N Chandra (b. 1952)

Hindi director. Full name: Chandrasekhar Narvekar. Born in Bombay. One of the most commercially successful directors in late 80s Hindi cinema. Former film editor and assistant to Gulzar; also assisted Bapu. His Shiv Sena propaganda film Ankush and his first independent production Tezaab relied on violence and recognisably Bombay settings. Claims to have first-hand experience of his plot-lines in his own working-class antecedents. The dialogue and several visual references, evoking Bombay’s encoded and highly communal inner-city speech forms, are a brutalised yet more complex version of Manmohan Desai’s style (e.g. Tezaab, which contained the megahit song Ek Do Teen). Scripts and edits his own films.

FILMOGRAPHY: 1985: Ankush; 1987: Pratighaat; 1988: Tezaab; 1991: Narasimha; Hamla; 1993: Yugandhar.

Director