Times News Network

Lucknow, May 22: 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.