Realism is not giving orders beside a sleek swimming pool surrounded by wine and women but giving orders atop a dirty water tank in a Lower Parel Chawl using a cell phone and that is the treatment he has given Chandni Bar, his second film, says director Madhur Bhandarkar.

A former assistant of Ram Gopal Verma from Shiva to Rangeela where he was the Associate Director, Bhandarkar too owned a video library like his mentor and found himself fascinated by the films of Guru Dutt and Vijay Anand. Trishakti, a B commercial potboiler, which was his directorial debut, sank without a trace at the box office. The film took over 2 years to make and he had to prop it up with 'safe ingredients' says Bhandarkar which resulted in a very different film from what he had in mind.

A chance visit to a dancing bar which he resisted at first gave Bhandarkar the idea for Chandni Bar. Amazed at the site of girls dancing to film songs and men throwing money at them he began to think of the lives, thoughts and feelings of the girls who dance there. Thus began months of research as Bhandarkar began meeting various bar owners and bar dancers. If he was making a TV serial, he could have made more than 100 episodes on the lives of these women as each had her own story to tell, says Bhandarkar but no, it had to be made on film.

Bhandarkar met R. Mohan (of Goodnight mosquito mats fame) and his son to produce the film. They had seen Trishakti and felt that at least the direction of the film was sure handed and the director had a certain technical finesse even if the film had little else to offer and agreed to back him.

As scripting began on the film along with writers Azad Mohan and Masud Mirza, both debutants, the one face that kept coming back for the central character was Tabu. Tabu responded most favourably to the script and what's more even slashed her price for the film keeping its medium budget in mind. Bhandarkar decided on Atul Kulkarni for the role of Pothia Sawant after being most impressed with the latter's performance in Kamal Hassan's Hey Ram. While Bhandarker is more than satisfied with all the performances in the film, he keeps returning to Tabu. It is yet another award-worthy performance from her, he says, adding that he considers her the female Aamir Khan of the Industry!

The technicians of Chandni Bar are mostly newcomers. Not only do they enthusiastically give time to the project, but also come within the budget and more importantly contribute a lot more in the creative process, says Bhandarkar. Special mention here must be made of the Art Direction and Rajeev Ravi's fine camerawork in capturing the essence of these dance bars in Mumbai.

What is most interesting in Chandni Bar is its lack of film songs. Though the film had a lot of scope for music and dance considering it looked at the life of a bar dancer, in keeping with the realistic tone of the film, rather than have original songs composed for the film, film songs have been used to which the girls actually dance to in these bars, mentions Bhandarkar.

Chandni Bar releases all over on September 28, 2001.