Mumbai, Aug 21 - 'Chalo America' director Piyush Jha is now ready with 'Sikandar', a serious film on militancy in Jammu and Kashmir, and says it will clear the myth that youngsters in the valley want to be terrorists.

'We would shudder if any of our friends suggested going for a holiday to Kashmir. We would dismiss Kashmir as a 'problem'; someone else's problem. I want to show that the average Kashmiri has absolutely the same aspirations as the average person from Bihar, Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra, that is, upward mobility,' Jha told IANS.

'The average Kashmiri kid wants to be a doctor or lawyer or stars like Shah Rukh Khan or Sachin Tendulkar. He wants the latest MP3 players, hi-speed broadband, and wants to take part in reality shows.

'In other words, the average young person is not oiling his AK-47 for the next strike, but is waiting for the rest of the country to accept him into the national mainstream.'

Jha, whose earlier film 'Chalo America' was a spoof, also clarifies that 'Sikandar' is not a grim political message-oriented movie.

'It is an exciting suspense thriller. I have kept the politics of Kashmir in the background. In the foreground is a universal human story about a protagonist caught in a web of intrigue from which he tries to extricate himself and, while doing so, gets further and further embroiled. I myself get bored with heavy political dosage films,' he said.

'Sikandar's' shooting took Jha to the 'forbidden' land of Kashmir, but he says the experience of shooting in the valley was 'most pleasurable'.

'What I'm depicting in the film based on my research is that militancy is on the wane in Kashmir.