Some of the greatest love stories go unseen, unheard and undocumented, simply because they’re ordinary couples living their lives. The Better India is showcasing such stories— everyday people and their extraordinary love!
The story of Pankaj Tripathi’s road to recognition is like that of an uncut diamond, whose real value is appreciated only after plenty of grinding.
One of the finest actors in the Hindi film industry, Tripathi aces every role with such intensity and finesse that we wish he had tasted success much earlier.
Over the years, through all the ups and downs and the seemingly endless wait for his career to take off, if there was one constant in Tripathi’s life, it was his wife, Mridula.
“If you ask me about my struggle, I don’t have any sad details like sleeping on a footpath or starving for days. That’s because my wife, Mridula, had taken over the entire responsibility of the house. In fact, I tell everyone that she is the man of the house,” the actor had told The Better India in a conversation last year.
Intrigued with this declaration, we reached out to Mridula to know more. What unfolded was a beautiful love story.
May 24, 1993. Mridula clearly remembers the day when she laid eyes on Tripathi for the very first time, and it was indeed ‘love at first sight.’
“It was my elder brother’s Tilak (engagement ceremony). I was on my way to a tiny room on the terrace to get dressed when this boy with hazel eyes, brown hair and a beard crossed me. Those eyes would go on to follow me during the entire function,” recalls Mridula.
Mridula would later find out that the boy was the bride’s younger brother. She was in class 9 at the time, while Pankaj was two years her senior. While he also felt an instant connection with her, little did they know that the road to their ‘happily ever after’ was a long one ahead.
While couples today have all the privacy and ease of communication they could possibly want thanks to smartphones and instant messengers, these options were non-existent back then.
It was tough for Pankaj and Mridula to interact with each other, and writing letters was out of the question.
Fortunately, Pankaj would come visiting his sister once every five months, and that would give them the freedom to spend some quality time together.
“I would leave for school in the morning and could meet him only after dinner. That was our time. We would sit and talk, sometimes till early morning. We both loved reading and had so much to talk about the books, novels, characters, stories, and the writers,” says Mridula, with a smile.
Their relationship rarely went beyond conversations, and they had discussed practically every topic under the sun.
However, in all this time, they had managed to carefully avoid the one subject that mattered the most—the love between them.
This went on till the day Mridula’s parents found a marriage alliance for her. By then, eight years had passed since their first meeting.
“Pankaj accompanied my brother and sister-in-law to the prospective groom’s place. He came and told me that it was a good match for me and I would surely get much of ‘bhautik sukh.’ I did not know so much Hindi back then and asked what that meant, and he said ‘material happiness.’ That’s when I felt that I was losing something very precious,” she says.
While Pankaj went away with a heavy heart to study at the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD), Mridula hatched a grand scheme to break up the marriage.
“Only I know the lengths that I’d gone to break that marriage. And now the most important dilemma was communicating this news to Pankaj,” she says.
Landline phones were all that they had, and Mridula desperately hoped that Pankaj would call her someday.
And he finally did on December 24—just a day before her birthday.
Pankaj spoke to all the members of the family, and finally, Mridula got the chance to speak to him after months of waiting.
“He wished me, and I reminded him that it was the next day. I tried really hard to convey my feelings to him, but he didn’t understand. It took a long explanation for him to finally get the drift,” says Mridula, continuing to laugh while reminiscing those early days of love.
Following this, Pankaj gave Mridula the number of the telephone booth at NSD and asked her to call every night between 8 and 9 pm.
“Everyone knew it was me on the call and so instead of a ‘Hello,’ I would hear ‘Tripathi tera call hai!’” she adds.
Two years flew by. Mridula had completed her B.Ed. course and her parents wanted to get her married.
However, Pankaj still had a year to finish at NSD. So, the wedding was put on hold.
Interestingly, Mridula received an interview letter around this time.
“It was typed in a very formal way on plain paper. The letter did not have any official seal or the name of the school but came along with a train ticket to Delhi. It didn’t take me long to understand that it was Pankaj,” says Mridula.
She informed her parents that she was taking up the job, and left for Delhi where for the next few months, she stayed at the same boys’ hostel where Pankaj was living.
“Those boys still bully me by saying that I was the ‘Bhabhi’ of Satte pe Satta who came in all of a sudden and made them wear clothes,” she adds.
Mridula got a job by the time Pankaj finished his course and couple finally got married on January 15, 2004.
A short while later, they moved to Mumbai.
Their daughter, Aashi, was born in 2006 and with her stable teaching career, Mridula took it upon herself to take care of all the expenses so that Pankaj could pursue his dreams, unhindered.
Their life together saw many tough days, but they have no regrets.
“Yes, it was a tough time, but neither of us ever felt that we were doing anything unusual or anything extra for the other one. It’s just like if one of your hand is hurt, you use the other hand and vice-versa,” she adds.
It was finally in 2009 when Pankaj finally got a break thanks to the television series ‘Powder,’ and there has been no looking back ever since.
With their daughter, Aashi.
“We had purchased a small car, and the three of us were out and about when I saw a poster in front of the Inorbit mall with Pankaj on it. That was the most memorable moment of my life, and I was so overwhelmed that I began to cry,” remembers Mridula.
On being asked if the fame has changed anything, she says, “Yes, I do miss those trips to Big Bazaar where we would go happily and fight over buying anything and come back fighting. Somehow people don’t let us enjoy that personal space now. But it’s okay. Whatever Pankaj is today, is because of his fans, and I want to request each one of them to keep showering him with their love and blessings. The gratitude that we feel cannot be expressed in words.”
Pankaj and Mridula Tripathi’s story of love at first sight, is a beautiful testimony to the sort of love that blossoms slowly, but withstands the test of time and space and emerges stronger than ever.
We wish them the very best.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra. With inputs by Manabi Katoch)
This International Women’s Day, we introduce you to some truly incredible Indian women whose stories define resilience, courage and inspiration. #BalanceForBetter
If there is one film that has transcended generations of Hindi film buffs, it is Sholay.
Its iconic dialogues and a memorable cast make the film a true classic which continues to amuse and enthral us even today. After all, who can forget the shawl-clad Thakur saab or evil-incarnate, Gabbar Singh?
The film redefined the quintessential villain, introduced some epic action sequences, and its depiction of male friendship (Jai-Veeru) created one of the most popular duos in the Hindi film industry.
And then, there was Basanti, the feisty village girl who rode a tonga and talked a mile a minute.
Immortalised by the actor, Hema Malini, this remarkable and fearless character, was a part of several action sequences that left the audience in awe.
But what we all saw was the face on the screen, never the one who performed each stunt—some even life-threatening.
We are talking about Reshma Pathan, the stuntwoman or body double for not just Hema Malini in Sholay but almost all actresses through the seventies and eighties in the Hindi film industry.
Like many of her peers, Pathan’s contribution to the industry remained behind the scenes all these years. Now, that is all set to change, and she will finally receive the recognition she deserves—through a biopic!
‘The Sholay Girl’ is an original web film by Zee5, which stars actor, Bidita Bag, as Reshma Pathan. The film has been produced by Shrabani and Sai Deodhar, a mother-daughter duo, and is gearing up for release on March 8, International Women’s Day.
Pathan was barely 14 when she entered the field, to support her impoverished family, and initially faced a lot of opposition, mostly from male stunt artists.
“At that time, there were hardly any women taking up the role of even body doubles, let alone those requiring stunts. So, she earned the wrath of stuntmen; they accused her of stealing her job!” says Bidita.
Pathan joined the industry in 1968, but it wasn’t until the early-seventies that she gained recognition for her work.
Speaking with The Better India, she shares, “Between 1971-72, I began getting more work, but these would rarely stretch beyond ten days in a month. Slowly, that began to change with more work coming along my way. But the real break came in 1975—with Sholay,” Pathan remembers.
That one film made Pathan an overnight celebrity amidst the industry bigwigs. So much so, that she began to be even known as ‘Sholay Girl’.
But nothing came without hard work, and Pathan’s chosen profession often jeopardised her health.
Reel and Real: Bidita Bag with Reshma Pathan on the sets of The Sholay Girl.
“While it is the job of a stuntman to overcome any fear and put their life at risk, not many know that during the shooting of Sholay, Reshmaji had once suffered a serious injury. Everyone on the set was anxious, but such was her commitment to the work that she only went to the hospital after completing her scenes. And this was not a standalone incident. Throughout her career, Reshmaji has faced many life-threatening situations during shooting and each time, she bravely went ahead doing her work,” shares Bidita.
Even while she was pregnant with her son, Pathan went on doing stunts. Only when a jumping sequence in a movie almost put the life of her baby at risk, did she decide to take a break. But, she returned to work right shortly after delivering her son.
“The doctors had advised me to take good rest and care, but I had to support my family. After three months, I resumed my work as everything I’d saved until then had almost finished,” the sexagenarian remembers.
An interesting fact about Pathan is that she was the first stuntwoman who officially got a membership in the Movie Stunt Artists Association.
“By then, more and more stuntwomen began to enter the industry but it was Reshmaji, who received this membership first,” adds Bidita.
Now that the world is finally getting to see the face behind all the stars and hear her story, Pathan cannot help but feel elated.
Pathan and Bag on the premier of The Sholay Girl.
“There never was any form of recognition by the outside world. People like us have risked our lives so many times for the sake of doing stunts, but no one gave awards for stunts. Though I always wished that stunt men and women should also get due recognition, something even better came along my way—a film on my life. My happiness knew no bounds when I came to know about the film!” she adds.
What is more, Bidita even got a chance to closely work with Pathan, while reenacting scenes for the film.
“Working with someone as fearless and brave like Reshmaji was indeed a great learning experience. I was so scared while re-enacting some of the scenes and then there was this woman, who had lived through them all! There are so many people like her who never get any form of recognition for their work, and I feel honoured to bring the story of her life to the world,” she concludes.
As a tribute to the first Indian stuntwoman of Bollywood, The Sholay Girl is releasing on March 8. You can check out the trailer below:
In a recent podcast, Javed Akhtar recited these lines from a song in the 1959 film Dhool ka Phool, directed by the legendary BR Chopra and sung by Mohammad Rafi:
Tu Hindu Banega Na Musalmaan Banega, Insaan Ki Aulad Hai Insaan Banega
(You will not become a Hindu nor a Muslim, A Human’s child will be a Human)
These revolutionary words, which are a reminder that before we are either Hindu or Muslim, we are human beings first, were penned by none other than Abdul Hayee, who is famously known by his pen name Sahir Ludhianvi.
Sahir was a legendary 20th century Hindi and Urdu poet-film lyricist who wasn’t afraid to question society and its many ills.
His words are as relevant as they were in 1959, because we still live in an era where communal strife remains an everyday reality, and politicians cynically foment further divisions between Hindus and Muslims to further their political objectives.
Born on March 8, 1921, into a wealthy family of zamindars in Ludhiana, Sahir’s childhood was marked by fear and trauma.
“He had a very traumatic childhood. His father was a depraved and despotic zamindar who married multiple times. Sahir’s own mother was his 12th wife,” says Akshay Manwani, the author of ‘Sahir Ludhianvi: The People’s Poet,’ speaking to The Better India.
Unable to suffer his tyranny, Sahir’s mother, Sardar Begum, left her husband and forfeited any claim to financial assets from the marriage.
In 1934, Sahir’s father remarried and sued for custody of his son. The entire exchange was acrimonious but ultimately unsuccessful.
“All these experiences were a part of his childhood. Sahir had to live with the constant fear of his father abducting him even after the court had allowed his parents to separate. Unsurprisingly, these experiences found an outlet in his poetry. His non-film poems like ‘Jaagir’ are severe indictments of the zamindar class, articulating how they exploited the oppressed classes, particularly poor farmers,” says Manwani.
Sahir’s immense talent for poetry was evident, particularly during his college days at the Government College, Ludhiana. Today, the auditorium there is named after him.
In 1943, Sahir moved to Lahore, where he wrote ‘Talkhiyaan,’ (Bitterness) his first published work in Urdu, in 1945, while working as an editor in a whole host of Urdu publications.
During this time, he also became a member of the famous Progressive Writers’ Association, which included almost every literary giant in the Indian subcontinent from Munshi Premchand to Saadat Hasan Manto.
“The Progressive Writers’ Movement (PWM) through the 1940s and 50s believed that art could not be for art’s sake alone. These writers were very determined to write about the issues that face the oppressed classes, the common man,” says Manwani.
However, his attraction to the ideals of an egalitarian society, which found an outlet in his writings got him into trouble. Following the horrors of partition, the Pakistani government issued a warrant for his arrest, and in 1949 Sahir fled to Bombay (Mumbai).
In the 1940s and 50s, the city became a haven for many poets and writers like Ismat Chugtai, Rajender Singh Bedi, Sadat Manto, Kishan Chander, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Kaifi Azmi of the PWM, who came in droves to further their craft or work in the Hindi film industry.
What their arrival did was define Indian cinema for the forthcoming decades.
“Till the 1970s, the main protagonist of any film was from the working class—rickshaw puller, tonga puller, teacher, unemployed youth, a government clerk, student, farmer and mill worker, etc. These protagonists either came from poor or middle-class communities. Meanwhile, the wealthy—moneylender, mill owner and company owners—were often cast in negative roles,” says Javed Akhtar, in the podcast mentioned above.
These were poets and writers who experienced a period of great struggle, who wrote against fascist forces both local and foreign. There was a definitive collective conscience at that time.
“Their writings espoused a hope for a better India, a better society. Writers of the PWM were not happy with the outcome of this Independence, which they believed further accentuated divisions across religious lines with partition. As legendary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz once said, “Yeh woh sehar toh nahin” (this is not the dawn we hoped for). Their confidence in aspiring for a better tomorrow came from a collective struggle first against British fascist forces, and then class, caste, and communal forces,” says Manwani.
Sahir expressed those aspirations in the evergreen song of Pyaasa (1957)—Ye Mahlon Ye Takhton Ye Tajon Ki Duniya—which is laden with expectations of a beautiful tomorrow.
However, in the same film, he wrote the song ‘Ye Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye Toh Kya Hai,’ which means “even if I get the entire world, what difference does it make,” speaking out against the dangers of materialism at a time when millions were struggling under the brutal weight of poverty.
Even among his contemporaries, Sahir stood out for the clarity and directness of his writings. Expressing his pain at the societal repression women suffer in the film Sadhna (1958) starring Vyjayanthimala and Sunil Dutt, Sahir writes in the song, ‘Aurat Ne Janam Diya Mardon Ko,’
Mardon ke liye har zulm ravaan Aurat ke liye rona bhi khataa Mardon ke liye laakhon sejein Aurat ke liye bas ek chita Mardon ke liye har aish ka haq Aurat ke liye jeena bhi sazaa Aurat ne janam diya mardon ko…
(For men, every torment is acceptable For a woman, even weeping is a crime For men, there are a million beds For a woman, there is just one pyre For men, there is a right to every depravity For a woman, even to live is a punishment But it is women who give birth to men…)
“Before and after him, people have written political songs, but you have to read between the lines and identify the underlying theme. Sahir’s writings, on the other hand, are anything but subtle and this why he stands alone among his peers. He would raise a straightforward thought, and you, as a reader, would immediately grasp the subtext. Sahir’s work is candid and exceedingly profound, which is why he is unique. Even today if there is any kind of injustice, we go back to his songs,” informs Manwani.
