'I M 24' is about true lies, says director Saurabh Shukla

New Delhi: Writer-director Saurabh Shukla is coming up with his new film ‘I M 24’. Rajat Kapoor is playing an important character in the film, he throws some light on the theme of ‘I M 24’, “The basic story line features a very honest man Shubhendu Roy, the character I am playing in the film. He has a problem with lying; he thinks it’s a wrong way of achieving anything. His roommate is Gagandip Singh (Ranvir Shorey), who never speaks truth, so there are at loggerheads all the time. Then Shubhendu Roy meets a girl on the internet and starts chatting. The first lie of his life comes out when he says to the girl that he is 24. From hereon, he gets trapped in the web of lies.”

Saurabh Shukla goes the philosophical way while describing the film, “In one line I would say that this film is about true lies, and it celebrates the truth. We all grew up hearing that the truth always wins but we lose faith in this statement with age. Despite seeing all the odd things, that small honesty that your parents taught you remains the most heart warming thing.”

He further says, “There is a dialogue in the film, “Sachche logo me kisi ka koi interest nahi hai,” (Nobody has interest in righteous people). Rajat replies to this by saying, “Aaj bhi log Ramayana padhte hain aur uske hero hain Ram’ (People read Ramayana even today and Ram is the hero of it). Then Ranvir again says, “Ramayana se Ravana ko nikal do toh fir dekho kaun padhta hai” (Take Ravana out of Ramayana and then see who reads it). So, this battle of truth and lie forms the basic conflict of the story.”

The basic story line of \'I M 24\' features a writer Shubhendu Roy who has a problem with lying.

Rajat Kapoor counters with another question when he is asked whether his film’s business will be affected due to ‘Joker’, which is releasing on the same date, “What do you want then? Should we release our film with ‘Ek Tha Tiger’? There is no way out. If you keep waiting for the week when no other film is releasing then you’ll keep waiting till eternity.”

But why does he work with the same team every time, “I think it’s a misconception that I work with the same team. Yes, Saurabh has cast me many times in his films but I have worked with Maria Goretti, Sadia Siddiqui, Gul Panag, Gunjan Bakshi, Neha Dhupia, Konkana Sen, Koel Puri, everyone.”

Is the audience ready for such films which digress from the set patterns of Bollywood, “How did the films such as ‘Paan Singh Tomar’, ‘Bheja Fry’, ‘Kahaani’ work then? It happens quite often. Second thing is you are presuming that this is not a mainstream film. I think the audience is beyond the tag of commercial or offbeat films. If the story is told in an attractive way, people will come and watch the film. All you need to give them is the enough number of shows.”

‘I M 24’ seems like an interesting film and the audience will decide its fate on August 31.

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