Now it can be told. Ajay has set up a makeshift gym in far-off Karaikudi for more than just recreation. For his role in Priyadarshan’s hard-hitting tale of honor killing in Bihar Ajay Devgan needs to have a specially toned-up physique.
Priyan tells us why.
“I’ve turned the horrific tale of an actual incident in Bihar of an inter-caste romance into a full-on action flick. See, I wanted to keep it real. At the same time, I wanted to make it riveting for the audience. So while shooting on an authentic location (Karaikudi is like a small town in Bihar) I’ve made my two heroes Ajay and Akshaye Khanna into full-on action heroes. This film has the kind of real stunts, never seen in Hindi cinema.”
Priyan has roped in his old action director B Thyagarajan and a stunt director from South Africa- Frances to devise action scenes, which would take the director’s Bihari drama into the region of riveting realism.
Says Priyan,
“When I say real action I mean fight scenes that are the opposite of cable-wired flips somersaults jumps and leaps. This time Ajay has gone as raw as it can get.”
The action sequences have both Devgan and Khanna locked in hand-to-hand combats, and other very basic forms of physical aggression that went out of vogue with the old Kung Fu films.
For this Devgan needed to get into a different shape, and so did Akshaye.
In fact Akshaye is a new convert to the gym. Till this schedule in Karaikudi started. And Ajay persuaded Akshaye to head for the gym.
“Yes we’ve a set up a terrific gym in this wilderness. It’s been set up in an under-construction building. It has all the equipment,”
says Bipasha.
“We all work out in it. Ajay, and I of course. Paresh Rawal also works out.
Akshaye Khanna only used to play squash for exercise. Now he’s started going to the gym. They need to get into a specific shape for this film.”
Before producer Arbaaz Khan can shift Bihar to Vai near Mumbai for the shooting of Abhinav Kashyap’s Dabangg, Priyadrashan has relocated a village of Bihar in Karaikudi, a Tamilian small-town 80 kilometers away from Madurai to shoot for his very real headline-derived inter-caste love story that shook rural Bihar some time ago.
Doesn’t the film take Priyan into a space completely different from his award winning Kanchivaram?
“Not at all. That was a different kind of reality. This is different,”
says Priyan.
— By Subhash K Jha
