Amit Rai is a happy man after OMG 2’s success, but is also a little disheartened that people aren’t interested in talking about a new director. “Director ke baare mein bhi baat honi chahiye,” is his sentiment.

“I have no words to thank the audience. Despite the Censor Board doing so much (the film was given an A certificate when the subject was for teenagers), the audience hailed a subject considered taboo until some years back,” he adds, about his social drama starring Akshay Kumar, Pankaj Tripathi and Yami Gautam Dhar.

There were many odds against OMG 2 apart from the A certificate: a clash with the mighty Gadar 2, which broke several box-office records. “Akshay ji was confident about our film. I spoke to him twice after the film released, and he spoke his heart out at the success party. Exhibitors were telling him if we had not got an A certificate, the film would have earned double. But Akshay ji said, ‘Mujhe paison ki parvaah nahin, film janta tak pahaunchi chahiye. I am accepting the fact that certificate se nuksaan hua. Par ye bhi hua ke family audience Gadar 2 mein jaa paayi’. OMG 2 running in theatres despite that is something which cannot be measured by money,” says Rai.

While OMG 2 got attention from the masses due to the presence of several popular faces, the other project he was involved in this year, Dear Jassi, which revolves around honour killing, didn’t receive the same adoration back home. Rai, who until now has always written and directed his films, turned a scriptwriter for another director for the first time. The film has been receiving rave reviews internationally.

“The film’s director turned out to be Tarsem Singh Dhandwar, who has directed Hollywood films such as Immortals (2011) and Mirror Mirror (2012). He is such a gem of a person, he didn’t even change one comma of what I wrote,” Rai shares.

On Sunday, Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s directorial venture Dear Jassi shone bright at the closing ceremony of the 48th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), winning the Platform Award. This time around, Dhandwar has trained his lens on the issue of honour killing in India through the Pavia Sidhu and Yugam Sood-starrer. The director, along with writer Amit Rai, drew inspiration from the 2000 honour-killing episode of Indo-Canadian beautician Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, who was murdered by assailants following the orders of Sidhu’s mother.

Telling such a story is never easy. Rai, whose last offering OMG 2 worked its charm at the box office, says authenticity was crucial when writing Dear Jassi. “A story of this nature has to be authentic to the T—from the writing, to the costumes. For me, it was refreshing. OMG 2 and Dear Jassi belong to two different milieus altogether. This film is international in its making, while its story is universal,” he says.

Dear Jassi revolves around Indo-Canadian Jassi, who encounters rickshaw driver Mithu while visiting her extended family in Punjab. As the two begin exchanging affectionate letters, they fall in love, not realizing the tough road that lies ahead. Rai, however, takes objection against terming it as a movie about honour killing.

“It’s a story of cultural estrangement. When people from India move abroad, they want to create a microcosm of what they remember of their culture. But when the kids grow up in an American/Canadian world, home feels like a culture shock. We’ve played it in a Romeo-Juliet way, but amped up the dark element. It’s a powerful story at its core.”