Farah Khan on Bollywood potboilers

New Delhi: Farah Khan is one of the few female directors who has broken the myth that a woman can’t helm masala movies. The director, who has churned out blockbusters like ‘Main Hoon Naa’ and ‘Om Shanti Om’, says in a “sexist country” she has proved that a woman can do it better.

Her latest film ‘Happy New Year’, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Boman Irani, Sonu Sood and Vivaan Shah, has earned a record Rs.44.97 crore on the opening day of its release.

“We knew it would do well because it has Shah Rukh, Deepika and me. It’s a big movie. The songs were doing well, there was great energy and positive buzz about it. We knew it would get a big opening, but this big! Nobody knew even the trade experts are in shock I think,” Farah, also a choreographer, said.

She is thrilled about the fact that being a woman, her film has done so well at the box office.

“We live in a sexist country where women are put down, treated badly and told that they can’t do things that men do. Being a woman, numbers have come like this. Not only a woman director, but no male director has also got this kind of an opening. So, we should definitely celebrate it,” said the director, who is married to filmmaker Shirish Kunder.

Known for making fast paced films with oodles of romance, action, comedy and drama, the mother of three children doesn’t want to be “pressurised” by reviews.

“I don’t want to be pressurised by any critic who thinks that I should make certain type of movie, which is slow, boring and so-called sensitive and I shouldn’t be making this because this is a man’s territory. I will do it and do better than a man,” she said.

“It takes a lot to write a script that one billion people will accept and to make it big, funny and clean without having sexist jokes, bad language, or cheap humour.

"It’s very easy to please five critics, but very difficult to please the entire nation which is so diverse in its thoughts, behaviour and likes,” she added.

If the film is entertaining, the song in the end credit too has enhanced the experience of the movie buffs. Farah says a lot goes into it.

“My biggest pressure was what to do in the credit roll because everybody waits for that. I always feel the credit roll has to go with the theme of the movie like ‘Om Shanti Om’ was about movies, so we had a premiere at the end.

“‘Happy New Year’ is about world dance championship so, we had dance championship. Definitely, thought goes into it otherwise it will have random people just dancing. This time we gave trophies and all. It was a proper competition at the end,” added the director, who included shots of her three children and Shah Rukh’s son AbRam in the end credit.

Right now, she is in the mood to celebrate the success of the heist drama.

“We will be having a party at my house and each member of the cast will rotate the party. We are quite a few of us, so I think we will be celebrating for a week atleast,” she said.

And post parties, it’d be family time.

“I’ll go on a long holiday with my kids and husband to London for Christmas,” said Farah.