cinematic exposure was to “C-grade” films. “I grew up in a place where most people are farmers. I had no intentions of getting into films. I was never chosen in any audition or through photos,” Siddiqui laughs. He still feels that he hasn’t discovered his true potential as an actor and this is what drives him.
The 39-year old Siddiqui started his career in the film industry with a bit role in Aamir Khan-starrer ‘Sarfarosh’ way back in 1999. Siddiqui shares, yet again in his signature unassuming tone, that he only got this chance because the other actor who was cast for the role didn’t turn up for the shoot. Even though his role was for a short duration of about 40 seconds, it did open the gates for more opportunities. Anurag Kashyap got a peak at Siddiqui’s performance and promised him a role in whichever film he would direct in the future.
Kashyap kept his promise and gave Nawazuddin Siddiqui three scenes in ‘Black Friday’. The actor, at that time, was overjoyed at the chance and still considers it his real big break in Bollywood.
When Nawazuddin made his way to Mumbai after having graduated from the National School of Drama in New Delhi, the reception he received from his friends was less than encouraging. “Since I was a trained actor, I was confident that I would find work in a jiffy. But when I reached Bombay, my bubble burst. Even the warmth I expected from my old friends seemed to have dried up with the heated pace of life in Bombay,” he reminisces.
The struggle to establish himself as an actor continued and it was only in 2012 with full-fledged roles in films like Ashim Ahluwalia’s ‘Miss Lovely’, Prashant Bhargava’s ‘ Patang’ and Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Gangs of Wasseypur Part 2’ that Nawazuddin got his due.
But essaying the role of Faisal Khan in Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur gave Siddiqui sleepless nights, quite literally! “The first two days, I simply couldn’t understand the nuances of the character. Then Anurag sat me down and told me that the problem was that I was making the portrayal of power too overt. It had to be extremely subtle.”
“I kept mulling over Anurag’s words throughout the night. They kept bothering me. ‘Why couldn’t I be like Faisal Khan? Why can’t I fathom the scope of his power?’ These thoughts kept me up all night and I reached the set without having slept a wink,” he adds.
Over the sleepless night, Siddiqui had to convince himself that he was a powerful man, that he was the veritable Faisal Khan! Once he gave the shot with this conviction at heart, Anurag was satisfied and the rest, as they say, is history!
While his role in ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ was that of a passive aggressive character, his role in Sujoy Ghosh’s ‘Kahaani’ was that of a man who only used aggression to get his way.
Siddiqui himself was a little surprised when Ghosh approached him for the role of a controlling, forceful cop. This role helped both Siddiqui and the audiences in learning that he could do more than just essaying soft roles. The frustration of being stereotyped that was creeping in within the actor finally found a cure. “I think it was my real-life frustration at being given roles where I’m usually bullied, that helped me play the aggressive character better,” he surmises.
Today, there is no shortage of critical praise for Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s work. But one role which made even an accomplished actor like him nervous was walking the ramp for designer Troy Costa as his showstopper at the Lakme Fashion Week last year.
Troy Costa shares with us the reason behind his unexpected choice:“When I met Nawazuddin, he embodied a certain quality about himself that brought me back to who I was when I left home at 17. His raw earthiness reminded me of the days when I couldn’t own a machine. When I spoke to him that evening it brought back many memories for me of 14-15 years ago. Perhaps, this is what spurred my choice.”
Nawazuddin, is a trendsetter in his own right who started with small roles but can carry off the role of the leading man effortlessly today. His flawless depiction of a range of characters and the depth that he brings to all of them has made him a favourite with ardent fans and connoisseurs of Hindi Cinema alike!
Photography as a profession is a rage with the youth today. Photographer Ishaan Suri of ‘Artfoto’ spills the beans on transforming the passion for photography into a professional career.
Ishaan Suri: I think the future of any art form in India is limitless. We’re such a culturally diverse country; we have so much art everywhere, so much culture everywhere and I think photography is going to grow exponentially.
Hailing from a family which has always had a profound love for art, Ishaan Suri discovered his affinity with the camera in his early teens.
Ishaan-Suri
Unlike most other professionals today, Suri pursued his passion for photography from the very start. With his innate knack of translating pictures into memorable stories, Ishaan began his own production house ‘Artfoto’
Ishaan Suri: I’ve spent all my life around art and by art I just don’t mean photography or film. Art in my life is in many forms. Art for me is just a form of expression. It could be photography; it could be film, music, food or design.And that’s what I would say is also something we follow at Artfoto while we are doing our shoots. We try to express what we feel we want to shoot rather than shoot what’s happening at our events.
Having mastered the art of Wedding photography and film-making, Ishaan Suri began working in collaboration with his better half Neha Suri who contributes to the film making part of the production process. That’s not it. Ishaan elucidates that ‘Artfoto Weddings’ is all about establishing an emotional connect between the camera and the wedding to make memories all the more special.