All through his interactions with the media, Sahir maintained the refrain that his writings were a product of his experiences, which is why he could write about them.
In fact, in one interview, somebody asked him, “do you need to be a ‘communist’ to write about these experiences?”
His response was, “No, I don’t need to be a communist to write about these experiences. If anyone writes about what one has experienced honestly then this is what will come out. I need not be branded a communist for this kind of writing.”
Moreover, unlike his fellow contemporary lyricists, who approached their writing depending on the premise of the film, Sahir never lost sight of his politics.
Usually, if the premise did not require for song writers to pen a political song, they wouldn’t. But Sahir was different.
Irrespective of which film he was writing for, there would always be a political angle in his songs. Even when he wrote a fun song for Mehmood in Neel Kamal (1968) ‘Khali Dabba, Khali Botal,’ you couldn’t escape his politics.
You can also take the example of the song ‘Aasman Pe Hai Khuda’ for the film Phir Subah Hogi (1958) where he writes,
Aasmaan pe hai khuda, aur zamin pe hum Aajkal woh is taraf dekhta hai kam
(God is in the skies, and we are on the ground However, these days God doesn’t look at us as much)
“Today, you can’t even think of writing songs like these, saying ‘what use is this God when he doesn’t even care about the issues facing the common man.’ They will be considered blasphemous,” remarks Marwani.
The oft-repeated complaint against songwriters and film celebrities today is that they are afraid to take political positions on contentious subjects.
Besides the economics, lack of legal cover and the judiciary’s poor track record in protecting free speech, there is another element that Manwani feels adds to the seeming lack of political content in film songs today.
“It’s not as if the likes of Manto weren’t slapped with court cases on various charges for their writings, but today’s writers don’t share those kinds of experiences. Those were different times,” says Manwani.
Yes, the challenges today are very different, but the dial is ever-shifting, albeit slowly, in mainstream Hindi cinema. Movies now attempt to reflect the aspirations of ordinary people from small towns.
If Sahir were alive today, he would recognise this, but also urge his fellow songwriters to take more risks than they are today.
Ladakh officially opened itself to the world in 1974 when the Government of India first allowed tourists into this strategically sensitive high-altitude region.
However, in 1972, a young and ambitious 19-year-old Phonsok Tsering Dimbir, popularly known as Phonsok Ladakhi, decided to plunge into the world of cinema, seeking admission into the prestigious Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). It was a time when Ladakh didn’t even have a cinema hall with the good old Radio as the only source of entertainment. Many of you may not have ever heard of him, but Phonsok was Ladakh’s first true representative in mainstream Indian popular culture.
Performing across a host of minor roles in Bollywood movies through the late 1970s like Khel Khel Mai, Uchi Udaan, Shalimar and Kachhey Herai, Phonsok would go onto become a household name in the late 1980s, acting in Doordarshan-sponsored television shows like Intezaar and Paramveer Chakra.
Phonsok would later become a pioneer of popular Ladakhi music, produce his own television series, craft numerous documentaries on Ladakh, compose the regimental song for the Ladakh Scouts and eventually dedicate his life to spreading the gospel of yoga and meditation.
A young Phonsok Ladakhi on the right. (Source: Facebook)
Born on November 14, 1953, in Chemrey village of Leh district, Phonsok spent the first 12 years of his life there. Subsequently, he went to the famous C.M.S Tyndale Biscoe Memorial High School in Srinagar, where he passed his matriculation.
“In those days, we didn’t have cinema halls in Ladakh, just the radio but I devoured the radio, listening to all the popular Bollywood songs of the day, particularly those composed by SD Burman saab. That’s what drew me to the arts early on, and helped me realise there is more to this world than becoming a doctor or an engineer,” he says, in an exclusive conversation with The Better India.
“All people from the mountains have an innate sense of rhythm,” he adds. Following his matriculation, he went to college in Jammu, where his passion for cinema and desire for stardom first took shape. One of the first movies that really inspired him was the 1969 film, Aradhna, starring the megastar Rajesh Khanna.
“Back in the day, I thought I looked like Rajesh Khanna. I would spend less time in college and more in the cinema halls watching all his films. Also, at the same time, the legendary Danny Denzongpa had also made his mark in the film industry after graduating from FTII, Pune. This drove my desire to become not just an actor, but a star,” says Phonsok.
Phonsok also says that though many want to become an actor, yet few have the courage to follow through on their impulse.
“Acting is a very uncertain profession, and people would rather take the safe way out. But I jumped into the profession, and took a chance,” he adds.
Hard struggle
In 1972, he applied for FTII and was lucky enough to be accepted into the Institute alongside the legendary Tom Alter and Benjamin Gilani. Phonsok claims that they were the only three among 1,200 people who had applied for FTII in Delhi to get admission.
Learning acting from veteran theatre personalities like Roshan Taneja, he finally graduated from FTII in 1975. Initially, he landed a few minor roles, but it was a hard struggle.
“Getting roles was challenging, and I struggled a lot in Bombay (Mumbai) working side by side as an assistant teacher in a local acting school. My struggles in Bombay, however, turned me into a more resilient person. I saw hunger, difficult challenges, and days when there was no work forthcoming. There was one year, where I changed my place of residence nine times, got evicted by my landlords on each occasion because of my inability to pay the rent,” he recalls.
The first role he landed was in the 1977 film Khel Khilari Ka, starring Dharmendra. It was a small part, where he played Shakti Kapoor’s brother on screen.
“However, I never quite clicked as a star in the industry. At some level, I always had an intuition that I wouldn’t become a star, and that, coming from Ladakh, I would do something for the region, and the people of the Himalayas. Despite my struggles, I never lost faith. I took recourse to yoga and meditation, and surrounded myself with great friends like Tom Alter, who was very dear to me,” reminisces Phonsok.
Moreover, during this intense period of struggle, at no point did he feel discriminated against or suffered at the hands of racial prejudice.
Phonsok Ladakhi: A still from the film Ramu To Diwana Hai (1980).
Danny Denzongpa was a star when I came to Bombay. When he became famous no one doubted people who looked like me. He liberated us. When Danny’s fame was rising, nobody took my desire to become an actor as a joke. I never felt discriminated against, but at some level, my features did stand in the way to getting roles. For example, I could not play the role of a blood relative. No one would cast me as Hema Malini’s brother, he recalls.
Left: Phonsok Ladakhi with Danny Denzongpa circa 1984. Right: Phonsok Ladakhi at FTII Pune campus (1973).
“As Danny grew in stature playing negative roles, people also thought I’d reach those heights, and they treated me that way. Unfortunately, it never quite worked out for me.
“After struggling for nearly a decade in the film industry, it was television that saved me,” he adds.
Things really picked up for him with the advent of television in India, starring in Doordarshan sponsored serials like Intezaar in 1989, where he played a Ladakhi and even had the opportunity to sing a couple of Ladakhi songs.
“With the arrival of television, my frustrations came to an end and found a different medium to express my talents. The TV offered us struggling actors with another avenue to express our talents. These avenues brought my insecurities to an end,” says Phonsok.
A few years later another show called Paramveer Chakra happened, where he played the role of Dhan Singh Thapa, a recipient of the gallantry award. Following this, he acted in a few more TV serials, working with luminaries like Saeed Mirza.
From here on, Phonsok came into his own, producing his television serial, making a 10-episode series on the Ladakh Scouts, government-sponsored films and multiple documentaries on Ladakh.
For Phonsok, acting isn’t merely a performance, but a source of spiritual regeneration.
“Through acting, I learnt to tap into my subconscious. Within that subconsciousness, our fears, plus points and weaknesses are hidden. If you can break the shackles there, you can become a better actor. Through acting, I learnt how you can tackle the source of all your fears that are seeped within your subconscious and deliver a good performance on screen. Not only does that make you a better actor, but a better person as well,” he says.
From acting and filmmaking, he also made his mark in popular regional music, which resonated with both the Ladakhi and Tibetan community in India. He was indeed a pioneer of modern Ladakhi music.
“He [Phonsok] is known for an influential style of popular song that incorporated the film-style ghazal with either Ladakhi language lyrics or with Hindi lyrics and Tibetan Buddhist themes,” writes Noé Dinnerstein for Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies.
“His Hindi-language songs ‘Om mani padme hum‘ and ‘Namo namo‘ (the latter praising the Dalai Lama) are perennial favourites and are accessible to both communities in Hindi, the lingua franca of North India. Hence, there is an assertion of a common Tibetan Buddhist culture,” the paper goes onto add.
He would even go onto compose the regimental song for the Ladakh Scouts called Zinda Kaum, for which received a letter of commendation from the Chief of Army Staff in 2017. “Every war India has fought, soldiers from Ladakh have always stood tall. With these thoughts, I had composed a song and would sing it to the regiment boys,” he says.
Phonsok Ladakhi with Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat. (Source: Facebook)
However, his foray into music was an accident.
“When I had no work as an actor in Bombay, I was lucky enough to meet a friend, who took me to a music teacher. Those lessons honed my talents in music, learning various vocal techniques like Sargam. Besides learning how to sing, I was also an assistant to Professor Roshan Taneja, who was a very well known instructor at FTII and would, later on, open his own school of acting. I learnt music by accident when I had nothing to do,” he says.
Today, he is a visiting faculty at FTII, teaching acting to aspiring actors. He also travels around the country teaching the craft in places ranging from Jammu & Kashmir and Uttarakhand to Goa. Meanwhile, back home in Leh, he runs a hotel, which also doubles up as a yoga centre.
Practising Vipassana for the past three decades, he is also a founder member of a Vipassana meditation centre in the Saboo area of Leh. However, his wish is to open an FTII-like school in Ladakh.
Teaching yoga at the Ladakh Scouts Centre in 2016. (Source: Facebook)
Even though real stardom in Bollywood eluded him, Phonsok remains a very content man. That feeling of contentment does not merely come from the diverse range of work he has done since but also from a deep-seated sense of inner peace.
Teaching the craft to aspiring actors.
“Any profession you take up, you must be honest. At no point, you must resort to deception or take shortcuts. If you stay on the path of truth, you will attain true happiness. Irrespective of your circumstances, you will excel in your profession provided you maintain an honest, moral core. That’s my message to all youngsters,” he says.
(Edited by Saiqua Sultan)
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What could three different films—about a doctor on a white revolution mission; an insomniac and an unemployed youngster—possibly have in common?
Well, all these movies saw the light of the day, only because they were crowdfunded.
Crowdfunding is a concept where people from society allocate funds to aid the filmmaking process and has gained popularity as the go-to method for budding and independent filmmakers who want their voices heard.
Although the Hindi film industry is known for the money it makes nationally and internationally, several films fail to see the light of the day due to the shortage of funds.
Fed up of going from one producer’s office to another, many independent movie makers are now relying on crowdfunding projects.
Here are five films in India that were financed by the aam janta:
As an agitated Bhola (Naseeruddin Shah) reminds a group of villagers about the benefits of forming a co-operative society for milk on a 70 mm screen, audiences in Mumbai’s Regal cinema let out a huge applause.
The dialogue which translates to ‘society is ours’ is from filmmaker Shyam Benegal’s masterpiece Manthan that was released in 1976. This powerful dialogue motivates the characters in the movie to accomplish their mission.
Besides, it was Benegal’s way of thanking the farmers who turned his vision into a full-fledged movie.
Manthan was the first crowdfunded movie in India, and also demonstrated the power of “collective might” as it was entirely crowdfunded by 500,000 farmers who donated Rs 2, each.
The film is set amidst the backdrop of the White Revolution of India, pioneered by Verghese Kurien, and revolves around Dr Rao (Girish Karnad) who heads to a village in Gujarat’s Kheda district, intending to establish a Milk Co-operative society.
Other actors include Smita Patil, Amrish Puri and Kulbhushan Kharbanda.
Interestingly, its title sequence includes the line’ 500,000 farmers of Gujarat present.’
When Selvakannan quit his well-paying engineering job to enter the world of light, camera and action, his major concern was money. Though it unleashes the creative side of people, filmmaking is a costly affair.
That was when his friends from college came forward and pitched in.
I had a script, which was very close to my heart. About thirty of us, all engineering diploma graduates based out of Nellai, knowing my passion, came together to make my dream a reality, he told The New Indian Express.
The Tamil drama revolves an unemployed youngster who is torn between his family and love. The movie, subtly, also addresses the issue of daughters who are unable to inherit property.
With a rating of 7.6 on IMDb, the movie garnered applause from both critics and audiences.
A recipient of the National Award for Best Feature Film in Assamese (2016) and Asian Cinema Fund Post Production, Kothanodi set a trend of crowdfunding movies in North East.
It encouraged many independent filmmakers like Kenny Basumatary and Reema Borah to pursue their film projects.
The film, which stars stalwarts like Seema Biswas and Adil Hussain was directed by Bhaskar Hazarika. It is based on characters and events described in Burhi Aair Sadhu (Grandma’s Tales), a popular compendium of folk stories compiled by Assamese literary giant, Lakshminath Bezbaroa.
Crowdfunding is definitely a viable option for independent filmmakers. If you look at it, cheaper film technology and expanding social media have converged to create perfect conditions for indie filmmakers to get off their couch do something about their script, said Bhaskar to TOI.
Taking advantage of the rising popularity of social media, former IT professional Pawan Kumar started a crowdfunding blog and used Facebook to finance his film.
As per The Economic Times, the filmmaker was able to raise close to 50 lakhs within ten days from 100 investors for his psychological thriller that was released in 2013. It was remade in Tamil as ‘Enakkul Oruvan’ in 2015.
A thin line between fantasy and reality, this Kannada film with a non-linear plot, follows a man who has insomnia and is desperate for good sleep. The plotline moves forward when he consumes a unique type of pill.
The film went on to premiere at the London Indian Film Festival 2013, where it won the ‘Audience Choice Award.’
Released in 2012, this black comedy is about finding a purpose in life. It involves a mahout who has lost his elephant, a devil who has lost his teeth, a god who has lost his identity, a theatre owner who has lost her god and a constable who has lost his faith.
Ordinary people crowdfunded the distribution of the movie as director Srinivas Sunderrajan fell short of money.
Crowdfunding is a novel platform that’s just found its way into India after finding success in the western countries. It’s a process in which we involve cinephiles to invest in a film and thereby getting to be part of the film’s crew, he said in a conversation with The Hindu.
A deep baritone erupts into thunderous laughter and out of the darkness, enters a towering figure, piercing through the mist with a pair of glowing bulbous eyes, chilling enough to stare down generations into submission.
‘Mogambo Khush Hua’- a low voice ushers the calm before the storm
This is a man who etched an eternal image of villainy in the minds of thousands of Indian cinema-lovers. With fearfully elaborate roles and spine-chilling performances, he, Amrish Puri, showed the world that he was indeed the best bad guy on celluloid.
Puri’s unique ability to intimidate was a prominent reason why directors like Shyam Benegal (Nishant, Bhumika, Zubeidaa), Subhash Ghai (Pardes, Meri Jung, Taal), Yash Chopra (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Mashal), or even Steven Speilberg (Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom) pursued him with memorable roles.
