Ramu has a new item! The filmmaker promises a sizzler in Road

Subhash K Jha

After the song-and-dance Khallas in Company and what it did to the career of the hitherto unknown Isha Kopikkar, Ram Gopal Varma seems determined to have an item song in his productions.

His new production Road, direcred by Rajat Mukherjee (of Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya, starring Fardeen Khan, Urmila Matondkar and Sonali Kulkarni), and featuring Vivek Oberoi, Antara Mali and Manoj Bajpai, has another sizzling item on the cards.

"Yes, there is a song situation for which I wanted a fresh untried face with a terrific body language," Varma reveals. So guess whom the talent scout has selected to do the sizzling no-holds-barred item number in Road? Model Koina Mitra, who has done a couple of music videos earlier.

"I was looking out for the right face and physique when I saw Koina in a music video. I decided she was it," Varma reveals, adding that he would be shooting the song with Mitra in the first week of July. "That would be the end of Road. I plan to release the film in the third week of August."

Incidentally, Koppikar who danced to Khallas in Company is property in Bollywood. She started as a nondescript marginal player in films like Khalid Mohamed's Fiza (where she played Karisma Kapoor's friend), and the flop comedy Aamdani Atthani Kharcha Rupaiya.

One song in Varma's film changed the course of Koppikar's career and even got her the moll's role in Sanjay Gupta's stylish thriller Kaante.

Recent Features Britney bowls Hrithik! The star lineage Hitchcock wannabe Starring SRK, Vivek! Sameera's causing a riot A new sound No ethics here! Watch out for ESIF Bombay Dreams throbs MORE FEATURES...

Gupta has been extensively quoted in the Indian press as saying that he had not seen Koppikar's Khallas number before signing her for Kaante. When contacted in Los Angeles, where he is now supervising the post-production work of Kaante, the filmmaker laughed, "I was just kidding when I said I had not seen Isha in Company. Who has not seen her? One has to be blind to miss her on television, if not the film. I signed her after seeing her in Ram Gopal Varma's film."

Will Road do for Mitra what Company did for Koppikar? That remains to be seen.

But the item song in Road is different. "This time it is more of a folk song like Shilpa Shetty's item in Shool [Main to aayee hoon UP Bihar lootne]," discloses Varma.