Rang Birangi, Aloo Chat : Filmy Experiment Gone Wrong
So, what’s common between Rang Birangi and Aloo Chat? Ok, lets recall Pati Patni Aur Woh and DDLJ, any bells ringing yet??
David Dhawan’s movie Hero No.1 was a good mix of Bawarchi and DDLJ. Govinda becomes a cook/servant to gain entry into Karishma’s house only to impress her family members and gain their confidence. Of course, lots of movies got inspired by DDLJ and lots of such movies came out, some good…some bad. Similarly, PPAW inspired a string of movies where bosses flirt with their secretaries.
PPAW released in 1978, made under BR Films banner and was directed by BR Chopra. The story was about Ranjeet Chaudhary, a family man who is happily married with a kid. His wife is very nice, caring and faithful; and yet Ranjeet goes out of his way to feign his wife’s illness so he can gain his secretary’s mercy. And this pity turns into more care and affection from her side. Ranjeet does succeed at this and gets the required affection, but at what cost? Sanjeev Kumar played the loving husband and later the lecherous boss, Ranjeeta played the low-key secretary who was a middle-class working woman and not the stereotyped secretary, and finally Vidya Sinha played the loyal and loving wife.
DDLJ, made in 1994, paved the way for NRI audience targetted movie. There is nothing to write about this movie because everybody knows everything about it.
Hrishikesh Mukherjee wrote the screenplay and directed this movie made in 1983 and titled it Rang Birangi. The movie directly picks on the idea of PPAW. Ajay Sharma is the boss of a company and has a beautiful wife in Nirmala. His secretary is Anita, a very dedicated and beautiful woman. Ajay finds his life boring as he is involved in mundane stuff of office activities. That’s when his friend Ravi lands up in his office and quizzes him about Anita. Ajay is offended initially by the thought of flirting with a secretary but Ravi narrates to him the story of PPAW, how Sanjeev Kumar lies about his wife’s health and gains the warmly arms of his secretary. Ravi pushes Ajay into trying the experiment which seems to succeed at first, but later falls flat. How things start going awry makes for a good laugh.
Amol Palekar was Ajay, the boss; Parveen Babi was his wife and Deepti Naval was the simple and nice secretary. The friend who plants the idea in Amol Palekar’s mind was played by Deven Verma. It was a refreshing look at how PPAW situation works only in movies; talk of innovation, one movie referencing another. Coincidentally, Parveen Babi who plays the wife in this movie, actually makes a guest appearance as Sanjeev Kumar’s secretary in PPAW.
Anyways, Aloo Chat makes a direct reference to DDLJ. Nikhil is US returned guy who is in love with Amna, a muslim girl. His parents are orthodox and he does not know how to speak/convince his parents about his love. Nikhil approaches his mamaji who suggests that he should take the DDLJ route. Nikhil’s mamaji hatches a plot whereby Nikhil would bring an american girl, Nikki, home in the pretext of marrying her; and Amna would accompany Nikki. While Amna would try to impress Nikhil’s parents, Nikki would try to create a bad impression so that Nikhil’s parents would approve of Amna at the end of it all; trying to create the reduced-shock-effect…zor ka jhatka dheere se lage. As was supposed to be the result of this experiment, it fails and things go haywire causing much confusion and evokes a lot of laughs. Aftab Shivdasani played Nikhil, and Amna was played by Amna Sharif, her debut movie. A special mention of mamaji played by Manoj Pahwa, who was the narrator and backbone of the movie.
There are many movies which reflect/inspire/copy/plagiarise another movie. Very few movies actually experiment keeping an eye and alluding another movie. So, are there any other movies which make direct references to another movie? An experiment falling under its own weight?? I am really eager to know of it.
Tags: Aloo Chat, amol palekar, BR Chopra, br films, DDLJ, Deepti Naval, hrishikesh mukherjee, Parveen Babi, Pati Patni Aur Woh, rang birangi, ranjeeta, Sanjeev Kumar, Vidya Sinha
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
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please stop writing
The site seems to have gone insane. What kind of writing is this? Two in a day! Now it seems like the other one by Dabba was a spoof. theoriginal showed up in a few hours with vengeance. Anyone can become an author here.
nidhi,
i would like to conduct a poll –
Godfathers vs rangbirangi?
Bizzare …
Filmy writing gone wrong here!!
@dabba – I like your confidence. You are so sure that your post will not be the worst. Worst se thoda sa upar. Aaj hi start kar de yeh poll.
@ Rals – Second in a row. Keep it down baby.
Anyways. No hard feeling for anyone, but din like any of the articles.
