The Torture Series 3: Bhavani Junction

oz | Thoughts | August 26, 2008 at 6:39 pm

Warning: Post contains strong language and sexual content.

Imagine, me entering my hitlerian Dad’s room. Imagine me asking for his permission to go out and see a movie called Bhavani Junction. Then imagine Pitashree’s right hand moving in slow motion, big tight palms connecting to my left cheek sending me flying out of his room in slo mo. Had that incident happened, I would never have dug deep into Bollywood films, never have the desire to blog and never would have reviewed any movie in my life.

All you new age Bollywood hating blogging punkers, just imagine that. HA! That incident never happened. I simply picked up my books to go to tution class and instead was standing in line to buy the ticket of Bhavani Junction at Mayur Cinema close to my house.

Now Mayur Cinema, and I’m not sure if it exists today, had a knack of being missed by people who would go there for the first time. If you went to watch a movie at a theater called “Mayur” and you’ve never been there before you would, I can guarantee, have a tough time locating the theater.

The problem was that you were on the right street but would keep walking up and down the street passing a tabela each time but never find Mayur. The problem with your search is, you did not look hard at the tabela. The darn tabela was Mayur Cinema.

I dread to think what would happen if Mayur still exists. I dread to think what would happen if it is showing a movie, a classic that is not available anywhere. I dread to think what would happen if me and Biwi-jee are visiting India and by chance are walking right in front of Mayur Cinema and Biwi-jee goes “Look that’s the movie not available anywhere I want to see it.”. Lastly I dread the moment when Biwi-jee, 10 minutes into sitting inside Mayur, whips out a screw driver from thin air and starts stabbing me out of the sheer horror she experiences in this theater called Mayur Cinema.

So on one hand there is this horrifying bhoot bangla slash tabela called Mayur Cinema. And on the other hand there is this movie that goddam no one has heard about called Bhavani Junction. Add to this me with a ticket in hand, about to enter Mayur Cinema to watch Bhavani Junction. Kitna Maza Ayega

The Torture Series continues…

BHAVANI JUNCTION (1985)

Everything and everyone was B Grade and C Grade in Bollywood in those days. Even the stars. Be it Shatrughan Sinha, Shashi Kapoor and yes even Amitabh Bachchan. Writers, Directors, Technicians had fallen into this degrading and a quality spiraling downward trap. I have no idea why. I have no reason to give why this happened. No one and I mean no one was making movies that was even close to being called “above B grade cinema”. An occassional Naam, Arjun, Jalwa, Dacait or JP Dutta’s – if you don’t like the desert, kiss my ass – movies. Everyone including the then top directors like the late Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra were making B Graders.

Every movie had 6 crying scenes, 5 fight scenes, 7 songs, 2 rapes and one loving character dying for God knows what reason – scene. That was it.

Bhavani Junction was no different. So we have a chota parivar sukhi parivar opening scene. Sir Shatrughan Sinha is a big time cop, possessing a slim sexy wife called Rati Agnihotri and a kid – who appeared in every movie that needed a kid in those days, so lets call the kid – The Kid.

Rati tells Sinha she needs to take kid out for shopping. Sinha says he has a meeting. So Rati with The Kid sit in an open top jeep to go out shopping and in the next shot they are driving in a soonsaan jungle. What motherfucking shopping malls existed in soonsaan jungles is beyond my knowledge and experience. But then it was the 80s and anything was possible.

Suddenly… yes there was also this phenomenon called “Suddenly” in 80s. So suddenly Mazhar Khan and Mahesh Anand appear on horse backs and ride next to Rati’s raddi jeep. Of course it goes without saying that their intentions are not – to put it mildly – “proper”. Something gadbad in their eyes and they look at Rati as if she is daal-batti. Rati asks in her typical stern virgin ironpants look “Kya Chahiye?”.

The late Mazhar Khan (with all due apologies) answers “Hamara mood theek karna hain”.

By that answer it was obvious that in the eighties the gabroo jawans in India who suffered from depression or off-moods had not heard of Prosaic or Zantac or even Pepto Bismol. Their only solution to get off depression was to go out and rape men and women.

So to theekao their mood, Khan and Anand pounce of Rati while the helpless The Kid escapes on one of the horses, the two suffering from depression gabroo jawans were riding on.

And while Khan and Anand are going anand he anand over Rati and her crying “Bachao bachao..”… The Kid riding Khan’s horse reaches the office-place of Shatru-jee where he is having a meeting. Such were the 80s that no MapQuest or Google Maps were needed by humans and horses. We just knew where we had to go and VOILA! our horses would reach our destination.

Khan and Anand after finishing their thaka thak over poor Rati-jee, put their pants on (I swear they showed that) and leave. Not sure how, because their horses are with the kid. One of the horses. So I guess they pillion ride the remaining horse who I guess was hoping he would be next in the thaka thak process but instead is made to take the load of two men and ride away. Guess horses don’t suffer from depression in such movies.

