"My film was already complete when the marketing department came up with this item song idea. However tempting it may have been, I was nowhere [near] convinced about adding a song that had no relation to the film. There are 14 songs in Shaitan, but they are a part of the narrative — you will not find any hero breaking out into a dream song with 15 other dancers accompanying him. We have kept it realistic and it's all woven in," said Nambiar.
Billed as a racy thriller, the trailers — sans sexually-charged item song — are creating ripples among Bollywood buffs. No mean feat, since the film about five affluent, angst-ridden youngsters doesn't boast any Bollywood A-listers. Instead, it's led by a clutch of obscure but talented actors including Kalki, Rajeev Khandelwal, Gulshan Devaiah and Neil Bhoopalam. And instead of candyfloss romance, you see these twenty-somethings living life in the fast lane with drugs, sex and violence for pastimes.
"This is not your run-of-the-mill Bollywood masala potboiler. I belong to that school of directors who believe in doing something different rather than expect one star to pull the show forward. The content needs to work. Look at Tere Bin Laden or Peepli Live or Ragini MMS — they all worked because the filmmaker had a different way of presenting its content. There was no star there. And frankly, I don't think big stars are very comfortable doing ensemble films."
He may not have struck a casting coup, but Nambiar nailed it when it came to finding a producer in industry insider Anurag Kashyap. After having directed critically acclaimed films such as Black Friday and Dev D, Kashyap's stamp of approval carries some weight in showbiz.
"I was dealing with Anurag to get dates from Kalki [Kashyap's girlfriend]. But because of lack of funding, I had to go back and forth when one day he asked me for a presentation and asked me to come up with reasonable budgets. Without Anurag, Shaitan would never have happened," said Nambiar.
Actor Rajeev Khandelwal is quick to hammer home this point. "The USP of this film is Bejoy-meeting-Anurag Kashyap. Bejoy had come to me with the script more than a year back. I loved his idea, but I declined it because he didn't have a producer on board. But when Anurag called me, I knew the film was in safe hands and this is one project that will be made with the right attitude," said Khandelwal, who made his Bollywood debut with the acclaimed thriller Aamir.
In Shaitan, he plays a troubled cop who is assigned to track down the youngsters on the run.
"I want to attach myself [to] good cinema. But I don't go around with a blueprint in my mind on how to do it. This script excited me, and believe me it's not your mundane, run-of-the-mill Bollywood love story," said Khandelwal. Devaiah, who plays super-rich rebel Karan Chaudhry, agrees. He was earlier seen in festival favourite That Girl in Yellow Boots.
"I don't play a typical Bollywood hero in this one. I was intrigued because Karan is this violent, edgy, unpredictable guy. He's buzzing all the time and an egoistic rebel. Tell him not to do something, and he will do just that," said Devaiah.
This Coorg-born actor is your quintessential Bollywood outsider with no influential patriarch as a father or a relative. "In this business, you just need to swallow your pride," he said. "Three years in Mumbai, it's not been that big of struggle because I am getting films that I love doing.
"If you see Shaitan, you will not really know how to classify this film. It's not [an] art flick nor is it a mainstream masala film. It's like ordering a thaali [a mixed platter] filled with tikka masala, dum aloo — it has a bit of everything."
Says Nambiar, "Thankfully, Bollywood is going through a phase where small films with different content is being accepted. Now there's a market for films like Shaitan."
According to sources, Shaitan has been given an 18 certificate by this region's censor board.
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