Not long back, a bunch of established directors were ruling the Hindi film scene in India, and audience could count their names on fingers. Cut to present era, there's a long list of new directors who are making inroads into Bollywood, slowly but steadily.

While Aditya Chopra's SRK-Kajol starrer Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge was a defining movie of 1990s, Band Baaja Baraat is the movie today's youth connects to. No wonder, Chopra camp is enamoured with new talent, launching directors like Maneesh Sharma (Band Baaja Baraat), Parmeet Sethi (Badmaash Company) and Ali Abbas Zafar (Mere Brother Ki Dulhan).

It's not only YRF that is riding the current wave, director of movies like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, Karan Johar no longer wants to direct back-to-back tearjerkers. He would rather ask a Karan Malhotra to make Agneepath for him or a Tarun Mansukhani to spin a money-making project like Dostana. What's it that makes these established directors launch newcomers who have not even proved themselves before?

"I think it's an instinct that I have. I have got it right some times and I have gone wrong with it at times but mostly, I have gone right with the directors I have worked with because they are solid human beings and that is what I look for," Karan Johar told IANS in a recent interview.