Sajid Khan at an event
Sajid Khan at an event

Heyy Babyy, Housefull, Housefull 2 – Three releases and each of them being successes; with such fabulous record in play at the box office, Sajid Khan is indeed a confident lot as he shoots for Himmatwala. While prior to him only Rajkumar Hirani has this enviable record of 100% success rate, it is pretty much expected that Sajid Khan is going to maintain that with the Ajay Devgn starrer early next year.

With the filmmaker maintaining that it is the ‘entertainment quotient’ that works most for him, especially since he understands the pulse of the audience, over a period of time, even those stray voices that criticised him in his earlier years have finally been subdued. What was a gradual development resulted in a major turnaround, especially after Housefull 2 which brought him, Akshay Kumar, Sajid Nadiadwala and many others into the 100 crore club.

No wonder, one can well expect Sajid Khan to be indeed happy about finding himself into the current situation.

Says Sajid after a pause, “See, at the end of the day you have to ask yourself that who you are working for. In fact even when I used to host shows, I wasn’t worried as much about the producer or the TV channel but about my audience. Same holds good for my films too. I don’t care for trade, critics, certain other directors, different cinema makers etc. etc. They can say what they want to say; after all, even the greatest cricketers have been criticised even in their prime. However records are there to be seen. These are something that cannot be cheated or manipulated, especially in today’s day and age when business of cinema has become so transparent.”

As for critics and their views about his films, Sajid adds, “Please, I don’t need your (critics) approval, I don’t respect you either and that’s because I know my cinema. I have put my money in mouth after delivering three hits. At the end of the day if you are giving five stars to a film jiska theatre hi khaali padha hai, then it is you whose credibility is
going down.”

Today when he is working with one of his closest friends, Ajay Devgn, Sajid is delighted to be in his company professionally as well.

“He has always been a friend. However over a period of time I am seeing him in a different light today. See, there are certain things about him that haven’t changed while there are others which have over the years. The way he has balanced his life out is simply amazing. Moreover, he is also one of the best sons that I have come across,” says Sajid before signing off.

Joginder Tuteja tweets @tutejajoginder

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