Ishaan Suri: Weddings will always be very special to me. I love taking photos of people. I love being a part of large gatherings of people socializing, meeting them, getting to know them and that’s actually the bottom line for everyone at team Artfoto. We don’t approach weddings as photographers. We approach weddings as if we are a part of them. We rarely are seen as photographers, we are seen as friends with big cameras.
And here’s Ishaan’s take on the future of photography as a profession in the country and his advice for budding photographers.
Ishaan Suri: Any art or any field in art in India is still looked down upon as a slow profession and a non money-making profession. But this is about to change. On the bright side actually, I would say that as an advice as a photographer, it’s just not what you do as an art or it’s just not what photos you take. Here I would highly recommend that if you can curate yourself as an individual and make yourself as a part of your offering as a talent then the package that you offer to your customer will not just be the photographs or the film you make, it would be you being there doing what you do best. And that’s what’s really important.
The interbreeding of art and fashion has a new destination. Meet designer Ragini Ahuja who talks about her label ‘The Ikai Space’ that caters to the young and fearless who are open to experimental and arty clothing. Here are excerpts from her interview:
Ragini: My target customer is laidback and loud at the same time. Somebody who is looking to experiment, somebody who wants to wear something which is new and somebody who is very comfortable with art in their sleeves!
Launched in July 2012,Ahuja believes that her edgy and animated designs are right in time for the Indian consumer where the market is more adaptive to fashion that blends with art.
Ragini:The market is definitely evolving. There are so many people I see experimenting with their clothes, people styling themselves, people buying separates and you know wearing them. And I’ve seen people wearing two three designers from top to bottom and styled superbly. So yes, definitely, the market is more experimental now.
‘The Ikai Space’ has been a part of three consecutive seasons of the ‘Lakme Fashion Week’ and Ragini has made heads turn with each of her collections.
Ragini:Thepast two seasons, summer/resort and autumn/winter, they have been overwhelming… the response was overwhelming. My new collection is very resort-ey again, very laidback, very big boxy silhouettes and it’s called ‘Asura’ and we have a lot of shibori, hand-done shibori, hand-done tie-dyes and we have a lot of appliqués happening. Every season is new learning. Everyseason is new application and so this time again a lot of motifs, a lot of art, basic silhouettes but a lot of fun in the clothes.
Marking an international recognition with her art-inspired design philosophy, Ragini was also a runner-up at ‘World of Wearable Art’ in 2009, an annual international art and fashion event held in New Zealand.
Ragini:I was a runner-up at ‘World of Wearable Art’ in 2009 and my garment was called Multiplug. So we used 3,000 charger pins and came up with a garment for people who are obsessed with their mobile phones.
Known as India’s master of fabric and fantasy, designer Rohit Bal showcased his first-ever line of traditional wear for men in 1990.At that time, being a designer in India meant having to battle myriad stereotypes and taboos. It’s been an interesting two decades of witnessing paradigm changes in the attitude towards the industry and being an instrumental part of the evolution itself. Rohit Bal speaks on his unique journey and much more with Trendspotters.TV. Here are the excerpts:
Rohit Bal:The biggest challenge was really to create a market with an Indian label, with an Indian designer label in India and it didn’t exist at that time. So basically, it was extremely difficult to break into this kind of market which we had to create ourselves as designers. We had to market the concept in Indian fashion and Indian designer labels. It was a very glamorous industry that some people in India were not used to so we had to actually break through a lot of barriers to actually, you know, give value to what we were doing. It was something that people thought was just not really a profession. It wasn’t something that would get you either money or fame or you know… success. So it was something that was looked down upon by people. We do live in a very conservative society.
Having spent more than 23 years in the fashion fraternity, Rohit reveals what he feels are the quintessential qualities one must have to become a successful designer in the country today. Talent alone, he confesses, is not the only criterion.
Rohit Bal:To be able to succeed as a designer, you’ve got to have the whole package around you. The first and foremost is you’ve got to have a certain amount of talent, the more the better. If you’re hugely talented, it’s better but if you don’t have the ability or the know-how to sort of market that talent then it’s of no use… If you are lucky enough to have a business partner, it’s great. Otherwise, you’d have to do your own business. You’ve got to be a designer, you got to be an entrepreneur, businessman, marketing person, a PR person. You’ve got to be able to talk well, present yourself to people, look good to people. It’s a never ending list of things. It’s essential for you to have all these qualities if you really want to make a mark.
And having made an indelible mark in India’s fashion industry, Rohit admits that the trend of roping in celebrity showstoppers is detrimental, not only for the collection, but also the designer. He is, however, quick to point out that most of the fashion shows are sponsored by corporate houses and designers have to give in to their demands of roping in a celebrity.
