‘Karan knew the script of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai by heart’

When he was assisting Adi (Aditya Chopra) on Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, we met backstage at the Screen Awards.

On learning that I was assisting Sudhir Mishra on Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin, Karan told me he wanted to bounce off a script he’d written.

I lived on Warden Road (south Mumbai), and went over to his place in Nepean Sea Road (also in South Mumbai) where he narrated the first half of Kuch Kuch Hota

Hai to me.

It was fantastic!

Karan was looking for an associate director and I joined Dharma Productions in 1998.

We had started shooting Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and en route to Ooty for a recce, I pointed out to him that while I knew that Anjali (Kajol) was engaged to Aman (Salman Khan), but that she would meet Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) at the summer camp, I did not know what happened post interval.

During that two-and-a-half-hour drive, through 14 hairpin bends, Karan, who knew the script by heart, narrated the entire second half, complete with everyone’s dialogues, including Farida Jalal, Reema Lagoo and Johnny Lever.

I’ve had the good fortune of listening to narrations by Karan, Adi and Anurag Kashyap, they are the best!

As I keep telling my young assistants and associate directors, we worked without laptops, I-pads, walkie talkies or even mobile phones then. So we had to be more organised and always on our toes.

Karan would tell me he wanted to shoot a scene like the one in Raj Kapoor’s Prem Rog, and having seen the same films as him, I’d know instantly that he wanted to track in on a 75 lens with the foreground moving and would cue the DoPs and production designers accordingly.

I remember Kiran Deohans (director of photography, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham) complaining once that I was like a wall between Karan and him.

I protested saying Karan was more comfortable communicating with his DoPs and technical team through me.

He wanted bubblegum and candy floss in Shah Rukh, Rani and Kajol’s costumes when they were on campus.

Even the summer camp was a riot of colours, like Riverdale and Little Lotto.

Back in 1998, we styled and shot the film like a comic book.