~Ashu Bhai MAPRM Wale.
please stop writing
I raised this issue long ago ,when I said that PFC should have well researched articles which have cross references ,at least that way you go through what you have written once and have the time to think whether this is worth posting or not.
But then I was told that PFC is essentially a blog and will stay that way…….ok I get it ,that it’s a blog ,but it’s a very big blog with lots of people reading it ,at least don’t make writing on PFC like brushing your teeth ,ki subah uthe ,brush uthaya aur bina soche samjhe chala diya ,at least people should think what they are posting ,kuch bhi random likh dete hain log bhaag aaj kal.
It’s precisely such snobbery that hinders the sustenance and growth of attempts like pfc. Their is always room for criticism, it’s even welcome but only as long as it doesn’t become offensive. And here the people who are criticizing, i dont remember seeing their names on the top of the articles on pfc and they are having a go at a guy who’s probably one of the most consistent contributors, rals. Moreover, i beleive pfc has an edit team so if they felt the article was ok, you should not object to it so vehemently. And if you think the pfc editors are fools, you have no business being here.
Lets start a petition to remove crazyrals from PFC.
God this guy is so shameless. After his Pati Patni post any self respecting guy would have left writing.
Please spare us crazyrals.
This post is all over the place Crazy…not sure what you’re trying to say…
That’s harsh pfc or whoever you are.Not done at all.
@Vishal
Authors articles are not reviewed ……goes into press straight away…..unless they save it as a draft.
This post is like staple bollywood fare; a decent idea gone haywire. This post can be compared to the biggest duds of BO.
oye crazy! crazy oye! ye ki kitta oye?
I am speechless…
Jaiganesh,
And the reason being?
(Crazy)Rals,
There was a article by you sometime back scrutinizing the age and marital status of all the female bollywood ladies, with a closing suggestion for them to get married and bear child if they can’t grab hefty roles in industry.. to me that was awful. Till date I was thinking that’s the most pathetic article in PFC… Today this article is forcing me to change the decision !
worship this jai, u low quality poojari.
@ aditya oberoi –
i thought this wud be right up your alley, since other posts are pseudo-intellectual. this is ur aukaat.
Ok so it seems articles from authors are not reviewed, but i guess considering the number of visitors and entries they ought to be, what say vineet
my sincerest apologies to all. another experiment gone haywire … totally agree; but was intentional to an extent. i should have put the first comment myself, that this is a harakiri of sorts and an experiment on ‘what not to write’. but one thing i would like to know, why is the feedback so muted? why is there no feedback wrt to analysis of the movie? i did not writing anything out of thin air, the movies are out there for everyone to see and talk about.
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not a single comment on the hrishikesh movie, not abt amol palekar or sanjeev kumar’s acting. someone suggested that there was no analysis, its all there. u r judging me for a movie that i have not made. no one commented on the movie…why??
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thats precisely what i want to know. we most often voice our opinion on dislike, and never ever say about our likes. when i wrote on marilyn monroe, there was one encouraging comment telling that he would like to read more about her.
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not just my post, be it any author’s post. if u have liked then please dont be a mute reader. leave your encouraging comments or feedback. its the lack of feedback that stifles a writer and/or discourages a writer.
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anyways, really sorry about this… no more comments on this post from me…
WAAAATCH OUT…HERE COMES ENCOURAGEMENT-
You my brother, are going to be remembered as the ED WOODS of PFC. A decade from now, these blogs of yours which ignorant fella’s like the above commentators trash is going to achieve cunt status…oops cult status.
The rudeness people have shown in the comments to criticize the article is surprising. Is that a rediff-ization of PFC? Sadly, I see many names whose comments are, in general, quite sensible in other posts. I agree that this post was half-baked(I would have loved a complete review of Rang Birangi instead) but it seems like folks here are only interested in making personal remarks. Few days ago there was a post on the movie Hero Hiralal by the same author which was really nice and I enjoyed it very much. Cant we have some sensible and constructive criticism at least on PFC?
Never ever forget this insult Crazyrals, you will go places. All the very best.
@Roodrow and Satya: My sentiments exactly…. this is completely unwarranted, man… give the guy a break… he’s given us such great articles in the past.. remember the articles about Jim Jarmusch, Richard Linklater,and the superb piece on the metaphors posed by Gulaal …. and the one you mention, Roodrow… Everybody has an off-day
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.” Dale Carnegie…
Everyone has an off day……….
“So, are there any other movies which make direct references to another movie? An experiment falling under its own weight?? I am really eager to know of it.”