He was a man who could garner a multitude of emotions—hate, fear and love—all at the same time, from his audience, while striking the perfect balance in art.
From Mogambo in Bollywood to Mola Ram in Hollywood, this legend became a paragon of immorality on one hand, while on the other, he emerged as a sphinx-headed custodian of virtue and integrity as Chaudhry Baldev Singh (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge) and Brig Sarfaroz Khan (Dil Pardesi Ho Gayaa).
But we only know him as he was presented on the silver screen with a long line of landmark films that set an everlasting legacy, not how he was beyond it. On his 87th birth anniversary (he was born on 22 June 1932), we look back at the varied roles he lived while off-screen.
He led a dual life, travelling from one place to another on his motorbike, selling life insurance, and another on stage.
The latter was all that mattered—his heart and soul.
One of the most prominent actors in Satyadev Dubey’s theatre group, Theatre Unit, Puri’s tryst with cinema was yet to unfold.
He already had two brothers, who were acting in films. The eldest, Madan Puri, was successful as a character actor and had worked on several films in the 1940s to the 1970s.
Somewhere in the 1950s, he did veer into trying his luck in cinema but was rejected for the lead roles. Much like on-screen, he was uncompromising in personal life as well and did not settle for minor roles. His work in Prithvi Theatre gained him prominence as a stage actor, and he won the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1979. It was his theatre recognition that led him to more work in television ads and eventually, Hindi cinema at the age of 40.
Through the 1970s he continued to work in supporting roles mostly as the henchman of the lead villain (Prem Pujari in 1970, Aahat-Ek Ajeeb Kahani and Reshma Aur Shera in 1971).
Puri’s continued work in theatre soon led him to meet Shyam Benegal, who was at the time, working on his first film, Ankur (1974).
“I had an actor I thought would be good because his physical presence was good. But he couldn’t speak a line of the dialogue properly. So I got Amrish to dub for him. After that, I felt, ‘Why am I doing this?’ So, when I made my next film Nishant, I got Amrish to act. From then on, he acted in practically everything I did,” the director shares.
This eventually grew into a strong friendship between the two, earning Amrish Puri wide appreciation in Nishant and Bhumika, and opening doors to success.
Between 1967 to 2005, Amrish worked in almost 400 films in Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, and as well as English.
However, it was only in 1980 that the commercial hit Hum Paanch positioned him as a promising villain in Indian cinema and the rest became history.
A sensitive mentor, thorough professional and disciplinarian
From mentoring young actors off-screen to helping out friends in need, in his personal life, Amrish is remembered as a gentle and sensitive individual with the attributes of a hero—a welcome contrast.
Much like his on-screen character, Chaudhry Baldev Singh (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge), Amrish was known to be prepared and organised.
Recalling one such experience, Shyam Benegal adds, “The great thing about Amrish, like Om Puri also, was that when he worked on a film, he brought a lot of order into the unit. He had extremely disciplined ways. I remember, when we were doing Manthan, we were shooting in a village called Sanganva, which was about 45 kilometres from Rajkot. He would wake the unit up at 5:30 in the morning in the winter of January and take them all on a run. This was to keep everyone in good shape. He always had a wonderful presence in the unit because he maintained discipline, which flowed to other people. This also included his food habits.”
He is an actor, who for over 30 years and beyond, has shocked, frightened, and inspired generations to embrace negative roles with refreshing appreciation, setting a benchmark for the future!
“This is our only chance to make men feel the same fear that women feel every day.”
This line of dialogue from the film ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’ is perhaps reflective of similar desires inside many a woman who faces harassment every day.
The raw need for revenge is not gender-centric, though. Fiction-based cinema is full of male-centric, blood-soaked murder fests undertaken in celebration of revenge.
However, even revenge can be shown differently. And to highlight that, The Better India (TBI) spoke to someone who still retains a unique vision in these post-‘Kabir Singh’ days.
“Whenever you hear or read about a heinous rape in the media, the standard responses one hears from people is ‘let’s beat up the assailants’, ‘hang them to death, ‘castrate them’, etc. The power of fiction is that you can depict all these things without going to jail,” says screenwriter, author and award-winning Mumbai-based independent filmmaker Aditya Kripalani.
“So, the narrative of making a man understand the fear a woman goes through is, in many ways, an extension of this creative freedom (that) fiction gives,” Kripalani says.
Aditya Kripalani
Kripalani’s second feature film feeds from that precise creative instinct. ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’ released on 25 June, stars Shalini Vatsa, Chitrangada Chakraborty, Sonal Joshi, Kritika Pande and Vinay Sharma and you can catch it on Netflix.
The film, set in the Delhi-NCR region, delves into the minds of four working women who live in constant trepidation when travelling in public spaces – facing constant harassment, sexual and physical, from entitled men.
One night, they take matters into their own hands, when yet another man begins another cycle of harassment against them. Thus, begins a journey of breaking the person down – physically and mentally.
It’s one thing to read a headline or ascertain gruesome details, but another thing altogether to understand what it feels like to walk in a woman’s shoes. In ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’, this is why the women feel compelled to make a man understand their fear of sexual assault, says Kripalani.
However, the movie isn’t merely a revenge fantasy film about a terrible man getting his due, but also an exploration into the similarities that exist between both genders in their engagement with power.
This movie, and such topics, are perfectly in line with Kripalani’s desire to make films centred around ordinary women.
Screenwriter, author, filmmaker & coming full circle
Graduating from the Film and Television Institute of India with a degree in screenplay writing, the early days saw Kripalani writing for mainstream cinema audiences.
However, he found no satisfaction in writing for someone else in a disorganised and chaotic Mumbai market which didn’t pay on time. Eventually, he pivoted to writing novels. Since 2008 he has written three bestselling novels, ‘Back Seat’, ‘Front Seat’ and ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’.
It was his third novel ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’ which became his first feature film, garnering a whole host of international awards. And it is also streaming on Netflix, a platform Kriplani relishes.
“Thanks to Netflix today, you can make whatever you want once you create some amount of buzz like winning international awards. There is no censorship, and this allows for an unabashed conversation with your audience,” he says.
Aditya Kripalani
But why is an author so attracted to moving pictures?
“Everything I’ve written has been a dialogue with society. But barriers stood in terms of audience reach because of literacy, language and the fact that people prefer the visual medium. While my books are in English, the films are set in their specific vernacular demographic. With cinema, it’s about reaching a larger audience,” argues Kripalani, when asked why he liked cinema as a medium.
“Once, I started engaging with cinema as a medium, I fell in love with it. There is no way I couldn’t,” he says.
Women-centric narratives
Although the push for gender equality has made real progress in India, the scales are still heavily tipped against women. This is probably why my stories take a strong feminist line. These movies target misogyny, push for equality and seek to shatter the status quo, but they are also about the human condition as well, says Kripalani.
“As an outsider in Delhi, seeing women look at their watches when the clock struck 8, 7 or even 6 pm during winters was a new thing for me. This wanted me to say something about it as a filmmaker. I made ‘Tikli And Laxmi Bomb’ for Mumbai. Something needed to be made for Delhi which would resonate with a tone that was a lot harsher,” he says when asked about this film in particular.
In ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’, sex workers on the streets on Mumbai seek to take control of their ‘business’ by forming an autonomous co-operative and push their abusive male pimps out.
“For Tikli and Laxmi Bomb, the intention was to do an Indian version of the Hollywood classic Thelma and Lousie. Yes, the stories are wildly different with two sex workers in Mumbai at the heart of my film, but it was about exploring the dynamic between an older and younger woman, where women are seen having fun and wanting to make a change. In some ways, ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’ is my tribute to Thelma and Louise,” says Aditya.
Their assertion of gender identity comes in the form of taking ownership of their work and the reclamation of public spaces at night, a time considered unsafe for women to venture out. In ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’, that assertion takes the form of rage.
Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal poster
But the film does not go down the ‘we are taking revenge, so we are the better ones,’ route so favoured by mainstream cinema.
“The protagonists in the film keep saying, ‘we’re women, and we don’t act like men’, but the consequences of their actions are the same. Yes, men have not endured the sort of institutional suffering women have, but human nature is a lot more pervasive. Irrespective of gender, our response to power is the same,” claims Kripalani, while explaining some creative decisions with the film’s unexpected plotline.
From writing his first book 13 years ago, which he and his wife sold on local trains and outside restaurants in Mumbai, to raising Rs 25 lakh through crowdfunding for ‘Tikli and Laxmi Bomb’ to promoting ‘Tottaa Pataaka Item Maal’ by handing out fliers and showing the trailer to over 200 people every day, Kripalani has always been unconventional.
One hopes he has many more tales within him.
(Edited by Vinayak Hegde)
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While growing up, the majority of the movies I was exposed to, despite their different titles, actors, directors and to some extent story-lines, had a common thread running through them.
Most of them portrayed the idea of a woman being someone’s ‘dream girl’. The heroine was a girl who talks non-stop, is sanskari enough to make unrealistic compromises and is looking for someone who can rescue her from the “shackles” of the society, sometimes literally!
My fascination for the 70 mm wide high-resolution ran so high that for the longest time I tried to mould my personality according to such “filmy” notions that were far from reality.
Even now, the scripts clearly mirror the patriarchal society we continue to live in and the established roles women are supposed to lead even now.
Now imagine acting in movies that revolved around an elderly woman having an affair with a young man (Parama,1985), portraying someone who has a series of relationships and is prioritising her own happiness (Bhumika, 1977) or having an orgasm onscreen (Lipstick Under my Burkha, 2017).
Irrespective of which era they were released, what remained the same was the flak that these movies drew from the society. How can women be shown to be so flawed . . . so human, perhaps?
So how did women first charter into these male-dominated waters, to dip their toes in each and every medium that the entertainment industry has to offer, and found popularity?
Here are five women who challenged the bizarre conventions for their love of cinema:
1) First Female Director
Image Source: 100+ Years of Indian Cinema/Facebook
The director is the creative force that binds the film together. Movie geeks strongly believe that it is the director’s vision that determines how well the script is transformed into a feeling on screen.
This held true for Fatima Begum back in the 1900s. Having written the script about an epic fantasy, she refused to trust anyone with its outcome and directed it herself in 1926. With ‘Bulbul-e-Paristan, the trained theatre artist became India’s first ever female director in Indian cinema. Fatima unlocked the doorway to the world of moving pictures for other female directors.
Not stopping there, she went on to direct many films like Goddess of Love (1927), Chandrawali (1928), Heer Ranjha (1928) and Shakuntala (1929). She even started her own production ‘Fatima Films’ breaking yet another stereotype.
Did you know that India’s first feature film ‘Raja Harishchandra’ has a man playing the female lead?
The Father of Indian Cinema, Dada Saheb Phalke, did everything to convince women to act in this film. He published advertisements in several newspapers for the cast and crew and even approached the nautch girls, but to no avail. Ultimately, he had to cast a man in the role of the female lead.
In Phalke’s second film ‘Mohini Bhasmasur’, Durgabai Kamat braved the conservative society and became India’s first female actor to act on the silver screen. Interestingly, her daughter Kamlabai Gokhale became the first female child actress by acting in the same movie.
The reason why English comic actor Charlie Chaplin is celebrated worldwide is his ability to make people laugh without uttering a single dialogue. Umadevi Khatri also banked on the comedy genre that does not adhere to the societal norms of how a woman should be.
Fondly known as Tun Tun, she became the first female comedian of Hindi cinema and later on, a playback singer. She worked in more than 190 films alongside renowned comedians like Johnny Walker, Bhagvan Dada and Dhumal.
While she did attain success as a comedian, unfortunately the roles that she played were mostly of an obese lady who is a nightmare for men. She was that lady who everyone despised and was considered to be the opposite of how an ‘Indian lady’ should be.
Khatri is a classic example of a talent that was underrated and to some extent even misused. Wish we had better roles and scripts back then!
Fun Fact: Her Birth Anniversary is celebrated today, i.e. 11 July.
Born in Allahabad, Jaddan Bai was a daughter of Daleepabai, a tawaif (courtesan). She was trained in classical music under famous singers including thumri maestro Moujjudin Khan. Genes and training, both played a huge role in perfecting Jaddan’s talent to compose music. After making her debut as an actor, she became India’s first music director and composed music for Talashe Haq (1935) and Madam Fashion (1936). Interestingly, she gave birth to a daughter who turned out to be one of the greatest gifts Indian cinema has ever got – the legendary actress, Nargis!
5) First Female Cinematographer
B R Vijaylaxmi was not only India’s but also Asia’s first woman to handle the camera and light crews in a film. She was born to B R Panthulu, a director and producer in South Indian films.
At a time when only men handled the technical side of making a movie, she donned the hat of Director of Photography in the 1980s. She worked as an assistant to cinematographer Ashok Kumar in the 1980 Tamil film ‘Nenjathai Killathe’.
Since then she has shot 22 films and in 2018 made a directorial debut ‘Abhiyude Katha Anuvinteyum’
Thanks to these fierce women who smashed stereotypes on multiple levels and challenged the status quo, the film industry is now celebrating the works of filmmakers like Zoya Akhtar and Gauri Shinde, cinematographers like Priya Seth and actresses like Vidya Balan and Alia Bhatt!
Before Madhubala, Nargis, and Meena Kumari, there was Devika Rani, a star actor and film producer, who co-founded Bombay Talkies, India’s first self-contained film studio, alongside her first husband Himanshu Rai in 1934, and later became its sole boss after Rai’s untimely death.
She donned these roles at a time when the very concept of working women wasn’t celebrated with fanfare in mainstream society.
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A pioneer in the truest sense, Devika played a fundamental role in bringing Indian cinema to the world. She acted in 15 movies in 10 years, and headed Bombay Talkies for 5 years, before abruptly quitting the film business altogether in 1945 following a business dispute, according to this Indian Express profile.
Born on March 30, 1908, Rani grew up in affluence. Her father, Manmathanath Chaudhuri, was the first Indian surgeon-general of Madras Presidency, and Rabindranath Tagore was her granduncle.
Sent to a private school in London, she earned a scholarship from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in the United Kingdom to pursue her dreams of acting at the age of 16.
In addition to acting, she also studied textile design, décor and architecture. She met her first husband Himanshu Rai in 1928 while assisting with costume design and art direction for his experimental silent film ‘A Throw of Dice’ in 1929.
Rai was 16 years her senior, but the fact hardly bothered Rani, and the couple wed the same year. Soon, they shifted base to Berlin, where they worked at the UFA studios, a once-legendary German motion-picture production company, where Rani received training in several aspects of filmmaking under various luminaries like director GW Pabst and Eric Pommer.
“I first entered as an ordinary worker and was an apprentice in the make-up, costume and sets departments. I worked under their most famous make-up man. And yet, after two years of intensive general training and tests, you were asked to forget it all, because you had become too mechanical! You were asked to become yourself,” she said in an interview to Filmfare after receiving the first Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1958.
Devika Rani with Ashok Kumar in Achut Kanya. (Source: Twitter/NFAI)
Rani eventually made her on-screen debut in 1933 alongside Rai in his bilingual film, Karma.
The film was premiered in England and received excellent reviews with Rani’s performance coming in for special mention. The movie was particularly known for its nearly four-minute-long kissing scene between Rani and Rai, which unfortunately did not endear Indian audiences when it was re-released in India as Nagin Ki Ragini the following year.
