Jaideep Sahni and Bhartiyata !
iView Author: Indraneel Majumdar (Pune, India)
Email : indraneelmj [at]gmail.com
Jaideep and Bharatiyata
Does Jaideep Sahni know what he has gone and done this year?
Tune in to your favourite radio station and at least twice every 6 hours you have”Chak de” doing its techno turn. Bang on the remote button and you have the “Aaja Nachle” anthem in blue-black Technicolor!
Oh no! Before you say “not another Yashraj gun gaanewala or dhobi – pachaad karne wala”, I beg to differ just that little bit.
Movies over the last few years, had become the playground of the NRIs. Yeah, wokay, leave a few Prakash Jhas, Bharadwajes, RGVs and a sprinkling of “Matrubhoomis“. All the rest had to make their ladies dress in YSL and carry Gucci bags and the men in “FCUK” creations. Whatever that means! Many of us were not able to identify with the milieu anymore. I missed my Govinda in pink pants. I missed my Mithunda and his quaint Hindi. I missed rooting for Dharam paaji when he strode out to defend his unfortunate “gaaonwale”. The “Bharat” was missing from the canvas of Hindi cinema.
Yes, KJ made his heroine sing “Jana gana mana” in a glycerine sequence in Kabhi Khushi…but it was way above us Kendriya Vidyalaya fellas who had grown up doing the anthem all over dusty India in Navy blue shorts and Robin blue coated white shirts! We grew up dreaming whether Amitabh’s chappal was size 6 or 9 (Suhaag, if I am not mistaken). America was where my friends went to have a decent PG education. Not prance around near Grand Central?!!
I, sort of, missed the flavour of my country in our films. RGV made Bambaiyya (can I use the term even now??) films and so did some of the newbie film makers. Farhan’s subjects dealt with Juhu boys growing up. Most of the other directors, writers and actors were busy creating Neverlands between Mumbai, Switzerland and USA.
Where did that leave the Bhilais, Dharwars, Kotas, Mhows and Nagpurs???
Wokay again, you’ll say Haasil, Omkara, Blue Umbrella and Saher!!
They came from different POVs and were character centric and not so much milieu centric. I know I shall be contested on this but still….
In came Jaideep Sahni. I saw B& B first. Small town India was here in all its sparkle, quirkiness and idiom. There seemed to be a future in filming our mainland. This was quickly followed up with Khosla ka Ghosla. We all remember that gem in the auto – “Jai mata di!”. That is Bharat!!!
This year was seminal for this man, Jaideep Sahni. Chak de India, admittedly was helmed by that superman called Shahrukh Khan but would have not gone that far but for that unique desi flavour!!
His writing embellished the characters, the situations and the ‘maahoul’ so to say!
This ‘maahoul’, the Bharatiyata that I kept missing in most of our recent films, circa 1998 onwards…
Aaja Nacchle also creates that ‘maahoul’. It tells me about that girl with a running nose dressed in all colours, it tells me about that government officer who reveres his system and has embodied it completely, about that cop who seems corrupt and yet is endearing to us and it tells us about small town ‘bhaichara’, at its best and its worst!
I don’t defend the movie. That could have been much better. It became sort of like the ‘Sangam Mail’ derailment.
We need more writers like him. There are many good writers like Sahni around. Some are here in PFC too. Uncover your keyboards and think about your Erode, Hubli, Etawah, Ganganagar or Pilibhit. There are great stories to be told!
Lastly, our country and its people are magical. Sample this. Last week. Aaja Nachle. Morning 9.15 AM. Citypride, Pune. The National Anthem starts before the onset of the movie. Everyone is up on their feet. Suddenly, halfway through the Flag vanishes and the Anthem stops on screen. The Yashraj Red is coming up.
The people in the hall did not stop and through the Yashraj music sang the Anthem to its very end. Then, we quietly sat down. No protest or bad words!
This Is India! There are a lot of stories here!!!!
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Hi Indraneel,
Totally agree with you. Somehow ‘Bharat’ is missing in our movies. Its all about making big, running worldwide and earning foreign currency.
Sahni’s effort is nice, but you never know when he will be forced to go on a different path.
We can just hope that our producer/director/writer think on this line.
same thing happened to me when i went out to watch a movie in pune. the theatre was sparsely filled, and the national anthem started. And yo behold it stopped playing midway. I was disgusted to say the least but what was endearing was that all the people in the theatre started singing out loudly till the end.
While i totally loved Khosla and thought Bunty and Babli had captured the small town dreams and aspirations( though the aki dresses and the city pagalpan with beedi toting BigB was over the top ( damn there we go again )) … just a little worried that now the bhartiyata is becoming more and more ready to eat – packet kholo , thode mannerisms aur dailogue dala and its done …
so fawkin true. Bharat mata ki jai.
