The Aisha team reveals that the film is more than a chick-flick or rom-com

Supprising as it may seem, the producers that Rajshree Ojha approached when she went around pitching her film Aisha, all wanted to change the lead character into a man. “The five producers I went to said they liked the idea, but the lead character needed to be a man. I was horrified. It’s adapted from Jane Austen’s Emma, it’s meant to have a female protagonist.” The director was speaking at the Screen Preview of Aisha, held in Mumbai on Wednesday, where she was accompanied by the film’s producer Rhea Kapoor and cast members Sonam Kapoor, Ira Dubey, Amrita Puri, Lisa Haydon, Cyrus Sahukar and Arunoday Singh.

Ojha and scriptwriter Devika Bhagat finally got a break when they approached Sonam. The actress herself had been considering adapting Emma for the big screen. “I was only getting depressing roles around that time and I wanted to do something fun and lighthearted,” she explained. Emma also happens to be one of her favourite books. “Just before I got the text message from Devika about it, I’d spoken to my friend, producer Aarti Shetty, about making a movie on it. She’d also incidentally got the movie’s script, but hadn’t found the time to go through it. It was just fate then, that this happened.” It was lucky too, that Ojha also had her heart set on getting Sonam to play the title role. Once the actress was sold on the idea, it was only a matter of time before her sister Rhea and father Anil Kapoor also came on board.

The team asserted that the movie can’t be called a ‘chick flick’. Ojha explained, “It’s a romantic comedy. The movie narrates the protagonist Aisha’s journey as she tries to change lives around her for the better. At the same time, she grows into a new person.” Rhea added, “The biggest lesson of the film is that you need to grow up and accept yourself for what you are. You need to be comfortable in your own skin, before you can get everything that you want.”

The coming-of-age tale is set in South Delhi’s swish set, where a group of friends find that their lives have turned upside down by the arrival of a newcomer. “My character Aarti Menon is the only person who’s comfortable being herself. She represents the modern Indian woman who’s grown up, got a job and responsibilities and knows who she is,” explained Haydon. While the movie may be titled Aisha, the film is as much about the other characters as it is about the central character—small-town girl Shefali Thakur (Puri), geek-turned-Greek God Dhruv (Singh), nouveau riche scion Randhir Gambhir (Sahukar), brash and bold Pinky Bose (Dubey) and the arrogant but sensitive Arjun Burman (Abhay Deol).

Aisha has also made a lot of waves with the slick styling of its characters, but Rhea stressed that it’s not something that will overwhelm the main plot. “The looks add just one more layer to the story, as they’re all character-centric. A character’s personality and background is reflected in how he or she dresses up. Aisha grew up without a mom and she’s been pampered. She wants everything around her to be perfect and you can see it in the way she dresses herself. Her best friend Pinki, on the other hand, is outspoken and brash, and that shows in her funky clothes.”

Ojha also stressed that the movie can’t be compared to the 1995 Alicia Silverstone-starrer Clueless, which was also inspired by Emma. “The root is the same, but both movies are set in such different universes. Clueless was a high-school story set in Beverly Hills, while Aisha is about a group of

20-somethings set in Delhi. They’re completely different experiences.”

For more watch out for SCREEN Issue dated August 6, 2010