Subhash K Jha

Sunny days are here again. The actor just can't stop smiling. He has been out of circulation with a bad back for the last month. But trust the superstar to keep smiling in spite of a month's loss.

Sunny Deol was back on his feet on Friday, January 25, the day his film Maa Tujhe Salaam opened all over the country to a slamming response. "I know Maa Tujhe Salaam isn't my film," he says, a little apologetically.

"But the exhibitors, distributors and everyone involved with the film wanted to make a profit. There's nothing wrong with that. It is a small role which developed into a bigger one as the film progressed. Yes, I am aware the film is being sold to the audience as a Sunny Deol starrer. But what can I do about it?

"I am hoping my fans would have guessed by now that I don't have much of a role because I never spoke too much about the film. Anyway, there is enough of me in Maa Tujhe Salaam. I have a feeling the film will go down well with the masses."

Refuting the rumour that director Tinnu Verma asked Sunny to do an added 10-day shooting just before the release, Sunny laughs: "I don't know where these rumours come from. I did the film because my friend Tinnu Verma directed the film. It is a film about Kargil . The length of my role is relatively small as compared with what I generally do in my films. That's it. I haven't done a single day's extra work for Maa Tujhe Salaam. I have been down with a back problem for the last one month. And I surfaced only on Friday, January 25, for shooting. I would rather do my work than be answerable to nonexistent controversies.

Having given Maa Tujhe Salaam a clean chit, Sunny says he has finished with his patriotic batch of films for a while. "My next two releases Karz and Jaal have nothing to do with desh bhakti [patriotic fervour]. They are straightforward dramas.

"You see, everyone wants a successful film at the end of the day. If a successful film is turned into a formula for more potentially successful films, I can't stop that. I haven't deliberately gone in search of patriotic films. It just so happened that a spate of these films happened one after the other."

Sunny's date diary is jampacked for a while. There are three home productions on the anvil including a debut launch for cousin Abhay Deol entitled Socha Na Tha which went on the floors on January 26. Then there are two projects directed by Guddu Dhanoa — Azad, which features Bobby Deol as Bhagat Singh and Sunny as Chandrashekhar Azad, and Gandhi, a project that was earlier entitled Devaa but has now been considerably restructured. "It is a drama on the lines of Ziddi. We have changed the original cast. Now, it has Priyanka Chopra in the female lead."

Laughing aloud at allegations that he charges Rs 50 million per film, Sunny says, "That's the film industry for you. One hit and you are their blue-eyed boy. One flop and they drop you like a hot potato.

"That is why I never take success and failure too seriously. I have seen the same guys who are now smiling at me turn away when a couple of my films didn't do well. I would rather do my work and be paid the same money than keep changing my remuneration after every hit or flop."