Having started his career in the industry in 1992, Shree Narayan Singh is a reputed film editor today having cut films like Hum Hai Raahi CAR Ke, Gandhi to Hitler, Marathi film Taryanche Bait, Don Muthu Swami and A Wednesday. Not only that, he has edited a couple of serials of Ashim Samanta and even directed Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai. Currently, he is editing the Akshay Kumar starrer- Special 26 directed by Neeraj Panday who came into the limelight with A Wednesday. Having started his career in the industry in 1992, Shree Narayan Singh is a reputed film editor today having cut films like Hum Hai Raahi CAR Ke, Gandhi to Hitler, Marathi film Taryanche Bait, Don Muthu Swami and A Wednesday. Not only that, he has edited a couple of serials of Ashim Samanta and even directed Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai. Currently, he is editing the Akshay Kumar starrer- Special 26 directed by Neeraj Panday who came into the limelight with A Wednesday. Tellychakkar.com treads into Singh’s editing room and sits across him for a candid interview. Excerpts: What does editing mean you? (smiles) Hmm, as a man cannot do without food, I cannot do without sitting on the editing table. Editing is very much a part of my life. What according to you are the standards of editing today? Compared to the reputed editors in the bygone days, today you have a handful of editors who are known for their work. I think today the art of editing has withered away. Nowadays, editing is just the cut and paste job. You know what I mean; the rhythm that can be created by editing is sadly missing. You are currently editing Special 26; what kind of challenges did you face while editing the film? As far as this film is concerned, its story was the biggest challenge for me in terms of my job. Since the film is based on the 1987 Tribhuvandas Zaveri heist, it is a pacy plot. The important task for us on the editing table was to maintain the speed. To maintain the rhythm, sometimes the pace of the film had to be dropped when it was tending to exceed. Now since the film is ready to release, what do you think after seeing the end-result? (chuckles) To say that would be like blowing my own trumpet. Everyone who has seen the film is of the view that the film is awesome. Neeraj Panday is a director with a great amount of expertise and knows very well what to get from his artistes and crew to make his film look fantastic. And what do you think of Akshay Kumar’s performance? Take it from me that Akshay is brilliant in the film; he’s never done such kind of a film before. As it is, he is a good actor and has given a couple of super hits last year like Housefull 2, Rowdy Rathore and Oh My God. There have been good editors who proved themselves to be equally good directors too. Does it mean that an editor develops all the qualities of becoming a successful director? Yes, if you see the career graphs of people like Raj Kapoor, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manoj Kumar and David Dhawan among others, they were all reputed editors who have gone down in the times of history to be known as immensely successful directors. And why forget me; not very recently, I directed Ashim Samanta’s Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai (YJMH) that starred his son Aditya. From where did Ashim pick you up to direct this film? It’s not that I know the Samantas from recent days. In fact, my association with Ashim goes back 10 years in time when I directed a couple of TV series’ for him like Kalchakra (2004) and Antariksh – Ek Amar Katha. In these years I developed excellent relations with him so much so that we became like a family. So, when he decided to make YJMH, he called for me and asked me to direct the film. But the film didn’t do too well. What do you attribute the film’s failure to? (pauses) Well, firstly, the timing of the film’s release was wrong and moreover, the film didn’t get the right publicity. I know of many people who did tell me that that they didn’t know when the film released.