'Hatred And Bloodshed Can Only Give Birth To Love'

'In a world that's loud and fractured, this is my small offering of softness. Of love.'

Vibhu Puri's new film Gustaakh Ishq seems like poetry, and has been getting rave reviews.

"Maybe this is the best time to tell a love story," Vibhu tells Subhash K Jha.

How did Gustaakh Ishq happen?

Manish (Malhotra, Producer) had acquired the rights to a book set in the land of the nawabs in early 1900s Lucknow.

His team felt I was the right person to do justice to a world like that, so the project came to me.

I read the book and loved it, but was deeply caught up with Heeramandi and Taj. I knew a story that elaborate would need time.

I told him honestly that I wouldn't be able to start writing it immediately.

Manish asked me if there was something of my own that I had written, something I wanted to make.

In our second meeting, I narrated the first half of the script that was close to my heart.

He heard it, smiled, and said that he didn't even need to listen to the second half -- 'I want to take this journey with you.'

Just like that, Gustaakh Ishq was born.

Such a film in today's times feels audacious.

Shakespeare said, 'My only love sprung from my only hatred.'

Perhaps that's why I believe hatred and bloodshed can only give birth to love and romance.

Maybe this is the best time to tell a love story.

But this one isn't even a tale. It's a fable.

A fable about good people. About goodness, warmth and heartfelt.

About the kind of old-school romance people are secretly craving -- real, tender, unhurried love between two beautiful hearts.

In a world that's loud and fractured, this is my small offering of softness. Of love.

What was it like working with Naseeruddin Shah?

I always thought Naseersaab was a lovely actor, until I directed him in Taj.

That's when I realised he is beyond words.

Incredible, in a way that only time, truth, and talent can shape a man.

There could have been no one else who could play Baba -- the old poet of wisdom.

Naseer once brought Ghalib to life.

I'm so grateful that the next time he is playing a poet on screen after Ghalib it is in my film.

This is Vijay Varma's first lead role.

I've known Vijay for two decades now -- he was my junior at FTII (Film and Television Institute of India).

Even back then, he was a raw, electric talent with those incredibly expressive eyes.

There's a sincerity in him that you don't come across often.

He's a textured man -- layered, thoughtful, unpredictable in the most exciting way.

Someone who feels deeply and channels it quietly, without showmanship.

He was always on my mind for this film.

When I suggested his name to Manish Malhotra, he actually lit up -- jumped like a kid who had just heard great news.

Because when you think of fine, lived-in performances, you think of Vijay.

He's that rare actor who doesn't perform the scene, he inhabits it. So subtle. So refined. So utterly compelling.

And Fatima?

Fatima is silence.

She plays Minni with a stillness that is so real, so quietly heartbreaking, it lingers long after the moment passes.

She doesn't speak much -- she doesn't need to.

Her eyes carry entire worlds, tiny tremors of feeling, a truth you cannot fake.

She said yes in two hours.

She read the script, and called Manish Malhotra and said, 'I want to play Minni.'

That instinct, that clarity, it told me she had understood her.

Having her in the film was pure joy.

And what a performance -- delicate, raw, devastatingly honest.

Fatima doesn't act Minni. She has dissolved herself into being Minni.

I think she is the only actor who can make silence thunder.

Their romance is very old world?

The romance between Minni and Pappan is perfectly imperfect -- and that's its beauty. Nothing polished, nothing convenient.

They meet in the small hesitations, in those fragile spaces where two guarded people slowly open up.

Fatima and Vijay are both so real as actors that there isn't a single false note.

Every moment feels lived, not performed.

Who is the target audience for Gustaakh Ishq?

This is a film for everyone.

For everyone who loves love, has cherished tenderness, who has lived inside poetry, who has carved a name on the bark of a tree, who has held a hand on a moonlit night.

This film is for you.

It's for your loved ones, your parents, your children -- for anyone who has ever believed in the small, quiet, timeless things that make us human.

Photographs curated by Satish Bodas/Rediff