Ram Gopal Varma says he once wanted to become an auto-rickshaw driver

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma said Ranveer Singh-starrer ‘Dhurandhar 2’ has inspired him to rethink his filmmaking approach. Varma revealed he will put the next ‘Sarkar’ installment on hold and instead focus on a new project titled ‘Syndicate’.

Mumbai: Indian auteur Ram Gopal Varma has spoken about one of his many childhood dreams. On Thursday, the filmmaker took to his X, formerly Twitter, and shared a long note.

He shared how change is the only constant he has grown up with, and how his dreams constantly changed during his formative years.

---

He wrote, “I wanted to be an auto rickshaw driver when I was around 10, because I was fascinated with the vrooom vroom sound when the accelerator revs up. And then around 15, I wanted to live in a forest inspired by a cousin of mine , and then a few years later, I wanted to be an engineer and then once again I changed my mind to become a director. Likewise, I was heavily into Enid Blyton’s books which I abandoned , when I discovered James Hadley Chase, who I thought was the greatest writer ever. And then after a few years, I discovered Fredrick Forsyth who awed me beyond my imagination. In effect we all keep getting re-shaped from time to time because of newer and newer experiences which keep on elevating our bench marks as they should. My bench mark films were The sound of music (‘Rangeela’), Exorcist (‘Raat’, ‘Bhoot’) , ‘Godfather’ (‘Satya’, ‘Company’, ‘Sarkar’). In my entire career I was making films derived from those benchmarks and mainly from ‘Godfather’”.

The director lauded the recently released Ranveer Singh-starrer ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’, and shared that he has made a conscious decision to put the upcoming part of the ‘Sarkar’ franchise on hold and work on ‘Syndicate’.

He shared, “WHY SYNDICATE and not SARKAR? SYNDICATE is based on a premise “ What if the entire law and order of INDIA collapses in just one single day” It will be almost like a HORROR film , not because of any super natural elements , but because it will bare open the horrors that exist in some human minds which they can enact TERRIFYINGLY SYNDICATE is about the rise of a organization so powerful , so integrated, and so maniacally driven that it threatens the very existence of INDIA I believe that SYNDICATE is something which will match up to the post #Dhrandhar2 era and that is the reason for my decision. Here’s my take on why I want to wipe out my entire past and be a new born or a reborn director post watching #Dhurandhar2 (sic)”.

He expressed his wish to be inspired by the new school of Aditya Dhar, as he wrote, “But now after seeing #Dhurandhar2 all my earlier films look like nothing. If Godfather was my earlier benchmark in this genre, I now felt #Dhurandhar2 is like Godfather’s GODFATHER in the way, it redefined and reinvented everything, whether it’s craft, storytelling style, character design, background music, laying out emotional landscapes, artistes performances, action choreography etc etc etc. So it’s common sense that I need to abandon the lessons learnt from the old schools of Coppola and join the new school of @AdityaDharFilms and that’s the only way one can stay updated”.

“It will be a suicidal blunder on the part of any filmmaker-writer-star, not to shed their egos and do an intensive academic research study of #Dhurandhar2 and then take a deep re look and then re-work on whatever they believed so far, and drastically adapt. By not doing so , and if you all will still stick to the same old cinematic beliefs, which were brutally killed on March 19 th 2026”, he added.