Chicken Khurana director Sameer Sharma’s next is Jugalbandi

Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana’s director Sameer Sharma seems to have found a winning recipe for good filmmaking. After a film revolving around a chicken recipe Sameer is all set to direct a film woven around the theme of songs and music. The film to be entitled Jugalbandi would be dedicated to Sameer’s grandfather, the legendary singer Mukesh. Says Sameer, “Mukesh was my Nanaji (maternal grandfather). Neil Nitin Mukesh is my cousin. I grew up in an environment of music and food. My father is a hotelier. So I’ve spent much of my childhood in hotel kitchens. I guess that’s where my love for food began. You see that manifested in my first film Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana. Now in my second film my love for music will be apparent.” Jugalbandi would tell the story of two musicians, the guru and his shishya. “Like Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, Jugalbandi is a story written by my friend Sumit Batheja,” says Sameer who began his career in cinema assisting Aditya Chopra on Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. One wondered why Sameer’s cousin Neil didn’t feature in his first film. “Kunnu (Kunal Kapoor) and I had planned Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana together from scratch. It was our project. There was no question of anyone else doing it.” Sameer reveals how the film was originally planned in the Punjabi language. “Yeah. It was planned as a Punjabi film, since the whole milieu flavour and location is Punjabi. But somewhere down the line we felt it would work better in Hindi. I think we all felt it deserved a pan-India audience.” What works in Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana is the Punjabiyat. “All the actors are Punjabi. We didn’t want to lose out on the authenticity. We don’t know how much the genuineness of the presentation works in its favour. But we haven’t heard anyone say they found the film artificial in its characterization or spoken language.”