/> The maverick filmmaker N Chandra is a lonely man today. He has just completed a script about an intense romantic passion between a boy from a broken home and a girl from a well-to-do family.

He has named the film Fire and Ice. And he'd like to cast Shahid Kapoor and his old friend Anil Kapoor's daughter Sonam in it.

Alas the doors to the gen-next stars are closed to N Chandra.

"I thought the doors would re-open for me after Yeh Mera India. But sadly not too many people saw it. It was a film I did in a completely contemporary language. There is a belief that I haven't kept up with the times, that I'm a spent force.

That I may have made Ankush, Pratighaat and Tezaab in the past. But that was then. I don't follow today's language of the cinema. I made Yeh Mera India in a very contemporary European style. The cameraman was an American."

Now in Fire and Ice Chandra claims to use a form of narration never used before. "It's non-linear and in a way never seen before. It's contemporary and I need a particular kind of personality for the two main parts."

Getting Sonam should be less difficult for Chandra than getting Shahid. After all Sonam's father Anil Kapoor teamed up for one of his best films Tezaab with Chandra.

"But that was in past. Things have changed. This is a new generation, a new era in filmmaking. Everyone has their own favorites," says Chandra, hastily adding. "Anil and I are still very close friends."