However, it did not stop them from setting up Bombay Talkies the same year on an 18-acre plot in Malad, Mumbai, alongside Bengali screenwriter Niranjan Pal. The studio released its first film Jawani Ki Hawa (1935), a crime thriller, starring Rani and Najm-ul-Hassan.
But it was during the shooting for the next film Jeevan Naiya when the relationship between Rai and Rani fell apart with the latter eloping with Najm-ul-Hassan.
Sashadhar Mukherjee, an assistant sound-engineer, helped the couple come to a truce which held among other things that Rani would have sole control of her finances and the firing of Najm-ul-Hassan from the studio.
For the remainder of the film, Mukherjee’s brother-in-law, the legendary Ashok Kumar, who was a laboratory assistant at the time, was hired and cast opposite Rani. The following year, the Rani and Ashok Kumar were paired together in Achhut Kanya (1936), portraying the roles of an untouchable girl and Brahmin boy who fall in love.
It was a remarkable film for its time, depicting the caste system in all its ugliness. The pair would go onto act in nearly ten films that were largely based on strong women characters with a heavy dose of social realism.
The reputation of Bombay Talkies as India’s premier film studio was largely down to Rani’s charismatic performances on-screen and her ability to pitch these films to financiers.
In 1940, Rai died after a “nervous breakdown,” and subsequently, the board of directors at Bombay Talkies selected Rani to take up the top job and run the studio.
In the following five years, the studio produced hits like Naya Sansar (1941) and Kismet (1943), a noir film and “one of the early blockbusters of Indian cinema”which ran for three straight years at Kolkata’s Roxy theatre.
Rani also gave Dilip Kumar his first major break in the film industry with Jwar Bhata (1944), casting him as the lead.
Despite her success, the film industry was an arena dominated by men where sexism reigned supreme. In 1943, Mukherjee led an exodus of talent from Bombay Talkies, which included among other people, Ashok Kumar, to establish Filmistan.
After a string of films which failed to break the bank, the knives were out for her exit. Instead of suffering the indignity of being ousted, she resigned herself and quit the business altogether. Suffice to say, Bombay Talkies never recovered from her resignation.
She would go onto marry Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich, the son of legendary Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, and move to an estate in the Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh, before retiring altogether at the 468-acre Tataguni Estate on the outskirts of Bengaluru.
She passed away on March 9, 1994, in Bengaluru.
In a world where women would endure several hard knocks for even contemplating these measures in the film industry, Devika Rani walked a path that few women in Indian cinema have managed to, and showed them what it means to take ownership of their craft and finances.
Yahan se pachas pachas kos door gaon mein … jab bachcha raat ko rota hai, toh maa kehti hai bete so ja … so ja nahi toh Gabbar Singh aa jayega.
Dressed in a khaki suit and armed with a belt, when the most dreaded dacoit of the country with curly hair and black teeth delivered this dialogue on a 70 mm screen, it sent shivers down my father’s spine who was then barely eight.
“While Sholay had several racy dialogues, this threatening dialogue stayed with me as I walked out of Bombay’s Capitol Theatre. For the next couple of days, I started sleeping without making a fuss fearing Gabbar Singh would appear. Till this date, Amjad Khan’s tone makes me uneasy,” says my father.
The ‘Gabar fever’ went beyond my father and seized millions of cinemagoers, leaving an ever-lasting impact and of course, setting an almost unsurpassable bar for many actors.
With the most simple and not-so-profound dialogues like Kitne Aadmi The, Jo Darr Gaya Samjo Marr Gaya and Tera kya Hoga Kalia, Khan had arrived on the Bollywood scene, giving life to one of the most celebrated and iconic characters in Hindi cinema.
On his 79th birth anniversary, here are five amazing tales of actor Amjad Khan, probably the only actor who could go from sets to sets playing nine different characters in one day!
1) Life Before Movies
Born to actor Jayant (Zakaria Khan) in undivided India’s Peshawar, in 1940, Khan belonged to a Pashtun family.
Khan was a bright student who completed his schooling from St Andrew’s High School in Mumbai and got into R D National College. While at college, Khan was active in his college’s political scene, getting elected as a Student Body President.
A still from Lekin. Source: Film History Pics/Twitter
He loved reading English poets like Wordsworth and Keats and eagerly engaged in political theories or philosophies of Plato, Socrates and S. Radhakrishnan.
After completing hisMastersin Philosophy from Bombay University (now Mumbai University), Khan joined the world of theatre to give a chance to his passion for acting that he had imbibed from his father.
2) Khan was Not the First Choice In Sholay
Can you imagine anyone else ace those dialogues while chewing tobacco in the magnum opus? Though actor Danny Denzongpa had bagged the role of Gabbar, another commitment forced him to give the role up.
BTS from Sholay. Source: Sholay The Movie/Facebook
It is said that the film’s writers, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, developed a new lingo or the character of Gabbar. No wonder both, Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan were ready to shed their ‘hero’ image to play the vicious villian.
But destiny had different plans.
Watch Gabbar Singh’s famous dialogues:
Salim and Javed had spotted Khan on stage plays. Once they arranged a meeting with Khan and director Ramesh Sippy, they wrote Bollywood history.
3) The Family Man
As hard as it may seem to believe, Bollywood’s legendary villain lived a quintessential love story.
Khan and his love interest Shehla, daughter of the late writer and lyricist Akhtar-ul-Iman, lived in the same building in Bandra, Mumbai.
She was merely fourteen when Khan, who was then doing his Bachelors, fell for her. According to Filmfare, he even sent a marriage proposal which was rejected as she was too young.
Their romance continued in true movie fashion through letters when Shehla was sent to Aligarh for studies. And, this particular love story saw a happy fate when the two lovebirds got married in 1972.
Amjad Khan with his wife, son and Father-in-law. Source: Film History Pics/Twitter
Khan and Shehla had three children and the day their eldest son, Shadaab, was born, Khan signed Sholay. Despite being busy with movies, sometimes shooting multiple movies in one day, Khan always made time for his children just like any doting father.
“Obviously, while growing up, kids my age would think that my father’s real-life nature was similar to his on-screen persona, but once they’d meet him they would become very fond of him because in real life he was a fun-loving and gentle person who was particularly good with children,” Khan’s son and actor ShadaabtellsMan’s World India magazine.
Though Khan passed away before Shadaab made his onscreen debut in the movie Raja ki Aayegi Baarat, Khan made sure his son did not become a product of nepotism. He always encouraged Shadaab to write his own destiny and leave his ‘ego’ at home.
4) The Versatile Actor
Throughout his professional journey, Amjad Khan portrayed many roles with panache and ease.
Whether it was risking his business and family life as Bishan for his childhood friend Kishan (played by Bachchan) in the superhit movie Yaarana or playing the funny policeman in Kumar Gaurav’s Love Story, Khan never shied away from stepping outside his comfort zone.
One of his most powerful and memorable performances was in Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi (1977), where he plays Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, an artist, poet, and a sympathetic character.
Shatranj Ke Khiladi poster. Source: Indo Islamic Culture/Twtitter
Khan received several chances to play interesting and colourful roles and he credits his directors and writers for seeing him beyond ‘Gabbar’ and giving him platforms to explore himself.
“They saved me from getting typecast, always keeping an element of surprise for the audiences,” hesaidan interview.
He also, unsuccessfully, tried his hand at producing and direction but gave up after a few failed attempts.
5) Being the Right Kind of Senior Colleague
Being a President of the Cine and Television Artists Association, Khan was a benevolent leader who would go out of his way to sort issues in the film industry like demands for fair wages and better working conditions. He was also known for helping his juniors and other industry people in tight spots.
A still from Suhaag/ Source: Film History Pics/Twitter
“He helped his friends in turning producers and friends from his theatre days by encouraging them to be directors and actors in films. He helped two of his ordinary tailor friends to start designer outfit shops which are still doing well,”writesveteran film journalist Ali Peter John in Bollywood Hungama.
In a career spanning two decades, Khan went on to do over 130 movies, some of which will always be evergreen classics.
It was in 1976 that Khan met with a serious accident on the Mumbai-Goa highway, on his way to shoot for the film The Great Gambler. It is said that the drugs he was administered during recovery caused him to gain weight very quickly. This led to Khan developing heart complications. And in 1992, at the mere age of 51, Khan died due to heart failure.
A versatile actor still remembered for his portrayals of ruthless antagonist and on point comic timing, Amjad Khan will always live in the collective memory of colleagues, friends, and admirers for his reel and real persona.
While his boss is screaming at him, an LIC agent checks the picture of an old lady that flashes across his mobile screen. Later, the agent rings a bell and the same old lady opens the door.
“Nomoshkar, Agnes D’Mello?” asks the innocuous-looking, smiling LIC agent.
The moment the woman confirms, “Ek minute,” says the LIC-agent-cum-contract-killer and pulling out his silent pistol, shoots her in cold blood.
Before leaving, he whips out his phone to check whether he had killed the right person, and calmly steps out.
For people who still have not guessed, he is Bob Biswas, who personally renders me speechless every time he shoots people dead, smiling in an innocently-creepy way after his humble ‘Nomoshkar’.
The scene where Bob Biswas shoots Agnes D’Mello dead. Still from the movie—Kahaani.
A psychopath, Bob Biswas, played by Bengali actor Saswata Chatterjee, is an integral character in the 2012 thriller Kahaani, starring Vidya Balan.
Bob is not your quintessential villain who has a vicious laughter, a fit body and evil expressions. In fact, he is an ordinary man with a paunch, who goes to the office during the day, wears huge glasses and can easily disappear in the crowd.
Bob’s character is now getting its own movie starring Abhishek Bachchan and as soon as the news broke, social media pages were flooded with excitement. Finally, the fans will now get an insight into Bob’s life.
Like Bob Biswas, Hindi cinema has given birth to terror-inducing and vicious villains, malefactors and assassins who have left a lasting impact in the minds of movie enthusiasts with their impeccable performances.
Here are seven other villains, who we feel, have left a mark on the history of Indian cinema:
1. Lajja Shankar Pandey: Movie—Sangharsh
The scene where Ashutosh Rana dressed in a red saree, screams madly at a scared Preity Zinta is nothing short of a nightmare.
Lajja Shankar Pandey is a character in Sangharsh who kills young children with a hope to become immortal.
Rana’s performance is remembered as one of the most intensely-portrayed one and is engraved in the list of the most iconic villains, ironically immortalising the character.
Rana’s ghastly role in the Kajol-starrer Dushman as Gokul Pandit, a serial rapist and murderer, is also unforgettable.
2. Gabbar Singh: Movie—Sholay
Dialogues of Gabbar Singh from the 70s superhit movie Sholay are probably the most imitated dialogues transcending all generations.
Even if you have not seen this Ramesh Sippy action-drama, you must still have come across Gabbar’s loud voice and notorious laughter somewhere on television.
Essayed by late actor Amjad Khan, the character took a lot of time and effort to be perfected by the dream team of Salim-Javed. No wonder, actors like Danny Denzongpa, Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar were in the race to play Gabbar.
Know more about the life of Gabbar aka Amjad Khan here.
3. Mogambo: Movie—Mr. India
As soon as you type Mogambo, Google will complete the rest of the sentence for you “. . . . khush hua”.
Amrish Puri did not conform to the stereotypical image of a movie hero and thanks to that, Hindi cinema got to witness him play some of the most memorable bad guys.
But of all the roles, Mogambo from Mr India, stands out.
Amongs all the villains in the world of bollywood, Mogambo still remains the most villainous of them all. Source: Bollywood Art project/Facebook
Interestingly, actor Anupam Kher was the first choice for the role. Though upset initially on being replaced, Kher later confessed that the makers of the film took the right decision.
“When you are dropped from a film then generally an actor feels bad, but when I watched Mr India and saw Amrishji’s work as Mogambo then, I thought the makers of the film took the right decision by casting him in their film,” he told IANS.
Actor Saif Ali Khan turned out to be a surprise element in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Omkara—an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Othello. After playing a metrosexual man in movies like Hum Tum, Dil Chahta Hai and Salam Namaste, Khan wowed people with his body language and perfectly-delivered lines in the local dialect of the interiors of western UP, outperforming his co-actors in several scenes.
Treacherous, cold-hearted and manipulative, Tyagi walks with a limp and plays revenge games with Kesu Upadhyaya (Vivek Oberoi) and Omi Shukla (Ajay Devgn).
5. Rahul Mehra: Movie—Darr
In the long list villains in the cinematic world, Shahrukh Khan too has left his mark.
Way before Shah Rukh Khan conquered millions of hearts across the world with his charming and relatable roles, he was every woman’s nightmare as an obsessive stalker in Yash Chopra’s Darr.
Shah Rukh Khan’s character in the movie is so obsessed with Kiran (Juhi Chawla) that his intentions turn malicious and murderous, hell-bent on killing the man Kiran was in love with.
This is not the only film where Khan played an antagonist. Who can forget the scene in Baazigar where he pushes Shilpa Shetty from the terrace of a building to her gruesome death?
6. Isha (spoiler alert!): Movie—Gupt
In a movie full of villains, Kajol takes the crown.
Throughout this whodunnit, audiences are left guessing the identity of the mysterious killer.
Is it a politically-driven murder, money dispute or it is really Sahil (Bobby Deol) who killed his step-father for publicly insulting his girlfriend Isha (Kajol)?
I remember how my elder sister refused to speak to her best friend for months after she revealed the name of the murderer. And she was not the only ‘unlucky’ one to get the spoiler.
In a major plot twist and against everyone’s expectation, Kajol turns out to be the killer who ruthlessly stabs people who come in her and Sahil’s way.
It was a very bold move on Kajol’s part for shedding the heroine image and playing a villian in the beginning of her career.
7. Makdee
Witches have always been villains. And Shabana Azmi played one to the T.
In and as Makdee, Shabana Azmi managed to convince cinemagoers, especially children, of a world where witchcraft was still alive.
With her long nails, demonic look, evil laughter and hatred for children, Azmi is unrecognisable in the movie.
She transforms Munni (Shweta Basu) into a chicken after she enters her house due to a prank. So, her identical twin Chunni agrees to bring a chicken daily in hopes of getting her sister back.
Released in 2002, Vishal Bharadwaj’s directorial Makdee definitely gave sleepless nights to many who feared entering a dilapidated building alone, even during the day.
Whenever there is massive public unrest against the government of the day, celebrities in India are often put in a tight spot, because both fans and the government elicit their support. It’s a difficult choice to make, whatever their personal beliefs.
So, when former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed Emergency in June 1975, the government’s spin doctors were working non-stop to facilitate support of this decision and enlisted the help of celebrities.
While many of them followed the government-approved line, some notable film personalities chose not to go along with this severe policy, which drastically curtailed civil liberties.
Some of them paid for their principled stand in a big way.
Take the example of legendary actor and playback singer Kishore Kumar.
Besides rejecting an invitation to perform at a Youth Congress rally in Mumbai, he also turned down the then Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Minister VC Shukla’s request to make and participate in advertisements promoting Sanjay Gandhi’s 20-point Economic Programme launched just after the imposition of Emergency.
In response, Shukla did what most petty votaries of governments do, which is direct public broadcasters like Doordarshan and All India Radio to ban all songs and films that feature him.
