Manish Tiwary's "royal connection" helps him shoot Varanasi's Ramleela for Issaq

Director Manish Tiwary, who is directing Issaq with Prateik and Amyra Dastur in the lead, has a special relationship with Varanasi. After all, his uncle Anant Narayan Singh is the Maharaja of Benares. And thanks to his connections, Manish’s film has captured one of the city’s oldest Ramleelas that has been practiced across three centuries thanks to the patronage of the city’s royal family. Manish’s film, which is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet, has been shot in Varanasi. It is said that though the holy city has been witnessing Ramleela since the last 300 years, but never before has anyone got the permission to shoot the holy city’s biggest Ramleela at Ramnagar and Nati Imli. As a matter of fact, Manish started his film career by making a short feature on this Ramleela. According to Manish, he had put in several requests to the Maharaja before to shoot his cultural event, but every request was rejected. “At that time, my maternal grandfather was the Maharaja. So I had received the permissions to go ahead with my shoot,” Manish revealed. Incidentally, the Maharaja’s Ramleela attracts a huge crowd of people that often numbers to around 10 lakh. While shooting for his film, the director says that he successfully managed to avoid any security hassles for his cast and crew. Issaq is slated to release on 26 July (2013).