Iconic ‘DDLJ’ deserves a sequel with SRK’s kids and one of my sons,” insists Parmeet ( Kuljeet) Sethi who shares his birthday with that of Dilip Kumar-saab

Chaitanya Padukone

“25 years of DDLJ-- Wow! Thank you for showering love and support for this amazing film. And thank you Adi (Aditya) Chopra for making me part of cinematic history!!! am truly humbled!!” is the social-media reaction of acclaimed senior actor Parmeet Sethi ! Yes, Parmeet who played the macho lover-boy Kuljeet Singh in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge with which Aditya Chopra made his much-hyped directorial debut.

Along with mega-stars Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, DDLJ had an amazing ensemble supporting cast. Which included late Amrish Puri, Anupam Kher, Farida Jalal, Himani Shivpuri, Satish Shah, Mandira Bedi, Parmeet Sethi, late Achala Sachdev and ‘actor’ Karan Johar. In fact Parmeet (like Aditya) also made his acting debut with DDLJ. The affable actor-director-writer Parmeet ( fondly called ‘Bittu’) spoke exclusively to bollyy.com and Mayapuri. Excerpts from the conversation: .

‘DDLJ ‘ is an all-time classic, even after 25 years of its release. Do you think a remake or a sequel or a prequel should be attempted now ? A prequel or preferably a modern-day sequel of DDLJ involving maybe Shah Rukh’s kids and my kids could be considered to form part of the cast. Even I would love to be part of it in a supporting role.

With DDLJ-- a legendary classic, you can’t even dream of planning a ‘remake’, just as you can’t remake the Hollywood classic ‘Godfather’. While shooting DDLJ, none of us even dreamt that Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge would be a landmark cult classic. We knew we were doing a fabulous musical with Western and Indian culture-sensibilities film. I consider myself privileged to be a part of the cast, that too in a memorable role of Kuljeet, opposite Kajol..

A large number of your ardent fans especially in the North region and especially in Punjab felt that there should have been at least one romantic song picturised on your ( Kajol’s mangetar) Kuljeet character ? Am so flattered and grateful to all of them for their feelings of love and affection for me and my screen-character. Honestly DDLJ is Aditya’s awesome vision. It’s perfectly conceived and it did not require any tweaking or tampering in terms of adding a song-situation for my character and the zone in which it was scripted. So absolutely, no regrets.

What about the famous fight-scene between SRK and you ? s As far as the action scenes go, initially, the mock-fight between SRK and me was not there in the script. It was Shah Rukh who insisted that Adi (director Aditya Chopra) should incorporate the fight sequence. It was a great experience It was demanding though. I had to even fall a couple of times.. Actually I injured my elbow and arm..Eventually, the scene worked out effectively and the masses loved it.

Isn’t it true that you share your birthday with legendary Dilip Kumar-saab ? Hmm well, that’s true my birthday is on Dec 11, which I share with Dilip Kumar-saab. I consider this my great honour and he has been always among my inspirations. Unfortunately, in the Wikipedia and elsewhere they have wrongly mentioned, that my birthday falls during this month ( October) and I kept getting calls to wish me. .

Did you ever anticipate that your ‘DDLJ’ co-actor Karan Johar would in future turn out to be such a iconic big-time film-maker ? Honestly, as debutantes Aditya, Karan and I we were all new, young and yet shared a fabulous buddy-camaraderie . But honestly I had no advance clue.. But Karan always had those streaks of hidden talent and knew his future agenda.. The twist-in-the-kahani was when Karan Johar decided to debut as a ‘director’ and signed my talented actress-wife Archana Puran Singh in his iconic movie ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ . Even Archana’s well-defined comical character English teacher.

You didn’t get too work with YRF and Aditya Chopra for the second time ? It’s my sheer bad luck, that a cameo-role in Veer Zaara which I was supposed to do. Unfortunately did not materialize as I had some other pre-committed shoot lined-up which was clashing with the Yash Raj movie shooting date which they had preponed. .

What next on your agenda, career-wise ? Lots of stuff. Besides acting in web-series and direction I have also been writing film and web-zone scripts. Let’s optimistically see what 2021 holds in store for me. Talent aur kismat hamare career ko, aage le jaayenge ( laughs)