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Nikal ja saamne se nahin to maar dalunga!

Thus gentle words of endearment did Paresh Rawal speak to his make up man of eight years on the first morning the beard found his cheeks on the sets of Oye Lucky.

The beard was a problem. Paresh Rawal hates putting on a false beard. His skin can’t take it. He can’t talk. He shuts off. He hates growing one even more, and even if he did grow one, by the time he would grow one the size we needed we would all have reached dotage.

As soon as the beard was fixed, the generally happy, relaxed mood of the set changed. We had become used to a Paresh who was easy, patient, chilled, forever on the sets, standing at his mark happily even between lighting adjustment, benevolently chiding the crew to get …

Am I a funny guy or what?

My most unsettling experience after the release of Khosla ka Ghosla was seeing the audience laugh.

They were laughing at places where Jaideep and I had never intended them to laugh. They were not laughing at the places where we were expecting them to get the bends guffawing. Then they came out sniggering, smiling, giggling – and if it hadn’t been for the satisfied sigh that we could hear from everyone of them – we would have been really puzzled.

You see, I never made KKG as a comedy. I made it as the story it was, and life as I know it – funny, sad, bitter, sweet, quiet, noisy, but never predictable. That is life, isn’t it?

The real comedy came later, after KKG took off. Not a month would go by when …