There’s a right time for everything: Girish Dhamija

It’s all about belief and conviction and director Girish Dhamija has both in his forthcoming film, Phhir. And when it’s a film on re-incarnation, scripted by Vikram Bhatt, then the interest level is bound to up by a few notches.

“Phhir revolves around the theory of karma, and rebirth is a part of the story. In the course of the film, someone gets endowed with special powers,” explains Girish, adding, “When Vikram narrated the story to me, we kept wondering how best to tell the story that makes it believable and that explains the different layers of story-telling.” Quiz him whether he believes in the concept of re-incarnation and Girish states, “When I was writing Raaz, I did a lot of research on this subject which I later used while scripting Kasoor. Surprisingly, 90% of rural India believes in re-incarnation and the remaining 10% have gone through personal experiences.”

A staunch believer in ‘there’s a right time for everything’, Girish feels that destiny is the overruling factor in every step. “Phhir was supposed to release last year but it didn’t. Similarly, I had spotted Rajneish Duggal in Delhi and brought him down to Mumbai in 2005 to be cast opposite Priyanka Chopra in Yakeen. The distributors felt they wanted some established actor and Rajneish was replaced by Arjun Rampal. Last year, Vikram cast him in 1920, which became a hit. I had promised to work with him and that’s how he was chosen,” the director recollects.

With Vikram as writer and producer of the film, ask Girish if there were creative differences and he says, “I have written 12 films for Vikram, we are friends and respect each other as professionals but I had made it clear to him that I didn’t want any creative confusion during the filming,” he says. A veteran scriptwriter himself, Girish prefers the story-teller in him to the director. “This is my second film as director but it’s the story-teller in me that calls the shots. Having assisted both Sudhir Mishra and Mahesh Bhatt for a long time, this is one trait I can’t let go off,” he ends.