‘I Hate Luv Storys’: A tribute to Hindi films

So far,the young director’s claim to fame is that he is the nephew of Bollywood’s favourite designer Manish Malhotra. “It is going to be this way till I prove myself,” says Punit,who has earlier assisted Johar on films like Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham,Kal Ho Naa Ho and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna. “I worked very hard on these films and I do think they helped me a lot. On the sets,I knew my shots and my edit pattern well. It will definitely show in my film,” he affirms. This,however,doesn’t stop him from dreaming of making an action film next.

For long,Punit did modeling and also went through a phase where he wanted to act. “But acting wasn’t quite working out,” he says. It was during his unemployed days,post-KANK,that he started working on the script of I Hate Luv Storys. “I showed the first draft to Manish (Malhotra). He absolutely loved it,” says Punit. He kept improvising on the draft for about three months before approaching Johar. “Karan had asked me to approach him if I ever decided to make a movie,” says the director. Still,he was worried about Johar’s reaction,because it is a film that is “up his alley”.And as happens in Hindi films,everything fell into place soon. “Sonam (Kapoor) and Imran (Khan) were on board in ten days and the film got completed in eight months,” he says. The USP of the film seems to be its dialogues,which are mainly a spoof on popular Hindi films. “I am worried on two counts: the dialogues are a bit gutsy. Secondly,if my film gets panned tomorrow,all these people will be like,‘How dare he make fun of our films? What has he done?’,” says Punit. “It is my tribute to the popular Hindi romantic films in a strange way.”

What comes as a surprise is that the director does not believe in love stories. “I don’t hate love stories,but I don’t believe in them. Relationships are good in the first three months,and then it is all about getting out of it,” says Malhotra. “But you never know with life. Anything can happen.”