‘With Mr Bachchan, it’s like teaching a principal what to do’

•And I’m going to make you walk the talk-that’s easier than teaching me to dance. If you tried to teach me to dance, I’d crush your toes.

No, I’m sure you’d be flexible. You’re looking pretty flexible.

•I have a flexible mind and heart….

We’ll leave the church and go to a quiet corner….

•It’s a famous church, one of Bombay’s oldest churches.

Yeah, Mount Mary. Amar Akbar Anthony was shot here-you know, the scene where Amitabh Bachhan sees Parveen Babi for the first time, and he says: Ghantiyan baj rahi hain.

•It’s one of the most memorable scenes in the film. But one of the other reasons we chose this place is that we took a compass and a global positioning system, and we figured this was exactly in the middle of where your closest friends live-Shah Rukh Khan on this side, Salman over there, Subhash Ghai higher than everybody else.

And Mehboob studios right here-yeah. Only I live in Juhu, far away from here.

•Well, I think those who become successful now move to Juhu.

I’ve always stayed there.

•How do you acquire this remarkable personality? You must be the only human being who’s friends with both Shah Rukh and Salman. I can’t find many people even in the media who are on talking terms with both.

That’s not true. I’ve known Salman since childhood, and Shah Rukh I’ve known for the last 13 years. I think he’s my cosmic brother. We both did our first movie together-he’s like my father figure.

•He’s happy with that?

He’s very happy with that-I’ve given him a promotion from brother figure to father. But they’re both extremely good-hearted people.

•You know, in diplomacy there’s something called a zero-sum game. They used to say America’s relationship with India and Pakistan cannot be a zero-sum game, which means if you’re friends with one, you can’t be friends with the other. This is the oldest zero-sum game in Hindi cinema-if you’re friends with Shah Rukh, you can’t be friends with Salman, and the other way around as well.

Shekhar, I’m very dear friends with Shah Rukh and very dear friends with Salman. I’m making a movie with Shah Rukh and my husband, Shirish Kunder, is making a movie with Salman. Now you can’t get friendlier than that. And I have to say they both absolutely love each other, Shah Rukh and Salman; they only have nice things to say about each other, behind each other’s backs. The best wedding present I got was that after three years they both got together at my sangeet.

•That was like a filmi scene.

Very filmi-I said, Karan-Arjun are reunited now. It was good fun.

•And how did they relate to each other?

They know each other. I mean, when Shah Rukh first came to Bombay and didn’t know anybody, Salman and his family really looked after him. He’d go to their house and stay over and play chess, eat dinner. So, I think he really has fond memories and I’ve never heard either of them speak badly about each other. At least not in front of me.

•But this is odd. They say great things about each other behind each other’s backs…

I think that’s the best thing to do.

•And yet there’s this tension? Why the tension?

I think most of it is media created. People like this kind of thing. Also, of course, there were other problems. Is this interview about Shah Rukh and Salman, or about me?

•It’s about you and your world and your friends.

Well, I’m really good friends with both of them.

•You know, you’re one of Bollywood’s favorite gangsters-you run the most successful gang, the most fun gang.

What happens is that we’re like-minded people, whether it’s Shah Rukh or Karan Johar or Manish Malhotra or Farhan Akhtar. We love cinema, we love film. You fin friends that you have something in common with. I can’t really best friends with an architect who’s making buildings because I won’t have anything to discuss with him.

•You can almost never be good friends with an architect who’s building your building.

My architect’s going to kill me. I’m very good friends with him. But even in your field-you need like-minded people to discuss what you’re passionate about.

•I can tell you, journalists rarely make friends with journalists.

Well, how sad is that.

•But tell me about yourself. You came from a struggling background.

Well, Shekhar, my dad used to make movies, and I know it’s a very filmi term, but his was a riches-to-rags story, literally. I’ve grown up watching movies, seeing a filmi atmosphere. So, it wasn’t something alien to me. My brother and I are both extremely passionate about movies. We watch all kinds of movies; we watch a movie a day, even now.

•A movie a day?

A movie a day. Definitely. I think my brother sometimes watches two.

•You have a good eye specialist?

I have 20-20 vision. When I joined movies, my dad had already passed away. It wasn’t like I had support or anything, but I had a passion for cinema.

•But I believe you and your brother, Sajid Khan-a funny guy, isn’t he?

Yes, he’s very funny. But not when I have to go on the set and hear people say, oh he made fun of us on the show.