Bharat ka SwarNim Gaurav Kendriya Vidyalaya laaayega!! :-w
aami shothi bolchee……..:d
:d:d:d
@Kavita..u too KV???
@$IDS – Kahin hum ek hi hall mein to nahin the!!
@pdiddy – Forget the movie treatment, the story took us places that Teflon India does not know even!!
I simply ask here, why has Bhojpuri and some other regional films become a rage altogether??
Mithunda is paid huge amounts to appear in Bong movies now!!
Yes, in Amar Sonar Bangla for a while
Great !! M E R A B H A R A T M A H A A N !!!
yo man .. wow , thanks for echoing my sentiments .. we need to tap a whole reservoir of stories set in indian heartland ..
)
jaideep sahni is the new salim-javed (atleast till now
that was one of the strengths of aaja nachle — the support cast, sahni keeps creating these characters with their little idiosyncracies…everybody can identify with them….he is a master at it…khosla ka ghosla to chak de to aaja nachle….
Khosla Ka Ghosla was the best film of 2006 ..
superb characterization .. from the ppl in the khosla family (anupam kher as the average service-going daddy, parveen dabbas as the IT geek not interested in wordly matters, his chirpy gf, ranvir shourey as the loafing-around brat, the tomboyish sister) to the helpful neighbourhood sardarji, the chowkidar Ombir (lol lol) , the gang of pehelwans (hahaha) , the thick skinned swine Khurana , his secretary munjal, the hand-in-glove property dealer vijendar and police inspector, the award winning stage actor navin nischol who went quivering when the real deal came (haha), his aide (dont knw his name), the street smart agent asif iqbal (superbly done by vinay pathak) , and so on
hats off to jadeep sahni ! KKG is one of the best writen hindi films .
I think low budget filmmakers will take pride in showing India … you know, the budget limitations don’t allow them to shoot at exquisite overseas locations. Anyways great post. As a film maker, your point noted.:)>-
@Gajendraji – That’s the big issue..have you seen a modest budget dusty Indian film this year except Manorama..
I think the moment a writer starts to write his story in Mumbai these days, he starts to dream big bucks..so, his stories also echo his thoughts!
I don’t know who wrote Gamgster..but it could have easily been as gritty and well done in Chandigarh..lots of single and lonely wives there!!
In fact, Chandigarh as a character city has not been explored at all!!
Why????????
Why does inner India become just reference points in all our stories??
Is it because we think in English and are influenced by O Henry and John Grisham more than OP Sharma or Sunil Ganguly!!
Exquisite overseas locations are understood to be the key for dreamy, away from reality kind of cinema eg: YRF and KJ. Your point is well taken.
A friend has mentioned that -
Jaideep Sahni mentions that he uses his Computer programming skills from his previous profession to construct stories, screen plays etc.
Then there should be proper logic in most of his stories and screen plays ;)
Indraneel- OPSharma himslef had written a film – Chameli ki Shadi- a laughing riot:d
rk saab..logic aur bunty bubli :-?
@Dipankar,
yes written in Machine language;)which Saad Ali left while shooting from another machine (camera).
For logic in con based film, please watch Paul Newman and Robert Redford starrer “The Sting”.
Banty and Babli are kids and kids dont follow logic.:d
Good One Indraneel, Yes, now we are seeing India a country not of only metros but also of small towns which also forms the crux of our upbringing…BANG ON=d>
sir aapne School ki yaad dila di…
:((
soda lemon ginger pop..
kendriya vidyala on the top…
Wah someone mentioned “Kota” at PFC. Chambal ke kinaare ka yeh industrial shaher dhanya ho gaya:)
Badmash..Yaar Kya din the!!
Jeevsingh – “Kota” is a happening town. IITians come out of that place in droves!!
Deepa – Thanks!!!
RK – Yess, I remember that one..small town again..but where are those gems now!!
BTW..Pankaj Kapoor, IMO, was streets ahead of some funsters of today in that movie!!
Nice post. waise ab to switzerland, australia ka zamaana bhi gaya, ab to dream cities ki kahaniyaan banane lagi hain (saawariya):P
“Uncover your keyboards and think about your Erode, Hubli, Etawah, Ganganagar or Pilibhit. There are great stories to be told!” Actually this is what I was thinking when I saw Dus Kahaniyaan. Why did they have to choose such hopeless stories(most of them)?
Being a great fan of all kinds of short stories, I have read quite a few that can be adapted on screen, surely for a venture like dus kahaniyaan.
Thanks..Neeraja…My thoughts too!!