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Today, he's among the highest paid directors of Indian Cinema. After pressing all the right ha-ha buttons, he is now rated the King of Comedy, sprinting ahead of the one-man jest factory David Dhawan.

More at home in the Mumbai chucklefests than in his homegrown Malayalam entertainers, the man with a score of 71 films (15 in Hindi) is having the last laugh..only if his critics would allow him to..which is why Priyadarshan gets into a verbal combat with Khalid Mohamed
 
It’s ageless and incurable maybe – the conflict between creators and ‘crits’. Indeed, it would be a strange world where the critics just went rah-rah-rah without expressing their responses..positive..and like it or not..negative too. C’est la cinema.

To cut to the chase, then, I’m watching the athletically sinuous Akshay Kumar and the uber glowing Vidya Balan shoot for Bhool Bhulaiya in the courtyard of a crumbling palace, an hour’s drive away from Jaipur. It’s said if you take the spot’s name, you run into misfortune. So, I daren’t push my luck.

Director Priyadarshan suddenly notices the inconspicuous me, lurking around. “YOU!” he says with a mix of rage and surprise. After all, he has been giving porcupine prickly quotes against me to all and sundry.
 
"Yes, hello Priyan sir,” I smile angelically (read professionally), “I would like to interview you please.”

“You’re joking.. (pause).. if you’re not, okay let me complete the shot and then..”

Then happens.. and we talk man-to-man.. he starts off by saying, “I want to understand what you have against me.” Exactly, which is why I want to know:

I don’t blame you Priyan sir. No one can take criticism.
Agreed, but criticism should encourage a creative person. Regardless of my track record of successful films recently, you have been trying to discourage me. You seem to be writing out of some sort of vengeance..you write the same lines about my films.

Which lines are these?
Fourteen or 15 times you have written the same lines. I wanted to call and tell you this. I’m not claiming that I’m a great director..but I do have good sparks..you only mention the bad sparks.

Not at all..but you seem to be stuck in a groove. I would surely like you to make the serious film on weavers you told me about years ago.
I know I’ve been saying this for eight years. And I’m going to start this film on May 20 with Prakash Raj in the lead. It’s a period film about the first communist movement in India..which started in the mills of Kanjeevaram..where the weavers were treated like slaves.

What has taken so long to get it going?
Because whenever I wanted to make it, producers would tell me to make a commercial film instead. So, I said okay I’ll make one, then I’ll do that.
One commercial film led to another one..but now I’m sorted..after Bhool Bhulaiya, I’ll do one more, a Great Escape.. like comedy, with Akshaye Khanna and Anil Kapoor..and then I’ll do the film on weavers.

When your Hindi films tanked at the outset, did you feel self-doubtful?
Yes, after Hera Pheri..which was a success..ironically, I was in the doldrums for one-and-a-half years.. Hera Pheri was followed by three disasters (Kabhi Na Kabhi, Doli Sajake Rakhna, Yeh Teraa Ghar Yeh Meraa Ghar).

I felt shaky, then Hungama worked, and I signed films left, right and centre to kill my insecurity. All directors from the south go back home as failures..I didn’t want that to happen to me. So, I became a factory, determined to produce successful goods. With every hit it bothered me that the next one had to click too.