•But you struggled a great deal?

Yeah. I would say we didn’t have a “normal”, happy childhood. We were quite a dysfunctional family. But I think that’s part of life, and it, kind of, made us what we are today.

•And both of you are so successful in your own ways now.

I think, maybe because we were dysfunctional, we had to prove something; we had to earn money at a really young age.

•Tell me about the first time you met Shah Rukh.

I remember it very clearly; it was like 13, 14 years ago and we were shooting in Goa for Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na. I’d heard horror stories about Shah Rukh-that he’s very arrogant and he’s very brash and rude. And I’d read some of his interviews-in Stardust, I think-and he sounded very arrogant. I was a new choreographer and I was like, Oh God, this guy is going to trouble me. But I think the instant I met him-we met on the road, just like this-they were shooting on the road, and I went up to him. The instant I met him, we connected and we’ve been friends since then. We just started talking and it really felt like we’d known each other for a long time.

•You also have a high-energy relationship, I find.

We’re both a little hyper. I mean, he’s the patient one out of the two of us.

•Tell me some stories of how you got to know each other.

Well, he’d just got married to Gauri. She’d come down to Goa, and we would party every night. We would shoot till 6.30 and then we’d party till 5 in the morning. Of course, I realised then that Shah Rukh can’t wake up early in the morning-you don’t plan your first four shots with Shah Rukh. But that’s how we all got to know each other-Ashutosh Gowarikar was in that film; so a whole lot of us go back a long way.

•Shah Rukh is a late night person-that I know. We’ve exchanged SMS’s between 1 to 3 a.m.

Yeah-that’s the best time to catch him, when he’s alone and he’s on his own time. I’m a morning person.

•Not such a morning person. You weren’t willing to come out early.

Not at 6 in the morning. But 8.30 is fine.

•So, what was the first big thing you did with Shah Rukh? Was it a song?

It was a song from Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, called Deewana. I’d heard he couldn’t dance and that he was horrible; but here he was, like a gymnast, doing cartwheels and summersaults. I was too excited; I was like, finally I’ve found someone who can do whatever I ask him. That was 13 years ago, and even now I’ve never heard Shah Rukh say, no, I can’t do this shot.

•In spite of his pain.

In spite of his backache, his ankle, his knee braking, his neck aches. I mean, Main Hoon Na, he’d just come back from his back operation and we would hang him up from cables-in fact, I was the one telling him, you can’t do this. We were shooting an action sequence once, and he sent me off somewhere; he told me, you better go and check the other set. So, I like a fool went to the other set, and there was nothing happening there. I came back and I see Shah Rukh strung up on cables, climbing up a wall and doing a back summersault. And I could hear him tell the action master: Jaldi karo, jaldi karo, varna Farah aa jayegi. Because he knew that if I was there, I would never allow him to do this.

•And some of your most favorite dance sequences have been done with him- Chhaiya Chhaiya was with him.

Definitely. He likes to credit me with his success, but I think that’s absolutely not true. I think most of my hit songs have become hits because Shah Rukh was in them.

•Tell me more about Chhaiya Chhaiya -how did that happen? It was a very unusual sequence, very unusually done.

Well, Chhaiya Chhaiya, people think I’m joking, but we really did not get permission to shoot at the railway station. So, we decided let’s do it on top of the train and keep moving up and down. And we literally went there without any preparation-nobody had ever stood on top of a train and danced, so nobody could tell us what to expect. We just went up there and we had the time of our lives.

•How did you pick Malaika Arora? You discovered a real star.

You know, Malaika’s going to kill me for this, but she was really the last option we had. We had gone through many people-we wanted Suman Ranganathan who said she’d become a heroine now and can’t do item numbers. She’s going to regret it for the rest of her life. Then we wanted Shilpa Shirodkar-Mani [Ratnam] wanted some dusky beauty, we were looking out for people who could dance, and there was one week left for the shoot and we didn’t have anybody. Then Micky Contractor, the make-up guy, told me, why don’t you use Malaika-she’s a decent dancer and she’ll do it. So, I called up Arbaaz, who’s a very, very dear friend of Sajid and I; and I asked him, do you mind, because he and she were engaged at that time. She came there, and we didn’t even know if she could dance.

•And how she danced.

She was fabulous. I mean, you’ve seen Chhaiya Chhaiya, right? She was just fabulous and sexy and so professional.

•And how did you figure the steps? You know, on top of a moving train….