Shatru-jee reaches the thaka thak spot. Just in time to see Rati-jee with a torn red blouse and red saree and red blood flowing from the corner of her lip, opening a secret box hidden in her ring which contains poison and gulps it. Rati-jee goes bye bye as Shatru-jee goes Hai Hai.

Actually it was good Rati-jee leaves in 5 minutes of the movie cause I would never feel comfortable being around a woman who secretly carries poison in a secret chamber of her ring.

So after a few tears here and there in Shatru style, body burning ceremony, the patented white kurta scenes, Shatru-jee’s eyes go round and round. He gets an idea. He rushes to the stable where horses are kept. He runs towards the horse which belongs to the thaka thak men. And he sees “BJ” engraved in gold on the saddle of the horse.

Shatru-jee turns and looks at the camera. Surprised. Shocked. Opens his mouth to utter “BHAVANI JUNCTION!!!“. BJ means Bhavani Junction. Wow. I did not know that. I thought BJ meant Blow Job. And it was put on the horse so passerbys would look at the poor horse and see ‘BJ’ on it’s saddle… and would take pity on him.. and give the horse a blowjob.

Kahani Mein Twist. Twist? Yes Twist. BJ is a princely state in India in 1985 and somehow Sardar Patel and all those who followed him in the government of India missed including the kingdom into the territory of India. That is the only explanation I can give as to why there is a king called Shashi Kapoor ruling the kingdom of BHAVANI JUNCTION located inside India in the year 1985.

But Shatru-jee knows about that state. Perhaps he did not tell the government of India about it. Saala Desh Drohi! or maybe there was some secret agreement between the kingdom of Bhavani Junction and the Government of India. Perhaps the agreement was that the Kingdom of Bhavani Junction would keep sending its horses into India with BJ (Bhavani Junction) engraved on their saddle and the Government of India would in return keep sending men to the kingdom of Bhavani Junction, with BJ (Blow Job) engraved on their foreheads. Who knows. Doesn’t matter.

Kahani mein another twist. Shashi-jee and Shatru-jee are friends. It seems Shatru-jee, years ago (when he was still doing B-Grade movies), had saved the life of Shashi-jee (when he was still doing A to Z grade movies). Me thinks that’s a lie. My detective mind tells me that on one drunk night Shashi-jee, the King of Bhavani Junction, in a completely unguarded moment must have started BJ-ing his own horse. Shatru-jee still in his senses must have rushed and pulled him off “RAJA SAHEB, Yeh aap kya kar rahen hain!!! Yeh kaam aapke layak nahin…” and saying that Shatru-jee must have put Shashi-jee aside and started BJ-ing the horse himself. I may be wrong. It doesn’t matter.

Moving on. So Shashi-jee is happy to meet Shatru-jee. Shatru-jee tells Shashi-jee the whole thaka thak story. One scene leads to another. Zeenat Aman pops in. At an age when she should have gracefully retired, Zeenat does the whole disco, I’m sexy shebang songs one of which went like – One two something something, three four shut the door… and while the song played all the Bhaiyyas sitting around me which included the kelewala, the bhaji wala, the doodh wala, the mechanic (not of automobiles but of bicycles), the paan wala and all started the usual rubbing of crotches.

Today such men are know as kinky grandma lovers. No offense to Zeenat-jee. Even when she had entered the old and tired looking stage, she got all the bhaiyyas and walas in the theater hard, in spite of they not understanding a single English word she spoke in the movie.

Kahani Mein Twist. One more Twist? Yes. One more twist. Mazhar Khan is the son of Shashi Kapoor along with Mahesh Anand who is the son of Shashi-jee’s munim… Prem Chopra.

Shatru-jee wants to capture Khan and Anand and take them back to India… as if they were some khet ki mooli. Shashi-jee says nothing doing.

A lot of tired and fucked up scenes later the story moves like 3:10 to Yuma. Somehow I think Shatru kills Anand. Captures Khan. And is on his way when the whole town tries to prevent him from taking Khan. Then Shashi angrily points a gun at Shatru. Shatru fires first. Shoots Shashi. Shashi’s gun is actually empty. He he chutiya banaya. Shatru regrets. After a whole load of overburdened over acting, he rides away with Khan and the background music plays (I think it was Vijay Benedict’s voice) “Bhavani Junction Bhavani Junction”

So you damn Internet Bollywood blogging haters. How’s that for torture? Yeah? Now multiply that torture times 3. Because I watched Bhavani Junction in the same tabela – Mayur Cinema – for 3 consecutive days. Why? Because this was the best movie around that time.

If you think you’ve had enough wait till the next…