This was a tactic not only meant to intimidate Kumar but others in the film industry as well.
Kishore Kumar (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
In fact, according to journalist Ranjan Das Gupta, legendary singer Manna Dey had told him, “[Mohammed] Rafi even questioned [Sanjay] Gandhi how he, being the grandson of a great man like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, could indulge in such an act.”
At a time when there were very few avenues to reach mass audiences, this was a crippling blow. At no point did he ever retract, and the ban was lifted only a year-and-a-half later when Emergency ended, and the Congress government was booted out of power.
Similarly, stars like Dev Anand and Shatrugan Sinha also had their films banned on Doordarshan. The government, in fact, threatened Sinha that he would be implicated in the Baroda Dynamite Case if he didn’t campaign for the party in Bihar.
Dev Anand, however, went beyond refusing the government’s invitation and publicly spoke out against Emergency with his brothers Chetan and Vijay Anand.
“The pro-Emergency lobby enforced strict discipline amongst the masses and the rank and file of the government offices through certain legislative measures. It did a lot of good for the country. But, the fact was that the soul of the people was smouldering, their spirit stifled by an iron hand,” wrote Anand in his autobiography, ‘Romancing With Life.’
Dev Anand (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
“They were dying to break the shackles, and the lava inside them was gathering momentum, soon to explode into a spluttering volcano. It just needed a single matchstick to light up. And the matchstick was provided by Indira Gandhi herself,” he added.
In response, the government came down particularly hard on Anand and set up multiple hurdles during the shooting of his film, Des Pardes.
But he was fearless and spoke out on public platforms with support from fellow members of the film fraternity like Pran, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Danny Dengzongpa and Sadhana.
During a public speech at Juhu beach in Mumbai, he directly attacked Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay for their dictatorial behaviour. He even formed a political party called the National Party at the time to take on the government.
Then, of course, there was legendary actor and director Manoj Kumar, who many had initially seen as a supporter of the regime because he had managed to convince VC Shukla into clearing the epic film Sholay, despite the government’s reservations.
However, he was against the Emergency from the start and soon his opposition to it was out in the open.
“One morning, I received a call from the I&B Ministry to direct a pro-Emergency documentary written by Amrita Pritam. I point-blank refused to direct the documentary and even asked her directly if she had sold out as a writer,” he said, speaking to the Sunday Guardian.
An apologetic and ashamed Amrita Pritam asked him to burn the script.
When the time came for the release of his film, Shor, it was surprisingly telecast on Doordarshan two weeks before its scheduled release. Naturally, when the film was released in theatres, it flopped.
Another film of his, Dus Nambri, was also banned, but Kumar wasn’t going to take it anymore from the government and spent weeks challenging it in court. He eventually won the case and became the only filmmaker in the country to win a lawsuit against the Emergency.
Going beyond the likes of Dev Anand and Manoj Kumar were National Award-winning actresses like Snehalatha Reddy, who not only spoke out against the Emergency but also actively participated in the underground movement that sought to undermine the government.
She was arrested for her troubles and booked under the draconian MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act) on trumped-up charges and held without trial for eight months in Bangalore Central Jail. There, she endured inhumane conditions, torture and suffered a debilitating illness that eventually killed her five days after she was released from prison.
There were other famous film personalities like V Shantaram, Uttam Kumar, Satyajit Ray, Raaj Kumar and Gulzaar, who spoke out against the Emergency as well.
Satyajit Ray refused to accept Indira Gandhi’s request to direct a documentary on her father, Jawaharlal Nehru. Considering not just his popularity at home, but his international standing, there was no way the government was going to touch a filmmaker of Ray’s stature.
At a time when artists didn’t have multiple avenues to screen their work to massive audiences, it took real guts for a handful of them to stand up to the vindictive regime and their policies.
More than four decades later, it’s time for us to honour them once again.
A hero falls in love with the heroine. Since he crosses hurdles and challenges to ‘get’ her, her world revolves around him. In the end, he ‘rescues’ her from all worldly atrocities and they live happily ever after. Pick any film from Bollywood, decode the plot and you will see the ‘cinderella-isation.’
However, this is not to say that the glamorous industry has not witnessed path-breaking female-centric roles. There are but a few.
Smita Patil in Bhumika (1977), Rekha in Ijaazat (1987), Shabana Azmi in Fire (1996), Madhuri Dixit in Lajja (2001) and Tabu in Astitva (2002) are some of the staggering examples.
A paradigm shift was witnessed in the past decade, where filmmakers wrote meatier roles for women, celebrating womanhood. Actresses on their part also took ‘bold’ decisions (sans relying on exposing their figures) and believed that Indian audiences would accept this new wave of feminism.
Spoiler alert, here’s a look at seven such films that also went on to motivate writers to ideate and actresses to demand better roles.
Right from her entry, Vidya Balan gives you an impression of just another pregnant lady who is very careful while sitting on a chair and entering a taxi.
What one also sees is her determination to find her missing husband even if it means hacking a computer system or breaking into an old government office. It is only towards the end that the audience sees that it was she who was driving the entire narrative of the film.
As we worry about her safety from the spectacled man with a creepy smile, Mr Khan who wants to use her as a scapegoat and the serial killer on the loose, she turns out to be an agent who is out to kill the killer.
Balan’s character, the breathtaking climax and emotional ride is something that will forever be etched in Bollywood’s cinematic history.
Playing an autistic girl without being the butt of jokes and proving that a disabled character is not someone who only shouts like a ‘retard’, Priyanka Chopra Jonas delivered one her finest works in Anurag Basu’s Barfi.
The film came at a time when the industry was still male-dominant, and heroines were eager to be a part of the Rs 100-crore club. Though there are no dialogues for the then 30-year-old Priyanka in this film, her adorable yet determined expressions do the work.
Be it her love for Nanu (maternal grandfather), her affection and possessiveness towards Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor), her disgust for muck on shoes, Jhilmil comes out as a courageous figure who is ready to take on life as it comes.
Hats off to Priyanka for venturing into unknown territory with so much grace and conviction.
Rajouri-based, (a residential neighbourhood in Delhi) Rani cannot contain her excitement to get married to her love-interest Vijay (Rajkummar Rao) in the opening scene of superhit film, Queen. But little does the young bride know that her dream of being his wife will come crashing down only because Vijay thinks she is naive and uncool.
After being distressed for a couple of days, Rani (Kangana Ranaut) decides to go on her honeymoon to Europe, alone. Rani’s transformative journey on the trip is gradual but steady. Her self-confidence restores with her postponing her return ticket.
What follows is Rani dancing her heart out in a club, burping loudly, driving a car, showing her cooking skills, kissing a stranger, living with four men and finally dumping her fiance because compromising on her individuality is no more acceptable to her.
Kangana Ranaut’s character did not have to fight evils of society, go against her parents or rebel without a cause to discover her true self and shatter patriarchal norms that slide in subtly every once in a while. It was like she found her new self while retaining who she was, and this, in my opinion, is an example of brilliant character development.
Rani Mukerji gave a finesse performance in Mardaani, a film that addresses sex trafficking.
Shivani is a fearless cop who is out to bust the trafficking racket and rescue girls, one of whom happens to be her daughter’s friend. Besides being mentally strong, she is also physically fit, a trait that is very rare to find in a female character. She keeps her emotions aside when necessary and fights nasty goons.
It is amazing to see Rani in a new avatar with her no make-up look. It was indeed a bold move on her part to shed her ‘heroine’ image and carry the film on her shoulders.
Though the film leaves you with a heavy heart, it also establishes faith towards the police department and respect for female cops.
Calling out your relative for sexual harassment is never easy. So it is no wonder that many such cases of abuse and assault go unreported, all to retain the family’s prestige. Director Imtiaz Ali addressed this topic in Highway, starring then-newcomer Alia Bhatt.
After playing the glamorous student, Shanaya in Student of the Year (2012), Alia shocked everyone, including the critics, with her character Veera, in Highway. Who can forget her powerful monologue where she lets out years of suppression in front of her family!
She breaks free from the conditioning to be poised and graceful in public, and like Rani in Queen, discovers herself and feels liberated even though she is in captivity.
It is very rare to see a raging character like Veera in Indian film cinema, an industry where girls and women are all about sanskar and traditions.
Ye paani hai, ye aag hai Ye khudi likhi kitaab hai Pyaar ki khuraak si hai Piku!
This excerpt from Piku‘s title track sums up Deepika Padukone’s character in the Shoojit Sircar directorial.
An architect by profession, the C R Park resident is fierce, unapologetic, ambitious, caring, and independent. Piku may not be the definition of an ideal Indian daughter but she is certainly a daughter every father wants.
Not conforming to the principles set by others, Piku does not marry, and one of the reasons is her ‘Baba’ (played by Amitabh Bachchan). She breaks the stereotype that only a son can take care of his parents and normalises singlehood.
From praying in front of her mother’s frame every time she leaves the house to making firm decisions in her personal and professional lives, she is the perfect amalgamation of modern and traditional.
The father-daughter road trip from Delhi to Kolkata surely touched the chords of our hearts.
After giving spectacular performances in films in like Chandni Bar (2001), Astitva (2002), Maqbool (2003) and Haider (2014), Tabu proved yet again that she will always be the queen of ‘grey’ as Simi in the 2018 thriller, Andhadhun.
The film revolves around Akash (Ayushmann Khurrana) who wants to build his name as a pianist by moving out of India and playing blind. A victim of unfavourable circumstances, he comes in contact with Simi, a housewife of a yesteryear superstar.
In the turn of events, you see Tabu, a step-mother, being an accomplice to the murder of her own husband. In the next scene, she effortlessly throws her old neighbour from the building to erase suspicions. Simi then falls into a trap and is blackmailed for money by Akash, who has seen her commit the heinous crimes.
Mind you, at no point in the film, does Simi feel victimised, guilty or vulnerable.
Tabu’s flawed yet honest character is strong or at least pretends to be. With no insight into her past, one can only guess the reasons behind her not-a-single-flinch expression while killing the poor lady.
Though as an audience, we can differentiate between right and wrong, accepting Simi as the film’s antagonist is challenging. Personally, this is one Bollywood ‘villain’ that I rooted for. Writing strong and honest female characters is not a difficult task if actresses are courageous enough to play flawed characters. It is no wonder that director Sriram Raghavan kept Tabu in mind while writing the script.
“Main Khullam khulla aaj yeh izhar karta hoon…. aadmi hoon aadmi se pyaar karta hoon..”
It is a sign of evolution in Indian cinema when a popular actor and a household name like Ayushmann Khurrana openly declares his love in a popular 80s track, ‘Pyaar bina chain kaha re’.
Sporting a sparkling top with shiny bell-bottoms, the remixed song is a part of his upcoming film Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan. The film is a progressive attempt towards addressing homophobia and raising awareness on same-sex love.
Indian cinema has produced several productions revolving around the LGBTQ+ community in the past, but a majority of them have been niche, reaching a small segment of the population.
But what makes Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan significant is its attempt at bridging the gap between society and the queer community with the casting of a mainstream actor! The trailer strikes the right chord with reality where the protagonists normalise homosexuality for parents and relatives, who, in turn, dismiss same-sex love as a ‘disease’.
Here are six other Bollywood films that have portrayed homosexuality realistically:
Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga comes off as a quintessential love story packed with songs, dances, one lead actor and one lead actress set in a small town of Punjab. There is melodrama in the house as the family is convinced that Sweety (Sonam Kapoor) is in love with a Muslim guy (Rajkummar Rao).
The twist unfurls when Sweety confesses that the real ‘siyyapa’ is that is she is in love with a girl.
What follows is Sweety fighting the taboo to break society’s shackles.
Along the way, the narrative highlights the emotional trauma, including alienation, loneliness, and shame that the queer community goes through for coming out of the closet.
Hats off to the filmmakers for choosing to portray a lesbian love story in mainstream cinema, something that is rare for the silver screen.
Professor Ramchandra Siras of Aligarh Muslim University was suspended after he was caught having consensual sex with a rickshaw puller. He filed a case in the Allahabad High Court in 2010 against the suspension and won. However, days after the court verdict, he died.
Based on this true story, director Hansal Mehta came up with Aligarhin 2016, starring Manoj Bajpayee as professor Siras, and Rajkummar Rao, a journalist who brings out the professor’s story.
The film explores the ruthless discrimination in society, and what it means to be queer. It has no larger-than-life dialogues or dramatic scenes, and yet, it manages to gauge the audience with occasional silences, and a constant emphasis on how labelling everything is not necessary.
Directed by Shonali Bose, Margarita With A Straw portrays the efforts of a woman at exploring her sexual identity.
The film revolves around Laila (Kalki Koechlin), an Indian woman with cerebral palsy, who falls in love with a blind Pakistani girl (Sayani Gupta). Laila is an unapologetic teenager who refuses to be ashamed about her condition and does not accept an award for it.
She shares a close relationship with her mother so much so that she lectures her mother for invading her privacy while she is watching porn. At one point in the movie, she also confesses that she is a ‘bi’ to her mother.
Laila’s journey from being a protected teenager in Delhi to a liberated woman in New York, discovering her sexual orientation is what makes this worth a watch.
After including glimpses of homosexuality in Dostana, Student of The Year and Kapoor and Sons, Karan Johar’s short in Bombay Talkies is a brilliant effort at mirroring the reality of our society. Innumerable people are trapped in loveless marriages, living in the closet, as homosexuality is forbidden in India.
The short film stars Randeep Hooda who plays husband to Rani Mukerji. A meeting between Randeep and Saqib Saleem instantly sparks an attraction between the two who find excuses to bond with each other. The sexual tension between them eventually leads to a kissing scene post which Randeep, a middle-aged man, is left with confusion and angst.
Mukerji eventually discovers his sexual orientation and ends their marriage.
It is notable to see how Randeep, like most of the closeted people, tries to save the marriage either out of fear or society’s inability to accept homosexuality.
Set in Goa in the late-90s, My Brother Nikhil, directed by Onir, is inspired by a real-life story. Featuring Juhi Chawla (Anu), Sanjay Suri (Nikhil) and Nigel (Purab Kohli), it addresses AIDS and homosexuality in a very dignified way.
Swimming champion Nikhil is diagnosed with HIV (not because he is in a relationship with a man). On finding that he is gay and HIV positive, an array of insults follow from his parents and friends. His sister Anu and lover Nigel are the only two people who support him.
The narration deserves a special mention, which normalises a gay relationship, where the two partners fight, cry, laugh and even express jealousy. Laced with occasional humour, heart-wrenching scenes, and terrific performances, this film is relevant today.
Deepa Mehta’s Firewas way ahead of its time by exploring a relationship between two married women, “People hadn’t seen such a film — sadly, in these 20 years, hardly any films have been made on same-sex relationships. For India, it is definitely a landmark film,” Nandita Das tells Indian Express.
The Indo-Canadian drama starring Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi was opposed vehemently across the country. Several shows were disrupted and movie theatres vandalised. Finally, after an uproar from feminist organisations, the film ran without any trouble.
The story revolves around Sita (Das) and Radha (Azmi) whose husbands choose celibacy or mistresses over their wives. This leads them to form an intimate, passionate relationship amidst a close-minded society.