We did them on the ground, and went up praying and hoping and did them on top of the train. Everyone asked me, did you take any precautions; and I was like, no, I just took extra dancers in case some fall off.

•But it was also unusual in the sense that a lot of that dancing was done with the feet planted very wide.

No, if you watch the song carefully, there’s a lot of dance where I’ve made them jump because I didn’t want them to be just stuck there. So there’s a lot where they’re lifting their ghagras and jumping all over the place. And of course Shah Rukh wanted to climb up on the engine and up on the chimney and all sorts of places.

•And your other great innovation is the Hrithik-jhatka.

Hrithik’s an international dancer. Every year, I do one number with him just for my own creative satisfaction.

•What are the other things that you’ve discovered or innovated ? Be immodest for now.

Be immodest? Well, I think either I was there at the right time or I started it-but I think that since the time I joined movies, the Hindi film song has become a lot cooler. And somewhere I think I may have contributed a bit to that.

•Cooler in what sense?

In the sense that earlier it used to be frowned upon-chchee, Hindi music. The youngsters used to look down on it-you know, it’s so filmi, it’s so verny, it’s so tacky. And right now if you go to any club or disco, everybody wants to dance to Hindi music.

•‘Verny’, let me translate for non-Bombay wallahs, is vernacular. Desi.

Politically incorrect, I know. But that’s how it was perceived. I think the first thing I did was get better-looking dancers. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they used to have these over-weight, over-age people before.

•And you also saw the same dancers in every film.

The same. Whether they were in a basti or in a college, the same people would come. What I did with Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar was get real college kids to dance. So the whole thing became fresher, younger, cooler. I think that helped my work a lot also. You get younger people, you get ideas from them, you see what’s happening.

•Was it easy to do?

It was pretty tough in the beginning because the union would get their jhandas and come to stop my shoot. Every time, till about two years ago. I don’t think that they realise that I’ve single-handedly raised everyone’s payment. When they were getting 300 bucks a shift, I started paying dancers 1000. And now it’s a very lucrative job being a dancer in Hindi films-you get paid a lot.

•And particularly if you work for Farah?

No, actually they give me a discount. They’re very sweet. For Main Hoon Na, I got lots of discounts. They took it upon personally themselves to make sure the movie turned out right.

•You know which is my favorite of all your compositions? Woh Ladki Hai Kahan.

Yeah, that’s really sweet. The flapping arms. You know, the trick in doing a signature step is to keep it so everyone can copy. I normally keep my signature steps very simple.

•Which every baaraati can copy.

Yeah. You know, Prabhudeva was my favorite dancer-nobody can do what he does. But when I choreograph, the whole country can do the steps.

•Prabhudeva makes Michael Jackson look like a copy.

Yeah, Prabhudeva’s fantastic, he’s fab.

•So, how did Woh Ladki Hai Kahan go, how did it happen? It became such a spoof too.

Yeah, it was a spoof, I meant it to be a spoof. That’s why they were doing all those funny movements. But I specifically told Saif that you cannot make fun of it. You have to take it very seriously. It’s then that it’ll be funny. In comedy, you can’t be making funny faces and saying it’s funny.

•And which are your other favorites?

I loved the qawwali in Main Hoon Na. It really brought the qawwali back in a new form. And now every film has a qawwali. Shah Rukh was really excited about doing a qawwali because he hadn’t ever done one-none of us had. I love Shawa Shawa from Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, because I got to make Mr. Bachchan dance. That’s an easy step too-you see, you dribble and you pull the flush.

•Is he a natural dancer?

Yeah, he is. He’s fantastic.

•What’s it like working with a Bachchan, a Salman and a Shah Rukh?

With Shah Rukh and Salman, I can speak my mind and use bad language and shout at them. With Mr. Bachchan, it’s like teaching a principal what to do.

•And does he listen?

Yes, he does.

•And Hrithik?

With Hrithik, I can do what I want and I know he’ll do it ten times better.

•Because he’s a natural dancer?

He can do anything. He’s a rubber man. You can do anything and when he does it he makes it look ten times better. With the others, I still have to be careful to suit their style-like, you know, I can’t make Shah Rukh breakdance. Or Salman do a tandav.

•For that, you’ll have to find Kamal Hassan, I think.

I think I’ll stick to Hrithik.

•You certainly speak your mind. You know, the first time I saw you perform was when I was recording Walk the Talk with Aishwarya Rai….

Oh God, yes-sorry about that.

