A tale of two cities

Manpriya Singh

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Though he’s been around for long, but it’s hard to digest that the upcoming Munda Faridkotia is Roshan Prince’s 19th film. “I have five more films slated to release soon, with three releasing this year itself,” he says, making us question if love for films comes before music.

“No music comes first but it’s just that films invariably have songs and thus my hunger for music also gets taken care of.” With that statement he probably also explains the unique and but widely prevalent trend of singers-turned-actors in Punjabi film industry.

In this one, he plays a dumb character, a simple boy whose only desire is to stay put in his hometown Faridkot. “Now, God is kind enough to grant him his wish, only the country gets mixed up.” Our Punjab da munda through a simple glitch lands up in Pakistan’s Faridkot instead.

“I got to explore my acting capabilities as 80 per cent of the times I’m silent in the film since I pretend to be dumb.” Directed by Mandeep Singh Chahal and produced by Daljit Singh Thind, the film also stars Deep Sehgal while Chandigarh girl and TV actress Sharan Kaur makes her debut with this one.

“I have been around for 4-5 years now but in this film I got play a Pakistani girl called Mariyam. I had to put on weight and pierce my nose and even work on Pakistani accent and dialect,” she says.

Character artiste/comedian

BN Sharma’s name in the credit rolls lends credibility to any film. But has the industry been able to do justice to his talent? With most of the characters played by him providing nothing more than comic relief.

“I call myself a performer first. I don’t do comedy, I act according to the director’s brief and vision and if there is anything comic in the role, it comes out naturally.” He adds, “For instance, they decided to give me four wives in this film and 56 kids born out of those four wives.” It’s tough to not smile on hearing that one, isn’t it?

“The moment I mentioned that, you smile. It’s a role which I perform and the comedy just comes out. This character gets people married by just attending since his family is a baraat in itself.”

A note from the writer

Female writers are a welcome change in the otherwise male dominated industry. Having dealt with content for across mediums spread over radio, web, television and small screen, Anjali Khurana bets that comedy is the toughest genre to attempt, especially in the writing stage. But breaking away from the clichéd trend of Pollywood banking only on comedy, she puts this film as much into the intense category. Having written the story, screenplay and dialogues, she assures, “It’s high on emotions as much as on comedy. Also, we have as many as 42 characters played by a formidable cast and all of them have been done justice to.”

manpriya@tribunemail.com