One look at the kind of films that Gul Panag has done in the past and one knows that she hasn’t taken a conventional route in Bollywood. In picking up roles of substance, she may have not always seen commercial success coming her way but when it comes to critical appreciation and accolades, she has won loads of them. Still one can’t help but ask her that in 2009, would she be signing films that would be full–on commercial?

Replies Gul in mock agitation, ‘I don’t know what is commercial and what is now. I don’t think any film is made for private audience and when something is brought to screen for others to watch, it by itself becomes commercial. Now it could be a 3 crore movie or a 40 crore but should it really be a parameter to define a commercial or an art film?’

Is she offended with the parameters set in Bollywood?

‘No, I am not’, she calms down, ‘It’s just that I don’t talk in the language of commercial v/s art. I guess this entire concept is dated. I just keep myself aloof from such conversations. My belief is that every good film is a piece of art while every other film is crap. Take for example RAB NE BANA DI JODI; now that’s what I call as a work of art because it is a well made film. I think the distinction of art v/s commercial is pass since the days of Smita Patil and Shabana Azmi. Come on guys, let’s move on.’