Sure Crazyrals there is one which I can remember
Andaaz Apna Apna where they refer to Sholay to choose who would try first by tossing the coin.
Remember the dialogue “Anand akela:tumne sholay dekhi hai….? Salmaan:haan 10 baar. …Aamir: iske Baap ne likhi hai………
,
I don’t quite get it. I have seen far worse stuff on PFC. There are people who cannot articulate a sentence in English who write here and get wah wahs. What is wrong with this artice? It is not the best written articles and meanders quite a bit, but it certainly does not warrant the mob-like lynching on the author that is happening in this thread. We have to remember this is a blog. Everyone is arm-chair. No one is a professional writer.
I think the article is quite valuable to PFC because it raises a very interesting point which could make a great discussion – what are the films that have used an earlier film as a reference point for the story plot. I think it was a brilliant plot idea that Hrishikesh Mukherjee conjured in Rang Birangi. He did it with a flourish. Infact Hrishikesh Mukherjee made a lot of satirical references to films and their influence on the general public, not only in Rang Birangi but other films like ‘Guddi’.
Great concept ‘crazyrals’ I am sure there must be something else out there with the same plot idea. Would you think HM is a pioneer for films like Luck by Chance and Om Shanti Om? I know Guru Dutt is the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of self-portraits but KKP is still peerless IMO, mainly for the sombre tone of the film.
@Vishal
you’ll have to change the way PFC works ,and frankly that is quite difficult at this stage.
To be honest the problem with PFC is lazy writing ,I do not expect people to research and cross reference every word that they write here but at least think before you write something ,have a structure ,a proper thought process,instead of just opening your laptop and typing away at it.I have been myself guilty of this ,my first iView submission had a lot of factual errors and I decided later that if I do submit something then it has to be done properly ,even if means I send an article once every 4-5 months instead of one every week.
Quality is more important than quantity and IMO that’s what PFC should strive for ,after all that’s what we keep harping on about all the time.
If Satyajit Ray or Tarantino had decided to make one movie every 4 months ,would we still look at them in the same manner as we look at them today.
I have the following observations about PFC after following it for over a year now.
1.Quality articles hardly attract the kind of attention they deserve ,at most they get 10-13 comments ,and hardly any commendations which puts off any intent of serious writing.
2.Articles which tend to be highly opinionated or are just personal ramblings ,or posts on controversial material get all the attention, which makes you wonder whether what we see in Bollywood is true here as well ,where Masala triumphs over serious cinema when it comes to popularity.
3.Most of the readers don’t even read the entire post and straight away jump to the comments section so that they can shout along with the crowd ,which is in line with the “cow’s herd” syndrome ,something we keep cursing about.
4.Earlier people used to comment with their names but nowadays everyone comments with a pseudonum(some really weird ones) which changes from post to post ,so that any anonymous guy can come and disturb the entire discussion. These are the floating visitors and you have no way of knowing who they are and what they represent.
5.Posts are getting lazier by the day ,one para ,two para posts are more common there are more factual errors ,typo errors and editing is a lot less severe.
6.More and more posts carry the disclaimer :”Personal ramblings” ,while these are enjoyable to an extent but when every author resorts to this instrument it makes your head ache.
7.Articles come at a much faster rate nowadays ,before you have had the time to read something it is out of the main page ,and by nature readers are reluctant to search for it and read it again.
@Vineet: I endorses point no. 5,6 and 7. Especially point 7.
I have been reading PFC quite regularly, for over an year now. I have never come across a post where PFC readers have been so ruthless against a blogger. I don’t know what to attribute it to – falling standards of PFC Readers, or failed writers taking vengeance from a fellow blogger. Just because no on reads your posts, you can’t go around criticising others! I’m quite shocked to read such menacing comments.
Crazyrals – dude, not a bad post at all. If, as these ppl say, not everyone who writes is a writer.. remember.. not everyone who criticises is a critic!
I may be joining the discussion rather late, but what the hell, der aaye drust aaye.
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Saw Aloo Chat on DVD tonight. I actually thought it was a refreshingly simple film, devoid of the usual distractions such as item #’s and pointless subplots. It was nice to see a film that wasn’t trying as hard to become a blockbuster as much as it was trying to tell its story.
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And yes Rals, the DDLJ reference definitely stood out. It was the films first major plot point and set the tone for how the story was to unfold. I for one thought the reference was a nice little touch that served its purpose of propelling the story forward.
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Oh, and thanks for highlighting Rang Birangi. I haven’t seen the film, but being a fan of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s work I’ll make it point to check it out