by Subhash K Jha

Even while Sriram Raghavan who made the excellent Ek Hasina Thi for Ram Gopal Varma gets over his second film Johnny Gaddar, his talented brother screenwriter Sridhar Raghavan is working on a script that his brother will direct..

This would be a first for Hindi cinema where two brothers are clasped in such a creative collaboration.

Sridhar has written a number of Raj Kumar Santoshi's films including Khakee, the forthcoming Family and the soon-to-be-made London Dreams. He also wrote Rohan Sippy's Bluff Master and Prakash Jha's Apaharan.

Sridhar refuses to write any script that isn't original. "And the film that I'm writing for my brother will be original, though an amalgamation of all the films I've loved in the past.

I want to bring into play all the styles that I've imbibed over the years...from Brij Sadanah (whose Victoria 203 was so much fun) to Manmohan Desai, to Vijay Anand...to Ramesh Sippy whose Shaan is a favourite. I'd like to capture the energy and ebullience of Shaan in my film for Sriram."

Why doesn't Sridhar direct this film and let Sriram write it? "No no. My brother is the director of the family. He's both a writer and director. That makes him doubly talented.'

The film written and directed by the Raghavan brothers (the brothers wrote the hit serial CID for six years) will probably be produced by Ramesh Sippy.

This would be the first writer-director team comprising brothers in Bollywood. Earlier we had Kirti Kumar directing his brother Govinda in Hatya and Radha Ka Sangam, and of course Sohail Khan directing his brothers Salman and Arbaaz in Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya and Hello Brother.