Right here, right now!

There's no method or end to madness, and director Rohan Sippy should know this. Especially after the experience of filming his Rs 10 crore venture Bluffmaster, starring Abhishek Bachchan, Riteish Deshmuk, Priyanka Chopra and Nana Patekar.

"It was just chaos," says the son of veteran director Ramesh Sippy, the man behind India's biggest ever hit, Sholay (1975).

Sippy junior may, by his own admission, take a long, long time to reach those heights, but nonetheless he is content: at least, for the time being. Sadly, Bluffmaster has still not repeated history or recreated the innings played by his father's earlier films.

Ramesh Sippy's debut Andaz, starring Shammi Kapoor and Hema Malini, ran to packed houses in the 1970s, and his second film as director, Seeta aur Geeta, also did phenomenally well.

With Sholay, Sippy senior rewrote the rules of the box office, setting a record that today's film directors are trying hard (and fruitlessly) to imitate.

Compared to such glorious records, Rohan's debut vehicle Kuch Na Kaho, starring Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, was a flop "" despite good acting by the actors, fine music and some scenes filmed in exotic locales.

"It took nearly three years for me to complete Kuch Na Kaho, there was a fire on the sets and schedules went completely haywire. That's why it lost its freshness and appeal," admits Rohan, adding quickly, "but it wasn't so bad and did okay."

This time the director has been luckier and with Bluffmaster's above-average results at the box office, he seems to have made a promising start.

According to trade reports, the film got off to a flying start and during its first weekend did enough business for producers to recover their costs. It has got mixed reviews but has been particularly well-received in the metros.

In Mumbai it has already been declared a semi-hit. In Mysore, a relatively small moviegoing centre, surprisingly, the film has been placed in the "above average" category. It has also done particularly well in the overseas markets according to some international trade reports.

Clearly, Rohan is a man at ease even as he continues to be self-effacing "" pointing to flaws in his second film. "I would have preferred more silence in some of the scenes," he says matter-of-factly. "Visually too, we could have done better." Anything else? "No."

Bluffmaster began taking shape soon after Kuch Na Kaho was wrapped up and there was only one thing Rohan was sure of at the start: Abhishek Bachchan.

"I actually roped in Abhishek for the second lead. For the main lead, I had Sanjay Dutt in mind," says Rohan. Things didn't quite work out with Dutt as expected, and Abhishek decided to play the lead while Ritiesh was roped in for the second lead. "I had seen Ritiesh's work in the film Masti and thought he had great comic timing," says Rohan.

What did he get right this time compared to his work on Kuch Na Kaho? "Well, a director works as hard for all his films, but this time I knew I was more at ease while directing the film," he says. But, what according to him made Bluffmaster click?

"My father told me to constantly focus on the emotional content of the film and we just stuck to that mantra... that is the reason why this film succeeded," he says.

While his father was a maverick filmmaker who quit the London School of Economics within six months to return to India and a career in films, Rohan says, "I'm more orthodox. I finished my masters degree in philosophy and then came back!"

He adds, "My mother put immense pressure on me to complete my studies. Actually, she never wanted me to enter films."

Clearly, he didn't pay any attention to her advice and was quietly absorbing the magic of Indian films on the sets.

"I was four years old when my father was directing Sholay. I used to play on the sets and never realised that I was witnessing a legend in the making," he says with a tone of unmistakable pride in his voice. "We were never allowed to visit too many sets and none of my friends had a filmi background," says Rohan.

But what he didn't absorb on the sets was imbibed "at the dining table" or, better still, in the living room. Growing up in an illustrious family of filmmakers "" his grandfather was producer G P Sippy "" Rohan began to get influenced by legendary international directors like Peter Weir and Woody Allen.

And Ridley Scott? After all, a lot of people have found striking similarities between Bluffmaster and Scott's Matchstick Men. "It's just the genre that's similar," says Rohan sharply.

But what does he have to say to critics who claim that even the name of the lead character in the film "Roy" seems "borrowed" from Matchstick Men?

"There are several genres in filmmaking. Bunty aur Babli was similar to the film Bonnie & Clyde; similarly Bluffmaster just had a broad structure which was borrowed. Ultimately we had to create an original screenplay and appeal to a different set of audiences altogether," he says, a bit defensively.

Does he wonder about his fate if Bluffmaster would have flopped? "When you have to face a bullet, you just face it, you can't make alternative plans. I really don't know what I would've done if Bluffmaster hadn't clicked, I never thought of that," he tells us.

For now, Rohan can safely bury that thought.

QUICK BITES

My next film will star Abhishek Bachchan.

Abhishek joked about singing a rap song. We never let him go back on his word and made him sing "Right here, right now", which he recorded in 15-20 minutes with Vishal-Shekhar.

Some of the songs in Bluffmaster have been borrowed from international artistes. I was involved very closely and heard nearly 100 songs and handpicked a few.

My friend Dinesh of saffronart.com decided to give me some of the art work that has been seen in the film

Priyanka Chopra's character was supposed to be an art connoisseur. Unfortunately, some of those scenes were cut

I don't even have one per cent of my father's craft

Some Indian film critics are bizarre. They don't know what they are talking about