Rickshaw driver makes Bollywood debut

Waqar Khan's years as a rickshaw driver in India's film capital have finally paid off.



Khan has been driving his three-wheller for most of the 20 years since
he left his home in impoverished northern India for the moviemaking hub
of Bombay, saving money and studying filmmaking in hopes of becoming a
Bollywood actor and filmmaker.



Khan's dream came true earlier this month when his first movie, 'Ishq Na Karna,' was released in cinemas in northern India.



Some 150 fellow rickshaw drivers pooled $130,000 for the low-budget
movie after banks refused to fund its production, Khan told The
Associated Press. Khan, 39, said his friends always made fun of his
dream, but he never wanted to give up.



"I always dreamed of working for Bollywood. I spent many sleepless
nights outside studios asking for work," he said in Lucknow, the
capital of Uttar Pradesh state, where he was promoting the film.



Guards at Mumbai's film studios would shoo him away, but Khan said he would sneak in and watch actors and directors at work.



In the movie, Khan's character avenges the death of his lover played by
newcomer Urvashi Choudhury who commits suicide after being forced by
her stepmother to marry another man.



The rickshaw driver-turned-filmmaker managed to hire some of the
industry's best names for the movie's music, including top singers
Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan and Shreya Ghoshal.



"Ishq Na Karna" has had a "very good response" in small towns in Uttar
Pradesh, where many people came to see the movie after reading about
Khan in local newspapers, said Subhash Sharma of the state's Cinema
Owners' Association.



Yet Khan, who hails from Shahjahanpur, a town southwest of Lucknow,
said he won't let success go to his head. "I am still a rickshaw
driver," he said.