Post the grand international success of Danny Boyle’s ‘Slumdog Millionaire’; the Mumbai slums have become fashionable and popular visiting places for international audiences. Just how much so, Sudhir Mishra discovered when he took his long-delayed film on slum life ‘Tera Kya Hoga Johnny’ (featuring Neil Nitin Mukesh, Soha Ali Khan, Shahana Goswami and Karan Nath along with a real street-child Sikandar) to New York’s South Asian Film Festival held from October 28 to November 3.
.JPG "Neil Mukesh at the launch of UKIERI_s study india programmes in CCI, Mumbai on 2nd Sep 2009 (10)")
At the festival American critics reacted to Sudhir Mishra’s ‘Tera Kya Hoga Johnny’ as another ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.
Now Sudhir will release the film in a dubbed English version. “After ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ the West is looking with much curiosity at the slum culture of Mumbai. I had no plans of doing an English version of ‘Tera Kya Hoga Johnny’. But everyone who saw it in New York suggested I do it. Every frame in my film has been shot in the lanes and gullies of South Mumbai in Colaba.”
With Tutu Sharma now taking over as co-producer of ‘Tera Kya Hoga Johnny’, the film is all set for an early January 2010 release.
Thus ends the blame game whereby Neil Nitin Mukesh was being accused of trying to stall the film by not dubbing for it.
Defends Sudhir Mishra, “First of all most of the film is in sync sound. There was just about a day’s dubbing to be done by Neil. He finished it long ago. Why blame the poor guy?”
By Subhash K Jha