Rohit Bal:It certainly certainly takes away from all the designers’ effort and hard work. No one really thinks about the collection and no one remembers anyone else. The only thing that is remembered is the showstopper. The press writes about the showstopper. The only picture they see are of the showstopper. So, on the one hand, it takes everything you’ve done as a designer, on the other hand it also gives in a huge essence and huge degree of drama and glamour of everything, a fantasy, a beauty. It makes people feel that if you have a showstopper of a certain calibre, then you yourself are the designer of a certain calibre. But doing a show, even at the level of fashion week, it’s just one of those things that have become synonymous with the show. If you don’t have a showstopper, it has started disappointing people… As far as I am concerned, in my show, my clothes should be the showstopper. The garments should be the showstoppers. I should be the showstopper which I mostly am!
When asked about his personal style and preferences this is what the designer had to say:
Rohit Bal:If I had my way I’d only use Mulmul and Khadi and nothing else and I’d only use ivory or ecru. I won’t even use a colour. On the other hand, there are certain elements in my clothes, in my collections and in my shows but are super dramatic very larger-than-life, very opulent, which is really not a part of me to be honest. I am very simple and very grounded but deep down inside somewhere, yes, that must be there because otherwise it won’t come out in the shows that I do. So I think there is a bit of this and a bit of that but mostly simplicity which is yes exactly what I am!
Actress Huma Qureshi doesn’t believe in playing it safe and admits that her gamble to debut in Bollywood with a supporting role paid off. She also acknowledges that it’s not the genre of a film that matters as much as its substance. Here are more excerpts from her interview with Trendspotters.TV:
Huma Qureshi: It could be a horror flick, it could be movie where I play a robust Punjabi like you said, it could be like a coal mafia’s girlfriend-turned-wife or a RAW agent. As an actor what’s exciting for me is whenever an image about me gets formed, I have to break it. There was a time I think when people would say that either you can act or you can look pretty. Why can’t you do both?
Qureshi also believes in making her own rules and playing by them. And instead of playing it safe by debuting in a quintessential Bollywood pot-boiler, she chose to mark her entry into Tinsel Town with a supporting role in Anurag Kashyap’s 2012 two-part gangster saga ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’.
Huma Qureshi: For some people a classic debut might work and for some people it might not. But off late there have been examples of a lot of people who have not made a classical debut and have made it into the so-called mainstream. I think it’s a trend. The audience has seen the quintessential hero-heroine thing…if the audience connects with the character’s story…that’s what really matters.
Even though the gamble paid-off, Huma was in for a shock when she was first handed the script of the film…Here’s why:
Huma Qureshi: I had signed the movie and they gave me the script to read and I was like “but I am not in the movie at all!”… It’s a six-hour movie and I am there for like 25 minutes. No, I did not know what would become of me. Yes, I knew that it would be something very, very interesting that I was going to be a part of…it’s not something that’s been done before…it was something that’s going to be memorable…How successful it was going to be, I had no idea. The idea of my character was to make fun of the way women are portrayed in cinema. They are supposed to be these bimbos. How we sort of style our hair, act out our fantasies in reality as well.
The film was critically acclaimed when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Director’s Fortnight Section that year and also received rave reviews from Indian critics upon its release.
Huma Qureshi: The first time I saw the film was at Cannes. That’s when it really sunk in because there I felt like a midget really. A lot of people from the industry called and it was written about which was humbling. When I saw the first hoarding in Bombay I was like “was I really a part of it?!”
While the post-production of ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ was in progress, Huma got the offer to play the female lead in Sameer Sharma’s ‘Luv Shav Tey Chicken Khurana’.
Huma Qureshi: Anurag Kashyap showed what he had shot to a lot of friends. They were looking for a girl for ‘Luv Shuv’. I get a call from Sameer Sharma. He said, “Would you do this film?” But I was like, “Can I read the script?” Full credit goes to Sameer Sharma and Sumit Bhatheja. What we managed to capture with it was the simplicity of a Punjabi girl. She helps this stupid boyfriend. I would probably be like, “Get out of my life!”
2013 saw her being a part of out-and-out commercial flicks like ‘Ek Thi Daayan’ and ‘D-Day’. Huma confesses that these were not conscious decisions but also adds that she doesn’t want to be typecast as an actress.
Huma Qureshi: When you are starting out as an actor you don’t have the freedom to do that and that. It doesn’t work like that…my favourite analogy for an actor is that we are daily wage labourers! We wait to get employed. There are certain kind of stories that I gravitate towards which are interesting, which are new, which have something different to offer. But I don’t think of myself as an actor in terms of genre. I want to play different roles…that’s what I gravitate towards.
