"Apne dhandhe ki jaat hi aisi hai" - RGV

Trust Ram Gopal Varma to maintain his cool in the most adverse of circumstances. He was allowing all the digs on him even as he had a series of failures in the form of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, Darling, Shiva, Nishabd and Darna Zaroori Hai. And we are not talking about his productions yet. Now even as he finally has a film of his taking the best opening collections of his decade and a half old career, he is unfazed even as few people from within the industry are trying to pull it down.

Why such double standards Ramu? Why are a few sections of media not willing to give the film its due? "I hope you have seen Company. You would remember that there was a dialogue in the film that went as - 'Tumhaare Dhandhe Ki Jaat Hi Aisi Hi' (That's the character of the profession you are in). Just like any other profession, Bollywood too works in the same sphere with similar set of rules and regulations. Apne dhandhe ki jaat hi aisi hai", roars Ramu.

Please elaborate. "As filmmakers, we get frustrated if we see one such film getting successful which we had hoped all this while that it wouldn't. Count me also as one such filmmaker", he adds on after a hearty laugh, "Even I take digs on the movies being made around me. Now today when Sarkar Raj has turned out to be a success, it is difficult for some of us to digest that fact."

As per the collections that have come in, the film has netted close to 25 crores in first week alone. This is in fact close to sum total of overall collections of all the films directed by Ramu between Sarkar and Sarkar Raj. Isn't that a big deal in itself?

"Ask this question to those born-yesterday trade experts who are busy working overnight on their excel spreadsheets and trying to get all these calculations in place. They all seem to be worried more than me and my producers and are now bringing up theories around number of prints in circulation, occupancy, print counts etc.", quips Ramu who agrees that he is aware about the 24X7 debates on blogs and other media forums around Sarkar Raj collections and it's ultimate box office verdict.

"My point here is let's look at the bottom line", Ramu reasons here, "Sarkar Raj has netted near about Rs. 25 crores after first week itself. Now for a film which was made in Rs. 25 crores, has collected similar amount just from the domestic market, sees 7 crores coming from overseas and is easily approaching 50 crores considering the satellite/DVD rights etc., it would be insane not to call it as a success!"

"See, I have never tried to call my flops as box-office success stories. I have never done that before and would never do that in future. At the end of the day everything is black and white and collections are there to prove whether the film has worked or not."

Getting serious, he goes on to conclude, "The bottom line is Z which is the money earned and if that's good enough to keep us all happy, let us talk about that! Now if we start questioning that why did Sarkar Raj not earn X amount of money because of Y being the scope due to occupancy available, it is surprising!"