Ram Gopal Verma announces his next film, shoot in November

After Aag, Ram Gopal Varma has decided to do what he is best at. In a split-second decision (well, almost!) he has decided to make a film with only newcomers in the cast. The decision was taken earlier this week and Ramu is ready to roll by the beginning of November.

Revealing his plans the never-say-die director explains, "The film has a tongue twisting title, Dheyaya. It's a Sanskrit word for mission. I wanted an unused word to express what the film sets out to achieve. It'll be a realistic gritty dark film about the link between the underworld and various legitimate and illegitimate terrorist organizations. I want to trace the evolution of the underworld to where it stands today. The underworld started in the 1980s with smuggling then graduated to extortion and contract killings. Today the terrorist organizations are using criminal networks as conduits for their operations. That's the scenario Dhyeya will portray."

Ramu will not cast a single known face in the Dhyeya. "I want newcomers because I want the actors to not have any pre-conceived images. But in scale it will be a big-budget film.

Explains Ramu, "At the time when Satya and Company was made the underworld signified a different kind of fear. Today it's something else. I want to make it a very hard-hitting film. It will also show links between the underworld and politics and bring in international organizations like the CIA."

The film starts in November. "I'll finish Sarkar Raj at the end of October. I want to start Dhyeya immediately after. I had been toying with the idea for quite some time. Now we're seriously scripting the film."

'I'm cutting down Ash's beauty!!!'

Ram Gopal Varma is currently in Hyderabad shooting for the sequel to Sarkar. The two Bachchand Amitabh and Abhishek are with him. Aishawarya is expected to join them later during the month.

"Aishwarya plays a very strong part with shades of negative in it. I'm completely changing her image. I'm cutting her beauty down. I've gathered a large supporting cast of ugly people and put her in the middle, so she'd come out looking stunning in her naturalness."

Apparently the two Bachchan men are so taken up with Aishwarya's part that they keep joking they could play her role.

Ramu is relieved to be away from Mumbai. "Hyderabad is like coming home for me. I belong to Hyderabad though I am a total Mumbaiyite now. Some of my early films were made in Hyderabad. So life has come a full circle," he says from Ramajirao studiow where a set depicting the home of the Bachchans has been built.

"Sarkar 2 is far more original than Sarkar. It will have far less of Godfather 2 than Sarkar had of Godfather 1. Sarkar 2 isn't about the mafia. It's a family drama."

And then a whammer of a confession. "I haven't made a single original film till Sholay. Every scene shot and frame of my earlier films have been copied from some source or the other. It could be a novel, a Hollywood or an old Hindi film. If I haven't been caught out it's because people haven't been able to locate my sources. Sholay is my first original film."

Sholay, says the incorrigible Ramu, isn't an underworld film. "It's almost a throwback to the kitschy films of the 1970s, like Nasir Husain's Yaadon Ki Baraat or Chori Mera Kaam. It isn't a gangster film nor a dacoit drama. The original Sholay created an excitement by giving the audience one slammer of a scene after another. I hope to do the same."

Ramu feels Nishabd to be the senior AB's most accomplished performance to date. "I personally think Sarkar was a cakewalk in comparison. To carry off a subject matter like that isn't very easy. However making Nishabd was a mistake. When Cheeni Kum did a old man-young woman love story there was a tongue-in-cheek element to it. Nishabd was too dark. There was resistance against seeing the film."

He ponders, " Mr Bachchan in Nishabd was over-cast. It should've been done with sn actor with a much less strong image. When Victor Bannerjee fell in love with a much younger woman in Joggers Park it didn't matter whereas there was outrage about THE AMITABH BACHCHAN falling in love with his daughter's friend in Nishabd.

To me Nishabd was Mr Bachchan's most accomplished performance. But I'd rather use him in a film like Sarkar where one closeup had more impact than the whole of Nishabd."

In Sarkar 2 Ramu is showcasing the senior and junior Bachchan keeping their image in mind. "Only Aishwarya gets the privilege of revamping her image," Ramu shoots off.