Suraj R Barjatya and The Ramayana Connection !
With Vivah, Suraj sheds the shadow of Salman from his directorial shoulders. Now his creation – the character Prem, is again under his full control and he can mould it in any way he likes. He made Maine Pyar Kiya in 1989 and MPK made Salman a rising star overnight and after the super blockbuster success of Suraj’s second film Hum Apke Hain hain Kaun, Salman Khan became synonym of his Prem and Salman`s stardom usurped the “Prem” from the Director Suraj and soon it was said that Suraj is dependent on Salman. Salman had relatively short role in Suraj’s third film HSSH where there were lots of stars and this film eclipsed the real life of Salman as he was charged for killing the Chinkara, a kind of rare species of deer, during the shooting of this film. Film was not as successful as first two films of Suraj. Suraj did not cast Salman in his fourth film MPKDH, and it was not even an average hit film. Rather it was said that film bombed at BO. Suraj lived for years in hibernation and speculations were in air that perhaps Suraj would return with fifth film having Salman Khan again in lead role but after silence of years he came up with Vivah having Shahid Kapoor in the role of Prem. With Vivah, Suraj establishes strongly his brand character “Prem” and proves that now he is ready to play with this character as he likes by casting any actor, he thinks, suits the role.
With MPK Suraj started a trend where hero or heroine or both belong to ultra rich families where business is running very smoothly and it can be said that hero and heroines, either of them or both are born with silver spoon in mouth. Later Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar followed his approach and Suraj can be said as predecessor of both of them. Suraj says Prem is his own extension and perhaps he is not wrong either. Suraj makes a difference from Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar in a way because Suraj’s source of inspiration, as far as creating his characters or story is concerned, has been story and characters of epic Ramayana or say Ram Charit Manas. His lead hero “Prem” swings between Ram and Bharat according to the needs of the particular film. Kaikayee and Manthara have been very special and strong characters in his films. In MPK, Verma (Salman’s father) played the role of Kaikayee and Ajit Vachchani played role of Manthra. HSSH was almost story of Ramayana where Mohnish Behal played Ram, Salman Played role of Bharat, Salman’s mother was Kaikayee, Sadashiv Rao Amrapurkar was Manthara, Alok Nath was Dashrath and we saw modern adaptation of Ramayana epic.
Suraj believes in “Bhakti marga” of Hindu religion and its not a crime to follow any path as far as religion is concerned or way of living the life is concerned. His approach in film is not based on the factor” what prevails in society” rather he follows the path “ what should prevail in society” so Suraj’s world runs with the hopeful word “should”. Like while writing Ram Charit Manas, Tuslidas did not necessarily resorted the actual facts prevailing at that time about Rama, rather he made him “ Maryada Purshotaam Ram” the best among humanbeing. Tulsidas converted Ram in to an ideal character who lived his life to establish the ideals in different areas of life.
Mostly Suraj’s films deal with the territories of emotions and relationships and Raj Shri Production has been famous for such topics in the past also and Suraj also travels within these domains of human life. Family values, black and white characters and not grey ones, relationships, ideals in characters and relationships, mistakes, atonement, forgiveness etc are the major attractions of Suraj’s cinema. To err is human and to forgive is divine is the message in his films. His films deal with the philosophy of heart change as Mahatma Gandhi used to emphasise as far as social reforms are concerned. Fraudian complex psychology is not areas of Suraj’s subjects.
There are two approaches to strike on a single subject. Matrobhumi strikes through revealing the negative side of the fact if fashion to kill girl child or female foeticide continues then a time may come when there wont be any girl in the whole city. Suraj takes different root by showing positive atmosphere around girls in Vivah and sends message that having girls in family is as good as having boys. It depends on individual what path appeals him. One may take message from Matrobhumi also and one may take message from Vivah also.
Suraj’s approach may look like of an orthodox hinu devotee but he has balanced approach where there is no hatred towards any religion and he believes in old social harmony where families had friends belonging to every religion that’s why muslim characters have been special friends of devoted hindu families in all his films. As its pointed out above that his cinema travels ahead with the idea “what should prevail in society”. When makes cinema Suraj understands he has social responsibilities also and that’s why his director cant bear extreme violence or extreme in any area. MPK has been his most violent film till date else he has dealt only with one or two slap in his films. His approach is soft. One may ridicule him and his approach and may call his cinema outdated but this is not reality. Raj Kapoor never believed in violent cinema and in whole world not a single person who knows a little bit of cinema, can say after watching RK films that he was an outdates film maker. RK always believed that depiction of violence is very harmful for society. In the supreme days of Amitabh Bachchan, Raj Shri production and RK both were able to bring out hit films. India knows the value of diversity and Suraj’s cinema is one such factor in Indian cinema. Cinema never can be limited to one area and it has to cover all the possible areas of human life.
Critics never spared Suraj. Before MPK they were not knowing him as director so MPK was a surprise element. But when HAHK was released critics had termed this film as Shadi ka Video or chitrahar and self claimed god of critics – The Khalid Mohammad had brutally rejected the film. Though few years later in his article, he was praising same film HAHK as a classic film. No doubt people salute the success.
