Bombay, DECEMBER 26, 2004

I really think this business of predicting trends is an over simplification. Of the 200 films that are made every year, we tend to look at three or four handpicked ones and say, well, this film did well because of a patriotic subject, or sex films are the future trend, when in fact sleazy films like Her Nights , as a genre, have been prevalent for years. We come to these conclusions in retrospect, and we tend to over simplify, as we are doing with the so-called NRI films. In fact, I feel the NRI audience has become one more territory in our distribution network, just like Bihar territory or Bengal territory.

There are those who will now say that Swade s is an NRI film. But there are many different things that make a film successful and it's not fair to the film to reduce it to just one element.

With all due respect, I think Gadar succeeded not because it was an anti-Pak film but for many other reasons, such as its story, its emotional content, and the way it was acted and shot. If I am to be associated with a trend, I would like to think that the success of Veer-Zaara will give rise to more films which foster good relations between India and Pakistan - just as in Main Hoon Na we debunked this myth that the enemy comes from a country across the border. In fact, we demonstrated how the enemy need not necessarily be identified with a country.

This business of looking at films retrospectively and then predicting a future trend is a dangerous thing and many wrong conclusions can be reached.

Because I don't think film makers sit down and decide, well, I'm going to make an NRI film because there have been films like Dilwale Dulhania... , etc which have been huge successes. Fortunately, just as an artist like Hussain would paint exactly what he wants, regardless of market demand, film makers also function this way. It's still an art form and we do not conduct market research to ascertain what will work and what will not.

This is what makes film making such a dichotomous profession, because on the one hand you have film makers making the films that they want to but on the other hand huge amounts of money are involved - and that's where the business angle comes in.

And this is why I find it impossible to predict what the future trends in films are going to be: we make too many films by too many different people and for so many different reasons to reduce it all to a single trend.

(Actor Shah Rukh Khan spoke to Malavika Sangghvi)