•And I remember your voice in that recording: Blue boys, come this side; pink girls, go that side.

I only came to know when people told me that in Aishwarya Rai’s Walk the
Talk, we could only hear your voice booming in the background. I’m sorry.

•I believe she’s not your favourite actor.

No, I love her. I love Aish, she’s very professional, she’s a fantastic dancer. She’s an ideal Hindi heroine. She’s got everything going for her.

•Is that the new politically correct Farah Khan?

No, really. I think she’s fab. I’ve done many songs with her.

•But you’ve called her an overrated actor.

and Sanjay’s show? What I meant by overrated was not that she can’t do things. I think she hasn’t been exploited to her fullest.

•Farah, where do we see you headed now? You’ve done your choreography, you’re a director, you’ve done a Chinese movie.

I’ve choreographed the first Chinese big musical-I was very honoured that they called me because they had really good technicians from all over Asia. They had the cameraman from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shooting the film. And the director, Peter Chan, is a very, very respected director there. So it felt good that when they came to India, they chose me to represent that part of Asia. It’s a multi-Asian production.

•But can you make the Chinese do Indian steps?

Well, they didn’t really want a Chinese look to it. They wanted-you know, anything goes. I think the walls have broken now. You can do a Monsoon Wedding and you can do a Chinese movie-and next year, now that Michael Jackson is out, I really want to a number with him. He’s my guru.

•So you will make him a star again?

He’s the biggest star in the world.

•Do you feel bad for him?

I was praying for him to be out. You know, my brother woke me up at 3 in the night, he banged on the door, I thought something’d happened. He was like, Michael Jackson’s been set free.

•And you thought your brother was joking, being the clown that he is.

No, no, I was hoping he’d be set free.

•Did you believe he was innocent?

I just hoped he’d be set free.

•That’s a clever you. So, if you got Michael Jackson in your hands, what would you make him do?

Oh my God, it’s what he’d make me do, you know.

•But what would you make him do?

I’d make him an Indian prince, do one real Bollywood number with him.

•Which one is your Michael Jackson favourite?

Lots. Thriller, of course. Thriller is number one. Smooth Criminal. All of them. I used to do the moonwalk-I can’t do it in my chappals, but I can in my heels. And, of course, I can’t grab my crotch right now.

•Never on our show-this is a family channel. Don’t even talk about these things or I’ll have the I&B Ministry and the Ministry of Health coming after me.

As long as I’m not smoking on your show, it should be alright.

•Shah Rukh taught me this.

Did he smoke on your show?

•Well, he instinctively lit up and then he put it down, and he looked at the camera and he said: This is a very bad habit-you must never do it. Your friend is a diplomat, whether you’re one or not…

Well, I don’t smoke.

•So, what do we see you doing over the next few years. You’re very young, you’ve married a much younger man.

It’s fine-I mean, I’ve married the person I love and get along with.

•And you will stay young forever?

Yeah-I think he’ll keep me young for a longer time. And I’m starting Happy New Year by the end of the year, and-let’s see. Have a baby and make movies. What else?

•And judge contests.

Yeah, Indian Idol 2 is going to start soon.

•You seemed like a bigger star than the idols there. Or their favourite, in fact.

No-that’s okay. My favourites are always rooting for some odd people. But I hope to be part of Indian Idol 2-let’s see.

•Farah, before we conclude, let me ask you a question. Rate the top five men and women, in Hindi movies.

Oh God, you’re going to get me in trouble.

•And don’t be diplomatic now.

Rate the top five? I would say number one, Shah Rukh. For me. Number two, Mr Bachchan. Number three, Salman. Number four, Hrithik. And number five, Aamir.

•Aamir? Although Shah Rukh has gone around saying that Aamir is the best actor.

Shah Rukh’s really diplomatic. He’s a good actor himself. See how good he is.

•And women? Don’t start with Aishwarya now.

No. Number one, I would say Rani Mukherjee. Number two, Sushmita Sen. Number three, Aishwarya Rai.

•Matches with my list.

Does it? Number four, Kajol, because she’s out of circulation right now. And I would say, number five-you know, they alays complain I don’t like the women, which is not true. Number five-who do I like? Mallika Sherawat.

•Number one right now for many people.

I’m a normal woman.

•Well, when it comes to dance and choreography, we know who’s the number one.

You?

•You, Farah. Stay at the top.

Okay, now you have to do a twirl for me (takes him by the hand)-don’t fight with me, just go with the flow.