Critics have been making mockery of Suraj’s characters that they are too simple and look alien in present day’s world as if good people cant exist in world (though nobody objects if some director shows extremely bad character). This is really strange world we are living in. Out of Good, bad and ugly, most of the people have started believing in bad and ugly and have left any faith in good. People and especially actors and directors have started saying openly that good guy’s roles don’t appeal them as they are so boring but that’s a lacking in them to create interesting good guys. Bhuvan of Lagaan is good guy and interesting too. One needs a talent to create good character, who can look interesting too. Now grey characters are the best words for actors and directors and filmi writers.
Like literature has taken shape of reportage where writers just pick up issues from the newspapers and extrapolate the events, cinema has also been affected with this disease that ideals are vanishing fast.
Suraj, as a dreamy, brings out a world he believes in. He represents his hope from the world. He is not in to the despondencies. In science there is an approach to increase the quality or quantity of production that without disturbing the actual plant, mathematical models are made and simulations are done on computer with change of variables and their effects are observed and when required quality or quantity is obtained through the model parameters then same parameters are imposed on real production plants. So ideals are set and plants are run as per those set variables. Suraj’s cinema, like literature of Premchand, believes in such ideal parameters so that humanity may cherish good things.
The philosophy “would that world were like this” provides the backbone for Suraj’s cinema. His cinema has big joint families, servants and subordinates are treated as family members, friends are also like family members. Pets are there. Some may find solace in dark corners of human mind but some may fine solace in light, loving atmposphere. Why Munna Bhai appeals to many people when he gives jadu ki jhappi? Love and fraternity is not fake words else Sri Sri Ravi Shankar kind of modern saints would not have been so popular among masses.
His cinema is not based on newspapers or scandals happening in society. For critics his cinema may not be progressive but Bharat never worked with a single philosophy, when Mahavira was walking on earth of Bharat then Budha was also spreading his message and Sanatan dharma was still in action and at present also we have many beliefs about life.
Suraj is not innovative in the sense that will create something out of nothing but he is damn good editor who can present “something – which is already present” in a new flavour with new outlook. His creativity is beautiful. Acting is always good and Salman has done his best work in MPK and HAHK. Once Suraj finalise the subject then continuity is very good in his films. Colours, interior decorations etc are attractive.
RGV kind of film makers can reject cinema of Suraj as dreamy and one may call his kind of cinema as escapist if one likes but a worthy question remains:
Who has been making Suraj’s film successful?
Tags: Direction, Teaching Film-making
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
RK,
I am glad that you wrote this post. Conveyed most of the things that I always used to say when arguing for Barjatiya films. The point is one can enjoy RGV, Suraj, Anurag without any embarrassment.
Thanks!!
Cheers,
HP
HP: yes one can enjoy different genere of cinema without any problem if one is really cine lover rather lover of art:).
Its not easy for a cine lover to reject Suraj Barjatya’s film without watching it as some people put remarks – did you watch Vivah?
Common first see the film before rejecting it. How do you know that a book is bad before reading it? How a film is bad before you watched it?
One may prefer not to wtach every film, or films of a particular or some film makers but one cant insult a film maker by asking – Could you watch his film? Thats not language of cine lovers..
Glad you made such clear statement that one can enjoy film of different film makers without any embrassment:d
Again, i agree with you RK..
hum aapke hain kousn is a remake of an older movie of theirs called nadiya ke paar)
Rajshri productions makes films full of emotion and from the heart and people need to cut him some slack. and you right..people like karan johar have tried making films like him that deal with him, except they go more wiht “how” it is and he sticks to how it “should” be. everyone has they’re own vision of cinema.
(Ive been watching a lot their older productions at rajshri.com and theyre quite simple and sweet also, so you shuold watch
Jabina Hi,
u r right, HAHK was metro version of village based Nadiya ke paar. MPKDh was again city version of rural background based Chitchor. and perhaps Suraj will bring out new versions of Ankhiyon ke jharokhe se, Dulhan wahi jo piya man bhaye etc:)
Amazing article.The best thing about his movies is that the target audience always has a smileson their face while watching his movies. they are aspirational and highlight the goodness in people.
suraj ji is amezing director,
wo filme itni bariki se banate hain jaisi raj kapoor sahab banate the, wo charactor ko samajhkar uski barikiyon ko dekhate hain fir uske dekhne chalne, bolne ke andaz ko tay karte hain. agar suraj ji se mil saka to thanx kahunga aur chahta hun unhi ki tarah ki filme banaun. meri favorit film main prem ki deewani hun, hum aapke hain koun, main tulsi tere aangan ki, aur saudagar hain . suraj ji plz mujhe mail kijiye. main aapke liye kaam karna chahta hun.
@Chandan,
May your wishes are fulfilled:)@};-
Surajji’s movies are always sober and beautiful. The characters are always down to earth. His cinema is totally different and is more Indian than the movies of other filmmakers.
Hey very nice blog!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I will bookmark your blog and take the feeds also…