The intricately woven scenes showcase how subjugated women in a patriarchal society find solace in each other and eventually develop a physical relationship. The film also comments on the suppression of female sexuality where women are no more than objects to satisfy their male counterparts.
Thirty-odd years ago, an English film on the staid old Doordarshan channel (remember, it was the only one), was an event.
When the papers announced that the offering on a certain Friday evening was that classic Disney cartoon film, Jungle Book, my sister and I scarcely believed our luck. It was a late-night screening, and so permissions had to be sought in exchange for promises made (‘Yes, we will finish our homework on Saturday morning and hit the books on Sunday too!’)
And so, the three of us–my sister, an old uncle who happened to be visiting, and I–waited with bated breath for the spectacle to unfold.
When it did, it was a crushing disappointment. It wasn’t the animated feature.
This Jungle Book had real people, and a strange name rolled off the credits–Sabu! His name in capital letters appeared in a bigger font than the others that were listed below him. Clearly, he was the lead actor, something of a star even.
My sister and I were crushed. Our old uncle wasn’t. He slapped his thighs in glee and exclaimed, “Oh my god! It’s Mysore Sabu!”
My sister slunk off to catch up on her sleep. She didn’t deem Sabu worthy of keeping her up. My uncle and I watched on. I remember not being disappointed at all.
In retrospect, Sabu’s Jungle Book, a celebration of empire and colonialism, appears dated. The ‘exotic’ Indian sets and the European actors who had been ‘blackfaced’ to resemble the Indians they were portraying, belonged to a time long gone. Yet, in that overly white, racist, and condescending cinematic world of the English films of the 1930s and 40s, Sabu, the Indian boy, made his mark.
Sabu was the first Indian to ‘make it’ in Hollywood, long before Priyanka Chopra, Om Puri and Irffan Khan became noted actors in the west. Even inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Now forgotten, in his time, Sabu was the go-to actor for exotic Indian and Asian roles.
His beginnings were innocuous. He was born in 1924 in Karapur near then Mysore. Many sources cite his full name as Sabu Dastagir. But that appears to be erroneous. Selar Sabu or Selar Sheikh Sabu was his actual name. His brother, Sheikh Dastagir, went to Hollywood with him and somehow, owing to a mix-up of immigration forms, their last names got interchanged. And so, for Hollywood, he was just Sabu, his full name was never mentioned.
Sabu’s mother, it appears, died when he was young, and in 1931, his father too passed away. The six-year-old boy went on to serve in the elephant stables of the Maharaja of Mysore, and later as a mahout.
In 1934 or 1935, Robert Flaherty was in Mysore filming for Elephant Boy and spotted ten-year-old Sabu, in all likelihood, sitting on an elephant. And that’s how he was drafted into the film.
Flaherty was something of a cinematic pioneer. Among other things, he was the maker of Moana (1926), often described as the ‘first documentary’. It is likely that Elephant Boy too was intended to be a documentary, but the film’s producer, Alexander Korda, had a costume drama in mind and handed over the production to Zoltan Korda, his brother.
Elephant Boy proved a big hit, with much of the praise reserved for Sabu, described by critics as a “complete natural”.
Zoltan brought Sabu to London, filmed him with elephants borrowed from circuses and zoos, and in 1937, a very different Elephant Boy, based on a Rudyard Kipling story, hit the screens. O’Flaherty and Korda went on to share the Best Director award at the Venice Film Festival that year, and the film, while garnering mixed reviews, was a box-office success.
Sabu was on his way.
The Kordas were quick to recognise Sabu as someone who could draw crowds and signed him up for more films. The Drum, the Kordas’ first colour film, followed in 1938. In keeping with Sabu’s persona, it was again an exotic Indian offering, featuring him as Prince Azim who befriended a British lower-class drummer boy. The film sparked controversy in India as many were upset about the depiction of Indians.
In 1940, Sabu starred in The Thief of Baghdad, a lavish production. Shot in both England and the US, the movie was the Kordas’ biggest US hit and even won the Academy Awards for special effects, cinematography and art direction. Director Michael Powell said that Sabu had a “wonderful grace” about him.
Next up was The Jungle Book in 1942, shot extensively in Hollywood, also a success.
His contract with the Kordas now completed, Sabu stayed on and signed up with Universal Pictures. He was now something of a star in the industry.
He appeared opposite Maria Montez in Arabian Nights (1942), White Savage (1943), Cobra Woman (1944) and Tangier (1946). In 1944, he also became an American citizen and enlisted in the US Air Force, even flying World War II missions as tail-gunner. It was a time when most Hollywood stars were aiding the war effort. Given that it was the war, Sabu probably felt the need to affirm his identity as an American citizen. For his services, he was awarded the distinguished flying cross.
Amidst all this, it was clear that his acting career was stalling. In Tangier, he was reduced to playing a supporting role. Presumably, his typecast image of an exotic Asian man began to work against him after a while. Given his looks, he could not hope to be cast as a mainstream American character.
In 1946, Sabu went back to England and starred in Black Narcissus (1947), based on a Rumer Godden novel, in which he played a young prince. His co-star was Jean Simmons.
Another film soon followed–The End of the River (1947)–in which he was the lead star. This story was set in Brazil and Sabu played an Amazonian native, Manoel. But it performed poorly, and Sabu went back to Hollywood.
His next film, The Man-eater of Kumaon (no resemblance to the Jim Corbett book beyond the title), was released in 1948. That year, Sabu began filming The Song of India. On the sets, he met Marilyn Cooper, who played a small role in the film. Sabu and Cooper married the same year.
Given the heights that Sabu had reached in the early 1940s, the ‘50s weren’t very kind to him cinematically. By all accounts, he appears to have built a successful career in real estate in LA with his brother even as his film career waned. He continued to play the same exotic Indian/Asian roles with turban and faux jewellery in film after film, many of them low-budget European productions. There were films like Hello Elephant (1952), The Black Panther (1956) and a 1957 production entitled Sabu and the Magic Ring, all attempts to milk his typecast exotic Asian persona. He also did a brief stint with the Harringay Circus.
In the mid-50s, he came to India and was considered by Mehboob Khan to play the role of Birju in Mother India (1957), a role that ultimately went to Sunil Dutt. Some reports mention that given the fact that Sabu was a US citizen, he could not obtain a work permit in India. He was never to act in an Indian film.
In a comeback of sorts, he played Dr Lin Chor in Mistress of the World (1960) and also starred in Rampage (1963).
While there are clear issues with imperialism, orientalism and sexism in watching many of these films today, they can be viewed as products of their time and one can marvel at the Indian mahout who became the first international Indian star.
On December 2 1963, Sabu died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. According to his widow Marilyn Cooper, Sabu had a complete physical exam just a few days before his death, at which time his doctor told him, “If all my patients were as healthy as you, I’d be out of business.” Thus, his sudden death of a heart attack at the age of 39 came as even more of a shock than it would have been otherwise.
His daughter, Jasmine (born 1957), went on to have a successful cinematic career as an animal trainer, dying young in 2001. His son, Paul (born 1960), embarked on a successful music career, working with David Bowie and Madonna, among others.
For his 2020 calendar collection, G Venket Ram, a Chennai-based photographer, roped in twelve famous personalities from the southern film and dance industries and adapted masterpieces by Raja Ravi Varma into photographs.
Featuring Shruti Hassan, Samantha Akkineni, Ramya Krishnan, Shobhana and Lissy Lakshmi, the exquisite photographs which recreate iconic paintings like ‘Woman Holding A Fruit,’ ‘There Comes Papa,’ or ‘The Maharashtrian Lady,’ have left viewers in awe.
While the actors look resplendent, and the photoshoot was no-doubt meticulous, its interesting to note that Ravi Varma’s connection with films can be traced way back in the pages of history, with another stalwart—Dadasaheb Phalke.
In a way, Varma was the unsung hero behind India’s first film Raja Harishchandra. We took a walk down the memory lane to resurrect the untold story!
A trusted employee and companion
In 1894, Ravi Varma was at the peak of his popularity. For the first time in the country, perhaps, a painter’s art was no more restricted within the four walls of his studio and his closely-knitted circle of connoisseurs.
Varma’s paintings of Hindu goddesses were replicated in bulk and worshipped at almost every Hindu household, especially in South India.
From advertisement pamphlets to high-end exhibitions— his works unbridled entry everywhere in the daily life of an average Indian.
It was at this juncture that he decided to make his art further ubiquitous, and set sail towards Bombay (Mumbai). At Ghatkopar, he established a press which used oleography and lithography for mass printing of his paintings. At that time, his press happened to be one of the most innovative in India, featuring a horde of cutting-edge machines.
A young photographer named Dhundiraj Govind Phalke was one of Varma’s most trusted employees at the press when it came to perfecting the craft of photo-litho transfers of his art. Gradually, Phalke became one of his most trusted companions.
Ravi Varma’s generous gesture
Unfortunately, tragedy struck in the form of Bombay’s infamous plague epidemic at the turn of the century that claimed over millions of lives, including that of Raja Varma, Ravi Varma’s brother, who was managing the press.
His beloved brother’s death devastated Ravi Varma, and his printing business went downhill. Finally, the press was sold to Fritz Schleicher, the German technician associated with the company for supplying their machinery.
After selling the property, Ravi Varma decided to offer Phalke, his favourite employee, a considerable share of the sales proceedings. He was well-aware of Phalke’s dream to work on movie-making and provided the necessary support, both financially and morally.
Dadasaheb Phalke
Ravi Varma’s influence on Phalke’s filmmaking
On 3rd May 1913, Raja Harishchandra, India’s first full-length feature film directed by Phalke, was released at Coronation Cinema in Mumbai. For the first time, the Indian audience witnessed the magic of the motion picture.
Its impact was tremendous—Phalke went on to become Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, and the film is considered by many to be the foundation for the film industry in the country.
It is argued that Ravi Varma’s grand gesture helped Phalke produce his dream project, and film historians have continuously reiterated the unmistakable influence of Varma’s paintings in Phalke’s movies.
From lightings to set decor, the mythical characters in Phalke’s movies often resembled Varma’s paintings. In fact, Raja Harishchandra opens with tableau, which is most probably inspired by Ravi Varma’s portrait of a king with his wife and son.
Phalke remained an ardent enthusiast of Raja Ravi Varma till his last day. The amalgamation of their creative geniuses gifted India with some of the best pieces of art till date.
Last month, a friend of mine from Assam who is a cinephile, shared an interesting video clip of a young man exhibiting an array of martial arts skills on the sets of the period drama ‘Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior’ released earlier this year.
Playing star actor Saif Ali Khan’s stunt double in the film, the young man in question was flawless in his presentation. Further research revealed that he is Montu Deuri, a martial artist and actor from the Nam Deuri village in Assam’s Jorhat district.
Deuri, who is 23, has featured in multiple Assamese (Suspended Inspector Boro and Local Kung Fu 2) and Hindi movies (Saaho, Mardaani 2, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota).
Before a career in the film industry, however, Montu, who is Black Belt First Dan in Taekwondo, was a national-level fighter winning multiple gold medals in domestic tournaments. He is also a Red Mongkol in Muay Thai and expert practitioner of Kung Fu.
With not enough money in sports, he decided to take the plunge in Assamese cinema. But this choice wasn’t borne out of desperation. It came from a genuine love of action films.
“I never thought that one day I would work on a Bollywood set performing martial arts. Growing up, I loved watching action films like the cult hit ‘Tom Yum Goong’ starring the legendary Tony Jaa. Of course, Jackie Chan is another favourite, but Tony Jaa was the ultimate action hero for me,” says Montu, to The Better India.
Montu Deuri
Love for the game
Coming from a rural agrarian family living deep in the Brahmaputra Valley, his parents and relatives were initially dead against the idea of learning martial arts. But his determination to learn never wavered.
“My family only had a bicycle, which my father would use to transport crops to the local market. After school, I would cycle 20 km to Jorhat city, and travel back home for the same distance. My friends and I managed to keep this a secret from my family for months, but eventually, they found out. There were days when I would not get the cycle because of my father’s work, so I’d ask my uncles to lend their cycles to me. They would scold me, but eventually give in,” he recalls.
It was in Class 9 when he began learning Kung Fu under the tutelage of Abinash Baruah, an instructor at the local Manchuria Kung Fu Academy in Jorhat, who was kind enough to let Montu learn for free because he knew how long he had travelled and the effort it took.
After more than three years of learning Kung Fu, he transitioned to Taekwondo, where he earned his stripes as a (first dan) Black Belt certified by the Kukkiwon, which is also known as World Taekwondo Headquarters, in South Korea. He needed it to compete at the Nationals.
Winning medals at the Nationals brought him much fame back in his home village with his photograph appearing in the local newspaper, but no money. Calling it a “challenging time” in his life, he decided to pursue his passion for martial arts, learning Muay Thai from Rakesh Meitei, a Manipuri, who in 1999 became the sport’s first Indian instructor.
It has been nearly nine years since Montu first began learning martial arts. Despite participating in a few privately organised tournaments and earning anywhere between Rs 10,000-Rs 20,000 in each one, he admits to having taken a lot of beating.
But what attracts him to these combat disciplines despite the real threat of serious injury?
“What I love about martial arts is understanding the craft and technique behind the fighting. There is so much untapped knowledge in these disciplines. You not only learn about fighting, which I love but also about yourself. Moreover, a dedication to learning martial arts brings discipline to your life,” he says.
High flying Montu Deuri
Transition to cinema
“I seriously began considering a career in films after the release of popular Assamese film ‘Local Kung Fu’ directed by Mumbai-based filmmaker Kenny Basumatary, which was released in September 2013. Seeing other actors from my home state performing fight sequences on screen, I thought ‘this is something I can do as well,’” recalls Montu.
Nearly a year later, his cousin, who lived 300 km away in Guwahati, called him for an informal gathering of martial arts enthusiasts and practitioners in the city. There, Montu found an opportunity to demonstrate his unique skill set, and present at this get together was Utkal Hazowary, an Assamese actor and professional martial artist who had acted in Local Kung Fu.
Suffice it to say; he was impressed by what he saw.
“He took my phone number and a demo video I had made showing my skills and forwarded it with my contact details to Kenny Sir. One evening at home, I received a call from him asking me to come to Guwahati and make a short fight video. I was so excited at the prospect of meeting him that I arrived in Guwahati three days before the scheduled meeting in October 2015 and stayed with a friend,” he says.
After they shot the video, Montu returned home again to further his training in Muay Thai. Nearly a year after that shot film, Kenny gave Montu his first big break with a role in ‘Local Kung Fu 2’, the sequel and an action adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.
The movie changed his life. Receiving a great response from cinema-goers all over the state, Montu had finally realised his dream of appearing on the silver screen.
“When I saw the demo clip, I understood he had some real fighting chops. When I met Montu in Guwahati, we shot a short fight video just to see how he would do. Initially, he was very stiff and shy. So, I called him again and reshot that video. When I came back and started working on my film Local Kung Fu 2, his confidence had dramatically increased. He was much better on the screen, so we cast him as one of the main villains in Local Kung Fu 2,” says Basumatary, to The Better India.
Since then, Montu has gone onto work with Kenny in the 2018 release Suspended Inspector Boro and has recently concluded shooting for Local Utpaat. “Kenny Sir has been a real mentor without whom I would have never found work in Assamese films, never come to Mumbai and do the things I love. He has played a massive role in shaping my career, offering me financial help and emotional support whenever I needed it,” remarks Montu.
