Walk On The Wild Side
I have been accused in the past of starting my post with some inane rhyme which has no overt relation to cinema. While I might defend this stating that filmmakers have often given me products that bear no relation to cinema, I know such facetiousness will not take me far (there, I used facetiousness in an article!!). So, this time around, I will use a piece of poetry which will leave no one in doubt that I am a serious student of cinema.
Big B: Aao bachchon, aaj tumhe ek kahani sunata hoon,
Sher ki kahani sunoge, hoon?
Random female: Ja Munna
Big B: Mere paas aao, mere doston ek kissa suno,
Mere paas aao, mere doston ek kissa suno (repeat),
Kai saal pahle ki baat hai, (pause)
Random boy: Bolo na, chup kyun ho gaye,
Big B: Bhayanak andheri siyah raat mein
Liye bandook apne haath mein,
Ghane junglon se gujarta hua kahin jaa raha tha…
Aao bachchon, today, I will take you through the “ghane jungle” of Hindi cinema and together, as serious students often do, we will pay homage to all jungles in Hindi cinema. This isn’t going to be an easy journey but as Kipling once said, “A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.” Thus, fortified, let’s begin.
Many moons ago, I had a fake T-Series ‘Kishore Kumar: Suhane Nagme’ cassette which featured, among other such lesser known songs, a song titled ‘Tum Kitini Khoobsurat Ho, Yeh Mere Dil Se Poocho’. There were no other details provided in the cassette about the song. It almost seemed like the compiler had chanced upon this ditty while having his lassi at a roadside dhaba and recorded it for us. I am not exaggerating; the quality of recording in those cassettes sometime did conjure up such a scenario. There was only one detail on the flap which inevitably caught my attention. The name of the movie: Jungle Mein Mangal. It was a name pregnant with possibilities and to a fecund adolescent mind all these possibilities repeatedly had me and Sonam in lead roles with just a headband or two as our only attire.
I start with Jungle Mein Mangal because, in my recollection, this was the first Hindi movie, where jungle was a key part of the plot. Alright, the smart ones will raise their hands and offer Madhumati but there, as Farah Khan reminded us a few weeks back, the primary story was of punar-janam. A select few will remind me of ‘Tarzan Comes to Delhi’ where Dara Singh plays the eponymous role with Mumtaz as the Indian Jane. But, as the name suggests, Tarzan actually leaves the jungle behind in search of civilization and comes to Delhi (some might argue that coming to Delhi is no better, but I won’t go down that path).
So, back to Jungle Mein Mangal that I eventually watched on one summer afternoon and found the mangal element sorely missing. It starred a young Kiran Kumar and had Pran and Balraj Sahni lending their names to the venture. The story was of an all-boy group led by Pran facing off an all-girl group led by a matron at a jungle guest house. A nun gets killed by some mysterious man/ape, followed by another male student and before you can say, Ramsay, you have got bodies piling up. The jungle was your average economy sized run-of-the-mill woods and hardly offered any spine-chilling prospect. However, the reason this movie still makes me break into cold sweat in the middle of the night is Pran. He does a double turn here, one that of the old man managing the group of students and second that of a young, hippy member of the group. And, the director then ups the scream quotient, by having the ‘younger’ Pran in drag visiting the girls a la Rafoo Chakkar. Jungle Mein Mangal is a wasted opportunity. I mean give this kind of a plot to B Subhash and he would have created magic.
Magic is what B Subhash created when he decided that it’s time nanhe-munhe in India learnt about Tarzan uncle. He made ‘Tarzan’ in the mid-80s with that furniture-showroom of an actor called Hemant Birje and a parsimonious costume designer’s delight Kimi Katkar. Tarzan is a textbook on making a jungle movie. It had a literal babe-in-the-woods sub-plot, waterfalls galore for a fastidious Kimi to keep the grime away, a slimy Dalip Tahil and an amazing snake with an acute sense of occasion (and anatomy) that knew exactly where to bite the heroine for the hero to do his standard ‘zaher choosna’ routine. Anyway, the story revolved around Kimi, her dad (Om Shivpuri) and Dalip Tahil going to a jungle and Kimi falling for Tarzan there. The bad men want to capture Tarzan and showcase him at Apollo circus as the biggest draw and they succeed. Almost, till Tarzan, wakes up and ensures others smell the coffee. Bappida gave some true jungle numbers (no ‘jhinga la la hoo’ stuff of Shalimar) with the educational title track going, ‘Tarzan, oh my Tarzan, aaj mein sikha doon tujhe pyar kaise ho’ and the other ‘hit-the-dance-floor’ item, ‘Ji le le, ji le le, aayo aayo ji le le’. If you haven’t seen Tarzan, hit the nearest video library where you won’t get it. Instead, search all over the net. It will be worth it. It’s a rare jungle movie that leaves you with a smile (and a little more) at the end.
The bane of Hindi cinema is formula. No sooner you have one thing succeeding, you will have a dozen others queuing up with the same concoction to offer. So Tarzan’s success brought in its wake numerous imitations. Only one remains etched in mind – Jungle Love. It is such a rare movie that you won’t find it listed on IMDB too. These are urban legends, kept alive by a few who watched them and shared them with others on cold nights with an Old Monk or two. Jungle Love followed the same pattern as Tarzan but, alas, didn’t have a soul. So, we had Kirti Singh filling Kimi’s shoes (there wasn’t much else to fill in, really) and an assorted bunch of carnivores trying to have her for lunch but thwarted at the last minute by a two-legged beast that went by the name Rocky. The songs which for some surprising reason showed in Chitrahaar went, ‘Mera mahboob aayega, khaak mein tujhe milayega’ and ‘He-man, O my he-man’ which made me long for ‘Trazan, O my Tarzan’.
