Mostly irreverent, always spontaneous, Farah Khan was in the city this past weekend to announce her return to small screen with Lip Sing Battle. Starting this weekend on Star Plus, it is an adaptation of the international format, Lip Sync Battle, where Farah will bring together big guns of Bollywood to lip sync and perform popular songs. With the trend of film actors appearing on talk shows to promote their latest releases losing zing, Farah promises that the show will add freshness to programming on television. “Instead of judging, here celebrities will be competing against each other. And they are not allowed to lip sync to their own songs. So if Farhan Akhtar comes, he can’t do Rock On!! songs. In fact, he did (Shankar Mahadevan’s) ‘Breathless’, which is too difficult to lip sync. He also did a tribute to Rishi Kapoor which is very funny.” As always, she says she has tried to be spoofy and has tried to create a retro mood. “Arjun Kapoor did Khalnayak in Sanjay Dutt’s style. The idea is to take them out of their comfort zone and make them do some things which you never expect them to do.” For instance, she informs, “Parineeti Chopra did Govinda’s “Raja Babu” with all its signature ‘aaa’ and ‘oos’. It is something which she would never do otherwise.”
Once considered an important skill, lip syncing is slowly going out of fashion in Bollywood. “It is still there but if it goes out it will be sad as we would have no music left then,” remarks Farah. She has fond memories of Rajesh Khanna lip syncing to popular songs but her favourite is Rishi Kapoor. “He was the best whether he was singing or playing the dafli or guitar. You always felt that he was actually doing it. Then Shah Rukh has special talent for lip syncing. You can see the veins in his neck when he lip syncs. Then of course Govinda and Amitji (Bachchan), and in heroines Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi make the process very natural.”
Favourite SRK flick
One expects her to pick one of her movies with Shah Rukh to bring out the actor’s talent, but Farah feels otherwise. “I present him more hero like but my favourite Shah Rukh movie is Swades. He felt like a person I could have married. I mean the character that he played. And I think I ended up marrying a person like that,” says Farah referring to Shirish Kunder, who is keenly followed by people beyond the film spectrum on the social media. “His tweets are intelligent, have dry humour and there is truth in them. He hits the nail properly. His newspaper column is also quite popular. Mothers of friends of my kids often send his write ups to me on WhatsApp,” smiles Farah. She admits they are very different individuals. “We both are hard working and honest but I am an extrovert and he is a complete introvert. He writes so well and conveys his thoughts in 140 words but when it comes to live interviews, he gets paranoid. It works for us. Imagine if both of us talked like this, our children would have become deaf by now,” says Farah with a straight face. So, opposites continue to attract...“Yes, my knowledge of politics comes from him. It is important to know what is happening around us. Sometimes it is irritating also if you are too different but we have found our comfort zone.”
Fresh content
However, at present, the audience is expecting Farah to come out of her comfort zone. The boisterous variety of cinema that she represents is diminishing. “We still have to make a good film,” she interrupts. “The next film that I am writing will have to be different. I made Main Hoon Na, 13 years ago. Now we have a younger audience and with Netflix and Amazon finding roots we have so much content on digital media that we are spoilt for choice. Filmmakers have to pull up their socks and give content that people find fresh and more realistic – unless it is a Baahubali.”
Having said that she promises that she will continue to make “happy movies”. “When I say different, I don’t mean dark or brooding. I mean I have to keep up with times in terms of acting and shot taking.” And choreography, something that spurred her career? “I have said good bye to choreography unless it is a song for a friend. I have done enough. Now it’s time to step up.”
Meanwhile, in the raging debate on nepotism, people often forget Farah who came from a not so successful film family. “We come from an impoverished film family. Nobody was there to help us. And there are so many people who came from nowhere and really made it big. Kangana (Ranaut) is the latest example. And so many people from big family families have failed to make it.”
Talking of Kangana, Farah was recently quoted as saying that the actor is playing the victim card. Farah says she has been misquoted and she doesn’t want to put fuel in a fire that should have been doused long back. “My only contention was and I stand by it that nobody knows feminism better than me. I am a feminist since the 70s when the word had not even become popular here. I am for equality of genders, and I emphasise it should not be in one particular way. It reflects in my films which are watched by both men and women in large numbers.”