The top notch fighter!
Bollywood Dreams
Sometime in December 2017, a few months after the release of Local Kung Fu 2, Montu visited Mumbai for the first time with Kenny.
“I took him to Mumbai because for someone with his talent there are more opportunities there than in Assam,” says Kenny.
Montu lived with Kenny and for two months gave martial arts training lessons to other aspiring artists before landing a minor gig doing stunt work with Bollywood actor Varun Dhawan for an awards ceremony.
“But one day, I got a call from Kenny Sir’s assistant telling me about an audition for a movie called Mard Ko Dar Nahi Hota Hai. I auditioned and landed a small part in it as a fighter. It was my first screen appearance in a Bollywood film. Following this movie, I worked in Saaho again as a side fighter finding screen time and in Mardaani 2 before landing a role as Saif Ali Khan’s stunt body double in Tanhaji. But beyond playing his stunt double, I was also given work training the fighters in this film,” he says.
He even got a call to work in ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’, but at the time his schedule was full working on Suspended Inspector Boro. Nonetheless, Montu admits that at no point in his life before leaving Assam did he ever think that one day he would play the stunt double of a popular Bollywood actor and even give him cues on set.
“There is no question Montu is a proper fighter. His talent is world-class. He is as good as the famed Tony Jaa. As a trained fighter, his body language is correct and perfect for fighting. I have learnt a lot from him also. After training with him, my footwork, overall body posture and movements have become much better,” says Kenny.
But screen fighting is very different from real-life fighting.
“On screen, you need to exaggerate your movements a little bit and do all your punches and kicks from a safe distance or in a controlled manner so that nobody gets hurt. Finally, your reactions to getting hit have to be very good. This is why even for small villain-type roles, we never take anybody off the cuff. We always audition them and check out their reactions. Only if their ‘getting hit’ reactions are good, we take them because it makes a massive difference to the scene,” argues Kenny.
“Montu has all these qualities. He is a real-life fighter, very good on screen, and his reactions have been very good since day one. He is the complete package. Besides, he is very creative when it comes to fight movements, fight choreography and shot taking. Often, he comes up with some brilliant ideas. He is made for this stuff,” he adds.
Learning & Growing
“Working on Tanhaji was an incredible experience. I learnt so much from those on set, particularly from the German technicians who choreographed some of the massive fight sequences with sword fighting in the climax. I picked up a few skills along the way about action choreography, filmmaking and directing. I also learnt so much from director Om Raut, who looked out for me. He helped me obtain a membership card from the Movie Stunt Artists Association, without which I couldn’t perform stunts on set,” he says.
Besides playing Saif’s body double, Montu would also walk him through some of the stunts he needed to do. However, the high-risk stunts or those Saif couldn’t do, were left to Montu.
For an eight-hour gig as a stunt double, he received around Rs 10,000 per day. As a martial arts trainer, he earned about Rs 1 lakh per month. The agreement Montu signed was for eight months. While he earned a decent sum working in the film, there remained a serious risk of injury with broken bones and fractures.
But on big-budget sets like Tanhaji, Montu claims that medical expenses borne out of any injury on set was handled by the production team.
“Besides injuries, there is always some tension about not getting regular work as well. But with my training and skill set, I am confident that it will not be a problem. Yes, I do hope that one day I land a lead role using my skills in martial arts. For the time being, such opportunities are hard to come by in this regard, but there is no harm in dreaming,” he says.
Kenny also believes that Montu is lead man material.
“He is definitely a leading man material. What we need to do is find someone with the right kind of finances to back a project worthy of his skill level. There is a Cambodian film called Jailbreak. That’s not a very high budget film, but from start to finish it is one fight sequence after another with a few breaks in between. That film is almost shot entirely in one location. If we could do something at that level here in India, Montu would be great at it,” he says.
A few weeks ago, I watched ‘Bulbul Can Sing’, a coming-of-age film directed by Rima Das, about three teenage friends—Bulbul, Bonnie and Suman—and how they navigate love, life, friendship, questions of their sexual identity and an overbearing society.
Akin to her previous work ‘Village Rockstars’, which won the National Award for Best Film and became India’s official entry for the Oscars in 2018, ‘Bulbul Can Sing’ is rooted in the daily rhythms of rural life, and is an incredibly heartfelt and spell-binding take of what it means to grow up.
My favourite sequence comes at the very end when Bulbul and Bonnie’s mother, who is grieving her daughter’s suicide, are alone together on the banks of the Brahmaputra, as the sun sets and its rays pierce through the darkened clouds gathered above them.
Seeing Bulbul despondent, Bonnie’s mother says, “Don’t worry. If you listen to people, your life will be ruined. Do what your heart says.”
What follows is the appearance of a beautiful rainbow.
Speaking to The Better India, Rima (38) describes the process of filming this sequence.
“The place is about 15 km from Chhaygaon, my native village. It was a miracle that this scene even happened. It was a sunny day when we reached there, but soon after, it became very windy and cloudy, and we thought it was going to rain. But the weather changed, and magically a rainbow appeared. Nature came to our rescue,” she says.
This sequence encapsulates nearly everything I love about Village Rockstars, and Bulbul Can Sing.
In both films, the camera beautifully captures the bucolic landscape of rural Assam. There are lingering shots of ponds, trees, leaves, grass, paddy fields, the sunshine sparkling through the clouds, village homes and evocative close-up shots of people who inhabit this picturesque land.
“There is no storyboard, and through these shots, I was simply observing life,” she says rather nonchalantly.
However, what augments the aesthetics of these shots is the emotion it expresses—hope. After a series of tragedies induced by an overbearing society through the second half of the film that ravages the life of the main protagonists, what we witness is the defiance of two women worst affected—Bulbul and Bonnie’s mother.
Despite losing her child thanks to the fallout of another incident that involved Bulbul, both characters are brought together by love, empathy and finally defiance when Bonnie’s mother says, “Do what your heart says.”
The appearance of a rainbow right after that dialogue reaffirms that hope.
Poster for Bulbul Can Sing. You can now watch the film on Netflix. (Image Courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Hope is also an ever-present theme in Village Rockstars, which centres on 10-year-old Dhunu harbouring dreams of starting a rock band with her friends despite living in poverty.
While we see Dhunu fashioning a guitar out of waste styrofoam in the early sequences of the movie, it closes with her strumming an actual acoustic guitar that her mother has gifted her, out under a setting sun on the paddy field. Surrounding Dhunu are her friends who can’t hide their joy.
Village Rockstars Poster. You can now watch the film on Netflix. (Image courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Hope & Bridging The Generational Gap
In Bulbul Can Sing, what I found was a story-telling process that was quiet, restrained and gentle. The first half is free-flowing because that’s how life is, according to Rima.
“When you’re free, everything is beautiful. But in the second half, society enters their lives through a moral police squad and villagers who deem Bulbul and Bonnie’s budding romance with their lovers as ‘immoral’, and suddenly their life changes. That’s why the first half of the film is full of life, and suddenly it changes track in the second half because it’s not about what these young people believe, but what other people in society think and how they impose their thoughts,” says Rima.
In some ways, she admits that it is a reflection of what she observed while growing up in school, college and in her personal life.
“I had initially intended for Bulbul Can Sing to be a love story. But this changed because of an incident I had heard about in a nearby school where three girls were rusticated. I realized nothing much had changed from the time I had grown up with respect to moral policing except now that they have an additional instrument in the form of social media. When I saw the video of them (the girls) being shared on WhatsApp groups, I felt a deep sense of sadness. That’s when I changed the story of Bulbul,” she recalls.
I was initially unsure about Suman’s character, but once the narrative changed, his character developed. He is the only one among the cast who is that way in real life. His family treats him as a boy, but he suffers taunts from people in the village and school for embracing his feminine side.
Similarly, Dhunu in Village Rockstars also subverts gendered expectations and norms by playing with boys her age and climbing trees. Despite taunts from others in the village which her mother wards off, her spirit remains unencumbered.
“There is definitely a gap between young people and adults, which is increasing. The older generation needs to understand how the young see their world, and young people must understand how the older generation thinks. Although I do have a viewpoint, at no point am I trying to put too much of myself and message out there, but leave it open to the audience to find their meaning in my work,” she says.
I was struck by how hope in both films seemingly rests in the hands of women or in the case of Bulbul Can Sing also in men embracing their feminine side.
Shillong-based filmmaker Dominic Sangma, whose second feature film ‘Rapture’ made its way to Cannes last year, feels the same way.
“When I watched Village Rockstars, I was completely blown away by her style. Rima Das is an important voice not only from the Northeast but India as well. As a filmmaker, her natural ability to observe life and capture its fine nuances on screen is remarkable. She innately seems to understand how people react to certain situations in life and manages to recreate it on-screen perfectly,” he says.
Her films capture the daily rhythms of rural life. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Employing non-actors to evoke life on screen
Both films heavily employ first-time actors on screen. In Village Rockstars, the cast is entirely made up of non-actors from her native village of Chhaygaon in Assam’s Kamrup district, including Dhunu, who is Rima’s cousin.
Similarly, Bulbul Can Sing also introduces three new faces on screen—Arnali Das as Bulbul, Banita Thakuriya as Bonnie and Manoranjan Das as Suman.
Except for Pakija Begum, who plays Bonnie’s mother, the entire cast comprises non-professional actors.
“It’s remarkable how she handles non-actors and brings such powerful performances out of them. As a filmmaker, you need to create a certain environment around your set to evoke such performances on screen. This is something I want to learn from her. Despite its simplicity, there is also an element of genius in how she writes for a film. It’s not easy for the non-seasoned actors to articulate, but the dialogues just flow so seamlessly. The best part of Rima’s films is that nothing seems written on a piece of paper or contrived or set to a script. The words just reveal themselves on screen,” says Dominic.
Working with children and non-seasoned actors. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
When I asked Rima how she selects her cast, she said that it is a very spontaneous, authentic and organic process.
“Sometimes, I just went with my gut feeling and instinct to cast all the characters. For both films, I did not take any auditions. In essence, this was an exploratory journey. It was not at all a stressful process. They were just there, and all I needed to do was recognize them,” she informs.
Rima has had significant acting experience in the past. Unable to relate to certain scripts, she would feel stuck performing them. That’s why, during her filmmaking process, she tries to make her actors comfortable, confident and give them easy lines to perform.
“When I write dialogues, I say them aloud to myself, emote, and understand whether these lines are easy to articulate or not. For both films, the only crew member I had was my cousin Mallika Das, and so we had enough time. My films didn’t have regular shoots, where things had to be done on a specific deadline or in a hurry. If I am telling a story of children or teenagers, you have to know them well. You cannot make something superficial,” she says.
She also notes that working with non-seasoned actors gives her greater freedom as a filmmaker. In her first feature film Antardrishti (Man With The Binoculars’), she worked with seasoned and professional actors.
“See, there are different limitations and strengths of working with seasoned and first-time actors as well. But it wasn’t a conscious decision to cast non-actors in my films. It was a spontaneous process. When I made my first short film working with non-actors in 2009, I knew nothing about anything as a filmmaker. I hadn’t even seen a close reel camera or even touched it before. When I met children in my village, I just started and didn’t approach them as actors or non-actors. But for films like Village Rockstars, it was also intentional in a way because I knew that making it would take time. I needed that liberty as a filmmaker. If you cast professional actors, they have other projects, limited time and so on. No such limitations working with non-actors in my village,” informs Rima.
With Bulbul Can Sing as well, it was not a deliberate move to cast non-actors except Pakija Begum. Despite limited screen time, Pakija was brought in to play this role because Rima needed an actor that she could push to express certain difficult emotions.
“I could not pick someone from my village and push them. With seasoned actors, they know tricks of the trade and can work towards those emotions at a personal level. I wanted an actor with depth. For example, that scene with Bonnie’s mother and Bulbul, I wanted someone who had experienced life and said those lines with conviction. With non-actors, I have to put in a lot of effort,” she says.
Nonetheless, shooting Bulbul Can Sing was difficult because of the massive success that came with Village Rockstars. She had started shooting the film towards the end of shooting Village Rockstars. Before the latter premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and exploded on the international scene, she had already started shooting Bulbul Can Sing.
Moreover, both films were primarily shot in Chhaygaon, and it was a challenge to ensure both films didn’t look similar. Although for Bulbul Can Sing, she did some shooting in nearby villages, ‘80 per cent’ of it was done in the same location where Village Rockstars happened.
Last year, Rima Das made her appearance as a panelist at the ‘India Pavilion’ of the Cannes film festival. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
A Self-Taught Filmmaker Who Is Changing The Game
How she managed to elicit such brilliant performances out of first-time actors has a lot to do with her incredible journey into filmmaking. Growing up in Chhaygaon, Rima harboured dreams of becoming an actor.
Despite clearing her National Eligibility Test (NET) after her Masters in Sociology at Pune University, she moved to Mumbai during the early 2000s to pursue that dream.
The dream was big, but even reaching a casting director was a lot of trouble, particularly without the internet. She recalls being innocent and naive about the business of filmmaking in Mumbai.
“During school and college in Assam, I did very well as an actor. When I ended up in Mumbai, however, I missed that spontaneity and fear began to rule me. I did some acting workshops in Mumbai and some theatre too, but through the process, I remember thinking to myself, I used to be a good actor. How did I become so conscious of myself?” she recalls.
Till 2013, Rima was one among many struggling actors in Mumbai. She was offered bit roles, but they were so inconsequential that she couldn’t even recall them herself. The dream of becoming a film star was beyond reach.
“I realized that it was hard to get roles. Instead of seeking them out, I decided to make my own movies and act in them as well. That was my plan. But when I made my first feature film Antardrishti (Man With The Binoculars), which was shot with a Canon DSLR camera in Kalardiya near Chhaygaon, it was so difficult to do both. I wasn’t happy at all with the results. I believe my film suffered because I wanted to act in it myself. I couldn’t completely focus on both aspects working with a very small crew. Until my first film, acting was a priority, but then my focus shifted completely towards making films,” she recalls.
Direction was easier for Rima because she had bought a camera, which she calls “my weapon,” and didn’t have to depend on anyone to make her movies.
“Rima has also completely changed the way we look at filmmaking as well. I’m a film school graduate, and we are trained to look at it like a collaborative process—we depend on others to fulfil certain aspects like editing, costume designing, screenwriting and producing. But she does everything from writing the script to directing, camera work and costume designing to editing all by herself. She has made filmmaking such a personal endeavour,” says Dominic.
The process of making a film is a deeply personal endeavour. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Rima says that this is because she did not know how to separate each of these roles or that she needed to hire someone different to manage each of these tasks.
“As I did not go to a film school, I saw making films as a whole. It was not like I shouldn’t do casting, writing screenplays, doing camera work, editing or doing art direction. I didn’t see making movies like it. When I watched films, I saw all these elements coming together to create one overall experience,” she says.
Fortunately, her first film, Antardrishti, was very well received on the international film festival circuit with screenings at the Mumbai Film Festival and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia in 2016, besides winning a couple of state awards. What this initial success did was give her hope that she was going in the right direction.
