/> Halla Bol returns to the theme of mob violence and public compliance?
I strongly feel a lack of sensitivity towards other humanbeings. We've become selfcentred and always seeking our own happiness. I'm appalled by the callousness.

Women and children in the audience get put off by the savagery shown in your films?
Why should they get put off? Today which section of people is immune from violence? We see it all around us. The news channels are showing it all the time.

Just the other day we saw policemen brutally assaulting two children in Chandigarh. It made me very sad. How can humanbeings be so inhuman? If you want to close your eyes and believe life to be as rosy as shown in the comedies, then you're welcome to it.

But I sincerely believe shutting your eyes to crime is as good as commiting crime. All our mytholigicals Ramayan and Mahabharat speak about violence.

Lately only brain-dead comedies do well?
It's very alarming. The comedies should be coherent, not gags strung together. I also made a comedy Andaz Apna Apna. It had a clean plot and a coherent narrative.

I like to laugh. I'm a big fan of Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton. In Hollywood they come up with intelligent comedies. In Bollywood they just lift scenes and jokes from English films.

And then to not get hauled for copying they put their own ideas into the ripoffs. So the comedies look like a mish-mash.

Some critics in Mumbai think Halla Bol is dated.
I wouldn't agree with that. I've visited theatres in Mumbai. Audiences are responding according to the emotions. Finally it's the same audience that liked last year's comedies coming to see Halla Bol.

We've tried to talk about issues in an engaging manner to reach the masses. Audiences in Lucknow, Delhi, Gorakhpur and Patna are all for it. I hope other filmmakers are encouraged to take up issue-based films.

Style and form are important.But you've to talk to the junta in the language that's relevant to the theme. There's a difference between how you talk to your driver and your boss.

Pankaj Kapoor's character is so larger than life and yet so real.
I've never come across a dacoit converted into a street actor. But a lot of homework was done on his character. We worked on every detail of his get -up.

He's a scenestealer just like Sunny Deol as the drunken lawyer in my Damini. I'm glad. Because Pankaj Kapoor and I worked together for the first time.

You've also incorporated ideas on how religion is exploited by politicians.
But isn't that the case in real life? No, there was no fear hurting religious sentiments. I feel if a filmmaker addresses issues from his heart, no one minds it.

In a country where we've a Muslim president and Shah Rukh and Aamir as icons the Muslims don't need to feel isolated. Anyone talking about division on a religious basis is creating mischief. And I'm not scared of saying so.

The shoot-out at the party in Halla Bol seems inspired by the Jessica Lal incident.
There're distinct echoes. However this idea was with me for 10-12 years....the idea of the hero witnessing a crime and being in a dilemma about whether he should report it or not. I wasn't aware of the Jessica Lal case when I wrote Halla Bol.

However we deliberately incorporated Aamir Khan's incident from the Narmada andolan. We wanted to show how vulnerable an actor becomes when he joins a cause. Also there was a ghastly incident of molestation in Mumbai on New Year's eve.

I feel the responsibility of our filmmakers has increased. One sequence that I deleted had politicians being described as collective diabetes.

That would've incensed the politicians against you?
But it's true. Like diabetes you can't cure the corruption in politics. You can only check it.