My films will have a ‘me’ stamp on them: 'Tere Bin Laden' director Abhishek Sharma

Abhishek Sharma, the director of Tere Bin Laden, refuses to term his experiences in the industry as a ‘struggle’. “Who doesn’t struggle? It’s an overrated word,” says the first-time writer-director, who would prefer to describe his professional life as a ‘process’.

Tere Bin Laden was a movie you probably heard about from someone else. The grapevine connected everyone from college students to Shah Rukh Khan (who tweeted that it was the funniest movie he had seen since Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro).

The madcap satire took on one of the most-talked-about topics of our times — America’s war on terror, as seen through the eyes of Ali, a Pakistani reporter with The Stars and Stripes in his eyes.

A poultry farmer with an uncanny resemblance to Osama Bin Laden sets the scene for a laugh-a-minute caper which refuses to drag for even a second of its 100-minute duration.

The film’s subject, its Pakistani setting and strong acting chops exhibited by all the lead actors made this a slice-of-life film that everyone wanted a bite out of. Sharma, a one-time short-film maker in Delhi who moved to Mumbai to work with Adlabs for four years to understand the industry, was the man behind it.

“Art is also commerce, and I wanted to bridge the divide,” explains the graduate from the National School of Drama.

So how did the idea for the film hit him? “Well, I get terrible headaches,” says Sharma. “Not migraines exactly, but pretty bad.” It was during one of these headaches that the then-bearded Sharma tied a towel around his head, much to the amusement of his wife who declared that he looked like Osama himself.

Sharma found the idea of an Osama look-alike captivating; and after two years of writing, the script was ready in 2007. The film was made under the banner of Walkwater Media, the production house opened by Adlabs founder Manmohan Shetty’s daughter Pooja.

The movie’s tone is light and exuberant, but covers many political and social issues which Sharma found himself preoccupied with — Islamophobia, global terror, and a post-9/11 worldview which both demonises and idealises the brown man.

Again, Sharma shrinks from calling the movie a “message” movie. “It’s a commentary on what I see. There’s no judgement.” He believes the film resonates with the current political scenario, pointing out that “with WikiLeaks, anything can happen”.

The biggest change in Sharma’s life after Tere Bin Laden? “Now I actually exist in the industry,” he says. “People call me; they want to know what I’m working on.”

He admits that the accolades and attention can swell a first-time director’s head; which is why he beat a hasty retreat to his sister’s home in the US immediately after the release, and stayed there till the hoopla died down.

“I think this is the home I lived in when I wrote this movie, these are the people I was around, this is my life — I don’t want to lose that,” he says.

Sharma says he feels “scared” when people call and say they want to work with him. “I don’t want to get carried away.”

The director is now writing his second script, and refuses to plan a sequel to Tere Bin Laden without a script that will go one up on the first film.

The director lights up when he talks about the films he loved in 2010. “Love Sex Aur Dhoka was amazing, I was completely blown away,” he says enthusiastically.

However, he can’t imagine remaking any of his favourites, and believes originality is everything. He says, “It sounds narcissistic, but I want every movie I make to have the stamp of ‘me’. I want people to say, this is a movie only Abhishek Sharma could have made.”