The director will make his debut in Sushil Rajpal's second film, it is learnt

Industry watchers feel Imtiaz Ali should face the camera. Even Ranbir Kapoor, who plays the title role in Imtiaz's Rock Star, was once overheard telling the director, "You should've done the role."

It is common knowledge that the director was filmmaker Sushil Rajpal's first choice for the National Award-winning Antardwand. Imtiaz opted out at the last minute. It is now reliably learnt that Ali has indeed given his nod for Rajpal's next, titled Old Monk and will start shooting for it after he's done directing Rockstar.

While Ali refrained from commenting, Rajpal did not deny the buzz around Imtiaz's presence in his next film.

He says, "It all depends on him. I am as keen to cast him in my second film as I was in my first film. He opted out because we needed him to be in Bihar for a 30-day stretch and he couldn't commit. It was he who suggested his replacement Raj Chowdhary."

Sushil doesn't reveal much about Old Monk, "I can't. If I do, someone else will borrow my idea. All I can say is, it's set in two places: Bihar and Mumbai."

But he won't shoot in the Maximum City. "I can't afford to shoot in Mumbai... not with the budget I have in mind. I'll shoot half the film in Bihar and the other half in some other city."

He adds, "I can't understand how Prakash Jha shoots his Bihar films in Wai. It looks nothing like Bihar to me."