"Anil Kapoor met me and said that he had seen 'Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!'. He also told me, 'You're very good'. Then he started talking about 'Ayesha' and told me that Sonam will be starring in it and that it's his home production. He said that he really liked my work and wanted my inputs for 'Ayesha'. That's how the film happened, " Rishi told over phone from Mumbai.
Based on Jane Austen's "Emma", "Ayesha" is a romantic comedy about an ultra modern girl who is wooed by three men. While Sonam is playing the female lead, Abhay Deol, one-film-old Arunoday Singh and popular VJ Cyrus Sahukar will woo her in the movie, which is being produced by Sonam's sister Rhea under their father's banner.
For the movie, Delhi boy Rishi had to pen "sophisticated" lines - a complete change from what he wrote for the earlier film.
"'Ayesha' is a very different film from 'Oye Lucky...' and not just in terms of the dialogues, also in the look and feel, " said Rishi, who won a Filmfare as well as International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) award for best dialogues for his quirky and spicy one-liners in "Oye Lucky..."
He says that while "Oye Lucky..." depicted charms of Old Delhi, "Ayesha" is set to show a new "polished" side of the capital.
"In 'Oye Lucky...', the language was very, very West Delhi sorts and the protagonists were not very well read. But in 'Ayesha', the characters are from the upmarket Defence Colony, they are from English medium schools, etc. So that has brought in a lot of sophistication in the way we have written the dialogues, " he explained.
Rishi, seen as Abhay Deol's friend-turned-foe in "Oye Lucky...", says his role as a dialogue writer for "Ayesha" came in
when a "male point of view" was required for the film.
"The film has been written by Devika Bhagat with Ritu Bhatia. So they wanted a male point of view as well and that's where I came in. I have written the dialogues along with Ritu, " he said.
Rishi started his journey with Delhi theatre and then shifted to Mumbai in search of work. But with a dearth of options, he ended up assisting actor-director Rajat Kapoor and kept waiting for good roles to come his way.
It was then that he started writing songs for TV shows and also took up work as a third dialogue writer to kill time. His patience paid off when he was introduced to Dibaker Banerjee who helmed "Oye Lucky..." and since then Rishi has not looked back.
He has done cameos in films such as "Mithya", "Ek Chalis Ki Last Local", "Mixed Doubles".
Coming from a humble background in Delhi and having flown to Macau to receive his IIFA award this year, he quipped: "I'm a real 'Chandni Chowk To China', you see!"
