Pappu Pass Ho Gayaaaa?
There could not be a more apt name for a debut movie. Announcement of David Dhawan’s son Rohit Dhawan to direct a movie titled Carry On Pappu set me thinking whether selecting such a name was just a coincidence or a deliberate decision manifesting David Dhawan’s funny bone..
And this also set me on a trail of sons of the directors who have carried forward the baton successfully or not-so-successfully.
Few names that come to mind of sons of big guns and daughters of illustrious fathers :
Rahul Rawail
Raj Kumar Santoshi
Ravi Chopra
Ketan Desai
Ketan Anand
Suneil Anand
Rajiv Kapoor
Randhir Kapoor
Rishi Kapoor
Asim Samanta
Aditya Chopra
Pooja Bhatt
Meghna Gulzar
Rohit Shetty
Hriday Shetty
Farah Khan
Sajid Khan
(Note: This list is not comprehensive but representative)
All these abovementioned guysn girls had an advantage of home environment that encouraged their choices or automatically fixed them..Still some of them could not make it or make it big.
Seeing such a long list one may be deterred to follow one’s passion..How would one survive in this power-at-papaji-level , binge-buddies-since-days-of-chuddies networked environment.
If you don’t have a father whose support and name can launch you, strive to find a Godfather..
Godfather’s importance cannot be shrugged away(Remember Aga Khan–the thoroughbred’s head on the bed of a producer–courtesy Godfather)..
God forbid, if you don’t have even a Godfather ,then what to do ? Then get a mentor..Two mentors who have really contributed to the careers of their protege are Mahesh Bhatt and Ram Gopal Varma..Since there is a waiting list now at their office and factory,it has indeed become crowded to reach the top in their outfits..Now in this catch-22 situation what to do ?
Hitch yourelf to a Star! Or more practical is to ingratiate yourself with the Star and get his acknowledgement to star in your debut movie..Then see how your stars take turn and your career takes off regardless of the fact whether you can or you can’t—direct!
There are certain directors who are considered a Barghad-ka-ped(Banyan tree).Now banyan tree has this natural tendency not to let other plants or foliage grow big under its shade..Similar is the case with Subhash Ghai and Gulzaar..As far as my information goes,a few of their AD’s have made as independent directors.
One guy who was really prolific in producing hot-shot directors from amongst his assistants was Bimal Roy..Hrishikesh Mukherjee,Gulzar, Raghunath Jhalani, Mukul Dev to name the few who made it big in Hindi Film industry with some really good work..
Even Yash Chopra had been instrumental in furthering the career of few of his ADs..Like Ramesh Talwar, Manmohan Krishna, Deepak Sareen..Ever since the corporatisation of the movie-making business, YRF also has got into assembly line mode making couple of movies every year with professional directors hired to execute story ideas mainly Adi’s or approved by him..Kunal Kohli,Sidhharth Anand,Sanjay Gadvi have been few of new age directors promoted by YRF..Shimit Amin dribbled his way skillfully and elegantly from one camp to another.
What YRF, Sanjay Gupta, UTV are doing is not playing Godfather anymore to wannabe directors or filmmakers..They are reduced at best as hiring and contracting agencies that dole out a project to a specific director of their liking (mind you liking has nothing to do with merit).So it is more of a business partnership than anything based on loyalty to one’s family or to a particular banner or a director (like guru-chela paramapra of yore)..Chela’s now-a-days have no patience or temperament to really stick to their gurus..Modern day mantra is to move-on and make a movie howsoever. Not a bad idea considering gurus themselves are sucking upto corporate funding big time…’Ya Sheikh apni apni Dekh’ !
Without deviating further from the topic, the question whether to direct or not to direct depends on whose Pappu are you? If linked with a film family you will have a head-start without any whetting of things in your head..If you are one of those Pappus who has no connections and who just has his passion,dream and vision to stand him by, he will make it but his route won’t be an expressway..He will reach but through ‘pagdandis’(narrow dirt tracks), like many of today’s inspirational role-models have reached..Sudhir Mishra,Anuraag Kashyap,Onir to name a few.
It’s a separate issue that their own Pappus in future will have a head start over fresh wannabes and the vicious circle will begin all over again..But launch is one thing and passing the test quite another. Whether Pappu has really passed, will be decided by very fickle-yet-loyal audiences at the box-office..Till then take any route and have a heart and a choclate to boot en route! Good luck.
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
enjoyed throughly.:d/
> (Remember Aga Khan
Very very nicely written
@Ramanand, thnx for the correction..ys it was meant to be khartoum.