Director Gurmmeet Singh’s What The Fish is a mixed bag of drama, romance, comedy and suspense set to release on December 13. Sangeeta Yadav speaks with the starcast to bring out their ‘what the fish’ moments
This December, get ready to delve into some fishy comedy, suspense, romance and drama with director Gurmmeet Singh’s second film What The Fish. “The film is about a true incident that happened with my creative writer Shashank. I thought the story would make for an interesting script. He agreed and thus was born WTF,” Singh says.
“The film revolves around an angry aunt Sudha Mishra who goes to her relative’s place for a month. She hands over the keys to her niece’s fiancé Sumit. Before leaving the house, Mishra gives strict instructions to the boy to feed her fish— Mishti on time and talk to her for half an hour, water the plants and instructs him to not use her toilet. But Sumit has different plans. He decides to host a party instead.
“Many of his friends borrow the ‘key’ to this empty flat to perform all kinds of nefarious activities. This gives rise to various comic situations. The climax, however, is full of suspense,” the 32-year-old director adds.
Anand Tiwari, who plays role of Nirav, a boy who elopes with his Gopa and takes shelter in the ‘empty flat’ says the film will tickle your funny bones and at the same time keep you guessing about the suspense. “In reality I’m still waiting for my Gopa. But I have had my share of romances. Mind you they were all secret affairs and no one ever got to know about my numerous GF’s,” Tiwari says.
In the making of the film a lot of ‘what the fish’ moments happened with the starcast. For Singh, his WTF moment was on the first day of the shoot with veteran actress Dimple Kapadia. “We were shooting in Delhi and our first scene was in the taxi. When Dimpleji asked me which camera she should face, I told her that you have to face the camera next to the tree. It was a small camera and Dimpleji was very upset about it. ‘Are you kiddingIJ You are going to shoot the film with this little cameraIJ You are not professionals.’ We took time to convince her that this is a very professional camera and that we were making a full-fledged commercial film and not a short documentary,” Singh recalls.
Actor Manu Rishi, who plays Ravi, a badmash property broker and a big flirt, too had his WTF moment. “I had to take a flight to Delhi for the shoot of this film. As soon as I entered my flight I switched on my music player and went off to sleep. I was woken up by the airhostess who announced that we have reached our destination. I was amazed that we reached one hour before scheduled time. When I enquired about this ‘fast-arrival’ I was told that I had arrived at Bangalore.
“It so happened that I was ushered into the wrong bus and the ground staff standing near the plane was more interested in talking to me and clicking photographs. It was very irritating,” Rishi says who is currently shooting for Democracy Private limited tells you.
In this film, however, Rishi is always a step ahead of all the other boys. “Ravi likes to share his talent with other boys in his colony. He coaches them on how to impress girls. I am not at all like Ravi. I’m that kind of a person who makes every helpless girl his sister,” he tells you.
For Manjot Singh, aka Pammi who runs his father’s macchi business in this film, there was not one but many WTF moments in the making of this film. But that is not what he wants to talk about. It is the fun times he shared with his real father on screen that Singh will always cherish. “I had only two days of shoot in this film. Pammi runs a fish pet store and sells Mishti to Sudha Mishra. In the scene, my real and reel father— Paramjot Singh scolds me for not making any profit in this business. We enacted this scene without a take because it was very real-life like. I’m very used to my dad’s scolding. It will go down as one of the most natural shots that I have ever done,” he concludes.