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A convoluted love story

Komal Nahta

Sunil Shetty loves Sushmita Sen. And Namrata Shirodkar loves Sunil Shetty. Who is fond of her, but isn't in love with her. Instead, he is married to Suman Ranganathan. "You've heard," says Sunil with a grin, "of a love story and a love triangle, but this one is a love square, what with the four of us involved!"

We are in Hyderabad to cover the shooting of D Rama Naidu's new venture, Aaghaaz -- The Beginning, which should be complete very soon. The veteran producer, who has struck gold countless number of times in Telugu, Tamil as well as Hindi films, plans to release Aaghaaz on Dassera this year.

None of which takes away that niggling curiosity -- why did Naidu opt for such a difficult title when he was making a mass appeal film? Debutant director Yogesh Ishwar answers that one. "It is an unusual title and one which suits the subject." Ishwar, before he got his big break, used to direct videos for music companies. He also assisted Vidhu Vinod Chopra in his earlier films.

Naidu, though had one condition -- it would be a remake of one of his successful films, though Ishwar had the freedom to choose which one he would like to do. The latter was not thrilled with beginning his career with a remake, but still gamely chose the Telugu hit, Sivayya. "After all," says Ishwar, "it was a big break for me." Moreover, he liked the original enough to inspire him to go ahead with the remake.

Rama Naidu, who seems to have perfected the art of remaking Telugu films, had five films lined up for remakes in Hindi. "What to do?" he asked with a smile. "I had five daughters, all of marriageable age. No sense in keeping them at home, better to get them married." His newest 'daughter' -- the Telugu film Kalisiundham Ra (Let's Stay Together) -- is the Telugu film industry's biggest blockbuster ever. It has crossed the business of the previous numero uno film, Samhar Simha Reddy.

The scene of activity is about 30 to 40 kilometres away from Hyderabad city, where an old bungalow is turned into a police station of a village in Punjab. Sushmita Sen plays a police inspector. Sunil Shetty and his brother-in-law, Sharad Kapoor, have come to the police station to meet her.

Giving us company are Naidu's two illustrious sons -- actor Venkatesh and producer Suresh. Suresh, who is the older of the two, explains his new look. "I had been to Tirupathi where I offered my hair. It's the first time I've done it because our Kalisiundham Ra has broken all previous Telugu film records. It completed 100 days in all the 76 centres it was released in. Even now, the film, which is nearing the silver jubilee mark, is doing extremely well."

And what about Venkatesh? Has he quit the Hindi film scene? The actor replies, "We will be starting a film very shortly with Karisma and myself."

For the present, however, the family is devoting all its energies to completing Aaghaaz. And, despite longs shoots that spill over to the early morning hours of the following day, Sunil, Sushmita, Sharad Kapoor and Suman (Namrata isn't around) manage to look quite fresh.

Then, it was time for us to return to our hotel -- while Naidu's team got on with the business of making movies.