“With Antardrishti, I had to hurry things because of the limited budget, small crew and financial circumstances. However, with films like Village Rockstars, I had the liberty that I didn’t have earlier. Sometimes, I would be on location, and there was no shooting because certain things weren’t happening. So, the process of casting and the close bond I established with the actors in a deeply personal work helped me. These films are a reflection of myself,” she says.
It took her three years to make Village Rockstars—she started shooting in 2014, and the film premiered in 2017. Shooting for Bulbul Can Sing began in 2017. In three years, she premiered Man With The Binoculars (2016), Village Rockstars (2017) and Bulbul Can Sing (2018).
Her films are travelling the world on the film festival circuit. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
Influences & Acclaim
“When I watched Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali in 2007, it made me believe that this is how you can also make movies. Growing up, making films didn’t feel like a realistic objective since I had known commercial cinema to be too big and expensive with massive budgets. I never thought I would make movies and it wasn’t a realistic dream for me,” she says.
But watching films by the likes of Ray, Federico Fellini, Majid Majidi, Ingrid Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky and Wong Kar Wai, amongst others, helped her realize that she can one day go back to her village and make films steeped in realism; and that they need not necessarily have dance sequences, songs, or a big budget.
Influenced by such auteurs, it’s no surprise that her films have a non-linear plot.
“As I grew up, I stopped enjoying linear films, where I know where the story is leading me. I like non-linear films that surprise you,” she says.
And who would have thought that one day, films with non-linear storylines, shot in rural Assam by a self-taught filmmaker could take Indian cinema to the world?
“We don’t make films for ourselves. We need an audience to watch them and connect with us. It’s the ultimate goal for any filmmaker. I saw a Rima before Village Rockstars, who was also unsure about herself and her work. But great films will find their way to a large audience and people will accept it commercially as well. She even broke away from the norms of approaching sales agents, distribution and did it all by herself. People today want to watch her films after Village Rockstars because she has become a global name,” says Dominic.
She recalls dealing with all the praise that came with her films. “It was madness,” she says, recalling the innumerable interviews, award functions, film festivals, and speaking events, particularly in her home state after Village Rockstars, which became the first Assamese film to win the National Award for Best Feature Film in 30 years.
It has been a remarkable personal journey for Rima Das. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Rima Das)
“My phone is still like a public telephone, but I cannot switch it off or change numbers because these films are my babies. I need to take care of them,” she laughs.
But she also acknowledges what the global acclaim has done for her.
“Whoever survives, they are heroes. Hope is what keeps us moving forward. In my life, I have gone through many hardships, and I consider myself a survivor. That’s why Bulbul Can Sing is also a metaphor. Although Bonnie was a better singer, Bulbul sings her life song because she survived with whatever happened. My work is a reflection of life. I remember in difficult times, when I thought there was nothing left in my life, only songs, movies and books helped me overcome my troubles. For anyone who watches my films, I hope some moments can help and motivate them, but more importantly, make them feel something. It’s not that I want to send a definitive message, but I want people to look forward to life,” she says.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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If you are a resident of Mumbai and a Bollywood fan, then Bandra might be one of your favourite go-to spots in the city.
Apart from housing the Khan trio – Shah Rukh, Amir and Salman Khan and multiple people from the film fraternity – Bandra is also known for its stunning murals of Bollywood actors.
From the 230-foot mural of Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic look from Deewar near Mount Mary, Dadasaheb Phalke’s mural on the MTNL building that can be spotted from Bandra-Worli Sea Link to the latest one of late actor Irrfan Khan in the bylanes of Waroda Road, fans are often spotted taking selfies with eye-catching murals.
Ranjit Dahiya, from Sonipat, Haryana, is the artist behind Bollywood murals. Bringing alive movie stills or pictures of actors, he attempts to deepen Mumbai’s association with Bollywood.
Ranjit Dahiya
“In 2009, when I moved to Mumbai I was disappointed with the ‘filmy’ city. I had imagined visible differences between Mumbai and other cities of India. Instead of posters of celebrities, all I could see was pollution and cramped buildings. That was my triggering point. Through street art, I decided to bring the celluloid world closer to commoners like me,” Ranjit tells The Better India.
Ranjit started his painting career as a whitewasher at the age of 16; did his Masters in Graphic Design from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He worked at a couple of companies as a graphic and interface designer before committing to street art in 2012.
Love for Street Art & Bollywood
Alongside a 9-5 job, Ranjit would often go around with his other artists in Bandra to practice street art.
This is how he landed his first stint to recreate a film poster for a film festival in Paris. He made a huge wall painting for the film Sarkar Raj in 2010. This was Ranjit’s breakthrough in street art.
Two years later, he started his venture Bollywood Art Project (BAP) to transform the city into a Bollywood memorial. He also took up freelancing projects for additional income.
Being a huge fan of Bollywood movies, it was difficult for Ranjit to choose his first-ever mural, “From Sridevi, Smita Patil, to Rishi Kapoor, I wanted to draw all of them at once. But then, finally, I chose Anarkali from Mughal-e-Azam. When I saw the movie in colour, I couldn’t take my eyes off the gorgeous Madhubala. I took permission from a 2-storey building on Chappel road and there was my first mural,” he shares.
Since then, Ranjit has made close to 50 murals across multiple cities including Delhi and Chennai and even in the United States, in South Carolina. His list boasts of actors like Nadira, Sridevi, Rajesh Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Saira Banu, Amrish Puri, Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Smita Patil and so on. One of his favourite paintings is a still from Pyaasa of Guru Dutt and Waheeda Rehman.
Ranjit spends anything between Rs 40,000 to 20 lakh on the paints, labour, food etc per painting.
Though there are no monetary returns, what keeps him going?
“My love for cinema,” he quips. “I save every penny I can and sometimes when I am lucky, I get sponsorships. More than money, it is the love and appreciation for my art that excites me to paint a mural. As a whitewasher, I had never imagined that I would meet Nawazuddin Siddiqui one day.”
Ranjit has over a hundred names in his list of actors and movie stills that he wishes to paint, including his favourite actors, Raj Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan, “I hope to meet Shah Rukh one day, not as a fan, but as an accomplished artist. That would be a proud moment for me.”
Vikramaditya Motwane’s stunning directorial debut, Udaan (2010) played a significant role in rejuvenating the spirit of realism of Hindi cinema.
Produced by Anurag Kashyap, this landmark coming-of-age film set in the steel city of Jamshedpur, chronicles the life of Rohan Singh, a teenager with a talent for poetry, who successfully rebels against his dictatorial and often ruthless father.
It’s a film about love, loss, aspiration, friendship, brotherhood, rebellion, and more importantly, the spirit of freedom.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of a film which captured the imagination of millions. Speaking to The Better India, Rajat Barmecha (31), who played the role of Rohan (it was his debut film) looks back at the journey towards the role of a lifetime, and after.
Getting the part
Born on 24 April 1989 in Ladnun, a village in Rajasthan, Rajat grew up and went to school in the national capital, where his father ran a business.
“Bollywood ruled the Barmecha household, and my father is responsible for my inclination towards acting and cinema. When my brother, sister, and I were little, he took us to watch films in the cinema hall every weekend. He has continued the practice till this day, and watches practically every new release,” recalls Rajat.
Rajat was barely 18 when he arrived in Mumbai to fulfill his life-long dream of becoming a Bollywood star. For around a year and a half, he found work appearing in a series of TV commercials before hearing about auditions for an Anurag Kashyap film from his elder brother Vicky, and a friend.
Looking for someone to play a high school boy, the casting team had initially chosen not to even take Rajat’s audition since his ‘look’ at the time didn’t suit the role. A fortnight later, however, he received a call back from the casting team, who told him that Vikramaditya Motwane, the film’s director, wanted him to give a screen test.
“The first screen test I gave for Udaan, in 2009, was awful. But there was something Vikram liked about me and asked to meet me in person. At the time, Vikram used to work out of filmmaker Nikhil Advani’s office. I met him there, had a small chat, and we really got along. After that, he asked me to give a few more screen tests. One day, we worked on some scenes for four-five hours. Finally, I did two scenes that Vikram really liked. After performing these two scenes, I was regularly called to Anurag’s office,” recalls Rajat.
There, Rajat would spend quality time with Anurag, Vikram, his wife Ishika, and the rest of the film’s cast and crew. They would ask him to read poems, listen to music, but he still didn’t know whether he got the part. One fine day, Vikram called him for a walk in and around the Aram Nagar area. There, he confirmed his part in the film.
While Rajat’s desire to become an actor was driven initially by a fascination with the Hindi film industry and the name, fame and money associated with being a big star, working with Vikram and Anurag had a massive influence on changing the way he approached cinema.
“For a newcomer in the film industry without any personal connections, all you know about cinema is what you see on screen, but you know nothing about the technicalities or the craft. Vikram changed all that for me. He is my acting and filmmaking school—in fact, my entire foundation as an actor rests on what I learnt from him. When we were shooting Udaan, if I had any doubts about the process, Vikram would patiently answer them after work was over for the day. I haven’t attended a single acting workshop, or received any formal training of any sort, and when people praise me for being a natural performer on screen, I give all the credit to him because he taught me how to do that. Today, whenever I meet any other director, I always compare that person to him,” he says.
Rajat Barmecha (Photo courtesy Nirali Shah)
Shooting for Udaan
Besides working with such a stellar filmmaker, Rajat also shared the screen with two legends of Indian television in Ronit Roy, who plays his abrasive father, and Ram Kapoor, the benevolent uncle. It was an experience he cherishes till this day.
‘I loved working with both of them and they were extremely kind to me. It was my first film and those two were legends in Indian television. But they never made me feel as if I was a young guy just starting out. The entire cast and crew of Udaan felt like a family. There was no hierarchy. I remember there was only one Cafe Coffee Day in Jamshedpur at the time, which was right under the hotel where we were staying. Whenever a break day came, we would all chill together at CCD or at the hotel. It was like a family getting together every day,” he says.
As actors, Rajat feels that Ram and Ronit are very different.
“Ram is someone who knows his lines so well and in detail that he would not even miss a word. On the other hand, although Ronit knows his lines, he improvises on screen. He is very spontaneous. I have ended up becoming more like Ronit because I don’t remember my lines too well, but improvise and understand the feel that is required to emote them. Vikram was never crazy about us actors sticking to our lines. For him, it was about getting the emotion and feel right,” recalls Rajat.
Made with a budget of Rs 3 crore, Udaan released on 16 July 2010, to rave reviews, capturing the imagination of everyone in the film industry and the entertainment media. Whoever he met during parties and award functions, including the likes of Amitabh Bachhan and Karan Johar, heaped praise on his performance.
After an impressive debut, however, Rajat completely went under the radar. Apart from a cameo in Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitan (2011) and a series of short films, including the National Film Award-winning The Finish Line (2011) directed by Akshay Roy of Meri Pyaari Bindu (2017) fame, we didn’t see much of him.
When asked this question, he talks about the paucity of quality scripts and roles that came before him.
“The offers I got post Udaan were similar to the film, and the scripts weren’t interesting enough. Also, I didn’t get that many offers from big directors as well because I was much younger at the time and wasn’t a star in the conventional sense. Whatever the script, all producers needed was a star. That dynamic still exists, but it’s much better today. Today you have Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who can play the lead actor. Back then, it wasn’t possible,” he says.
Was it just a question of bad timing that he didn’t get the sort of roles he was looking for since Hindi cinema at the time was primarily driven by star power and big budgets?
Today, actors like Ayushmann Khurrana, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar and Kangana Ranaut are telling stories with tighter scripts and great attention to characterisation that are steeped in realism. Their films are telling stories from beyond the metropolises, of a small-town and rural India, and they are doing well commercially.
If Udaan had released in say 2015 or 2020, one can make the argument that it could have been a bigger hit, and thus opened more doors for actors like Rajat.
But it’s an argument he rejects straightaway, and approaches this question very differently.
Rajat Barmecha (Photo courtesy Nirali Shah)
“Yes, it’s a much better time for smaller films today. If Udaan had been released in 2005, it would have been a disaster. No one would have seen it. However, had it been released in 2015, I would not have been able to play that role because of my age. So, I believe that 2010 was the perfect year for the film to release. Hindi cinema was changing and Udaan was one of the films that catapulted that change. It was a Rs 3 crore film that went to the Cannes film festival and received such widespread love and acclaim. I was also at the right age when I played that character. Maybe in 2015, it would have been a bigger hit, but I wouldn’t have been the person to play that role. Everything happens for a reason and the timing for Udaan was perfect. I have no complaints there,” he argues.
However, he also notes that It depends on how you are launched as an actor. Getting launched by big banner production houses, he admits, helps land more roles. Having said that, Rajat is adamant that he wouldn’t change a thing. If he had to do it all over again, he would still choose to do Udaan as his debut film.
Udaan Film Poster
Life changing moment
Five years ago, Rajat’s life changed completely because of two reasons. The first was watching the 2007 film ‘Into The Wild,’ which is based on a book of the same name by Jon Krakauer, and narrates the story of a young graduate, who decides to renounce all his possessions and hitchhike across America.
The second was the emergence of the web series format and OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Viu.
“Sometime in 2015-16, my entire perspective towards life changed. Before, I was heavily caught up in work and materialistic things. But that changed when I watched ‘Into The Wild’. It inspired me deeply, and got me into travelling and backpacking. At the same time, the web series scene in India started to pick up. In 2016, I starred in a Hindi web series called ‘Girl in The City’ followed by a few more projects. It was a good space for an actor like me. Those who were making films were the same people who were making web series. The quality was more or less the same, but it was just on a different medium,” he says.
Last year, he acted in a show called ‘Hey Prabhu’ directed by Shashank Ghosh, who had previously made ‘Veere Di Wedding’. In the show, he plays a social media star with a massive fan following online, who one day discovers that he has erectile dysfunction.
“With the advent of streaming and OTT platforms, I am definitely getting better projects. Besides, during the lockdown I wrote my first feature film script. I want this to be a Netflix original. Before I pitch the script, however, I will be sending it to Vikram for feedback, and we’ll see how that goes. Nonetheless, films are my first love, but I don’t want to compromise on the kind of work I do,” he says.
Working on these web series has allowed Rajat to live comfortably in Mumbai, while also allowing him to pursue his other passion, which is travelling. In the past five years alone, he has done over 50 solo trips all over India and Europe. In fact, if you visit his social media accounts, here’s what his bio states: “What do you do for a living? I Travel! So how do you make money? Aah…For that I Act.”
“Acting and solo travelling are two passions I can never let go of. These are the two things in this world that can make a night owl like me wake up at 6 AM and get excited. I try to maintain a balance between the two, but I sometimes end up doing more travelling. Acting is not merely a profession for me, but something that genuinely makes me happy. It’s more than a source of income. I wouldn’t give up either travelling or acting to do the other. Whenever I am not working or busy shooting for something, I am travelling,” he says.
Rajat Barmecha (Photo courtesy Facebook)
Every trip, according to him, is more about the people you meet and the experiences you have rather than the country or the place. “These experiences teach you so much as an actor and a human being. As a person you grow when you travel. Once this lockdown gets over, I just want to pack up my bags and travel once again,” he admits.
I suppose it’s impossible to keep a free bird caged forever. The same spirit of freedom that drove his character in Udaan is what guides his life today.
And honestly, there is no better way to live it.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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