Mainstream Bollywood producers often lament that there is no young actor available to do just commercial cinema as the current lot clearly prefers art over commerce. Rishi Kapoor’s fear that his son will remain the modern day Amol Palekar, has been assuaged. Ranbir, whose choice of cinema is eclectic, has managed to strike a balance between art and mart by doing the odd commercial film, like Raj Santoshi’s Ajab ‘Prem ki Ghazab Kahani’ (2009), Prakash Jha’s ‘Raajneeti’ (2010) and Imtiaz Ali’s ‘Rockstar’ (2011). “I don’t see cinema as commercial or art house. If a script and director excite me, I go for it,” says the actor. But Ranbir’s upcoming flicks are more thinking cinema than masala fare. He will be seen next in Anurag Basu’s ‘Barfee’, Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Bombay Velvet’ and reportedly in Dibakar Banerjee’s untitled venture. One can clearly see that in Ranbir’s effort to offset his hatke choice, he is currently shooting with his close friend Ayan Mukerji for ‘Yeh Jaawani Hai Deewani’. Imran Khan, who met failure early on in his career (‘Luck’ and ‘Kidnap’) has also started thinking like Ranbir. The actor, who tasted success with ‘Delhi Belly’, is now doing Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola’ and is likely to give priority to Tigmanshu Dhulia’s (of ‘Paan Singh Tomar’ fame) ‘Milan Talkies’. The message is loud and clear. These youngsters cannot be tempted with mega bucks. Each of them is looking to rewrite the rule book and earn posterity by taking the road less travelled.