We fly over a decade of marriage videos, NRI love stories and candy-floss romance to reach RGV’s Jungle. Originally, titled, ‘Let’s catch Veerappan’ as if doing it was second easiest thing after asking Urmila to pout, RGV made jungle truly scary with Durga (Sushant Singh) and his bunch of merry men (Rajpal, Makrand et al) indulging in unadulterated savagery. It’s an RGV movie all the way – the finely etched characters, the ruthlessness of the vagabonds, amazing camerawork and the background sound – all created a taut thriller which was a genuine ‘hat ke’ attempt. RGV gave the jungle its place in Hindi cinema and jungle aficionados like me our moment in the sun.
In an irony of fate, K Jo (RGV’s favorite target of bait), decided to try his production skills with a jungle story a few years later. The Soham directed ‘Kaal’ had John ‘Ab Raham’ karo (as a Nat Geo correspondent) and Vivek (I don’t remember how to spell my name) Oberoi in the leads with Esha and Lara serving up as eye candy. Ajay Devgan is a mysterious guide who helps them reach their kaal. We were back in B Subhash territory in the movie with Esha and Lara dressed in a manner which no self-respecting machhar would let go (ok, may be Esha would be spared warna Dharam Paaji uska bhi khoon pee jaate). Two items songs (with SRK in the opening credits) couldn’t save the movie and I thought Kaal would spell akaal for all jungle movies for sometime.
Picture my surprise, as I watched ‘Choddon Na Yaar’ a few weeks back with the jungle back in focus. The script writer, apparently, dawned upon ‘The Blair Witch Project’ at his local DVD wallah and exclaimed, ‘this exactly seems like a project which should have Jimmy Shergill in the lead.’ And the director then added a bhatakti aatma into the mix just to see what turns up. When nothing did, he left the movie half way for the audience to figure. But I am doing disservice to the writer and director. Choddon Na Yaar had one ingenious twist which made it a different movie than Blair Witch. It had Kim Sharma.
That, I guess, is the requiem for a jungle.
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
=)) “Choddon Na Yaar had one ingenious twist which made it a different movie than Blair Witch. It had Kim Sharma.”
your post had a twist just as ingenious.. just when i thought you were going to go further, you stopped. more, more :-w
btw.. i thought kaal, weirdly enough, did great business..? or was that just the producers feeding the media?
@ subrat –
smiled thru the entire post. cheeky fellow. loved the humor. Was Gulshan Grover in Jungle main Mangal? I remember him saying that line in some movie
Hilarious. This is humorous writing at its best. Fantastic one liners. You really write like a dream.
=)) ab raham karo!!! =)) oh my tummy… i am laughing like a hyena … oh gawd!!
You have been officially mentioned as the reason why I am up so late guffawing at my computer, to my very sleepy husband.
Will leave you a poem from MAKARAND: remember?
Satpura kay ghanay JUNGLE neend may doobay huA say…
fantastic writing…i became nostalgic…watched tarzan in a local theatre way back in childhood….
:d:d:d enjoyed reading!!!
:d:d:d enjoyed reading!!! would need a sequel to this post when Ashwin Kumar’s film gets released.
lovely post. would love to read your thoughts on current state of affairs in the industry.
Subrat..you captured the Jungli cinema wonderfully..man..kaam nahin karne doge, aap!!
The sides are aching
:d:d:d:d:d:d
Aamir also did a jungle film with Juhi..forget the name..in 1991 and Commando by Mithun qualifies here..right!! Mandakini doing the wet wet thingy here!!!!!
another hit song of Jungle Love was
“koyaliya gaati hai..” Kirti singh in a transparent white kurta under waterfall.
enjoyed reading…
Perhaps… Aamir Juhi film was “tum mere ho” story based on some nag-nagin love.
am i right?
Yess…Shailesh…Tum mere ho!!
Aamir and Juhi must be mighty embarassed about the movie!!
also that huge multi starrer in which Sanjeev Kumar turns into a gorilla??!!
There is Jeetendra, Reena Roy, Sunil Dutt, Rekha and a whole lot of others…it was not strictly jungle but…lots of junglipan!!
it was Jaani Dushman….
oh man!!!
Trivia for u subrat and everyone
kirti singh acted in a mallu movie which won a national award the same year (of course goes without to say twaatally Clad ehehe)
waah!!BTW it would be interesting to know where this great Kirti Singh is now!!
Lastly i saw Kirti singh in Akshay kumar starrer “Dancer” as a side heroine.
shailesh googling ? youtube mein seaarch maroing already??
indraneel, the movie didnt get THE national award…but A national award ( to be more specific someone associated with the movie got it for his contirbution in the movie…phew)
DPAC…
No brother… not googling. no imdb. kirti singh was in one corner of my memory and indraneel just brought out her.
I can remember the era of 1990 where i used to watch same songs of Dil, Deewana Mujhsa Nahin(aamir Khan, madhuri), Jungle Love, veeru Dada on cable. So just memory cut and paste.
ehehe i just asked cuz one ‘maaaa’ song of Dancer is the only thing which turns up if you search for kirti singh
Dpac…aise hi dost log humein “filmo ka encyclopedia” nahin kehte!
now i must search for kirti singh because i have forgotten her face.
filmography of kirti singh
http://www.movietalkies.com/artists/index.asp?ArtistId=45705
thats incomplete boss… trust me
no luck shailesh??
are yaar… tere paas complete list hai kyaa?
nop complete list tho nahin hai..
par i know this one though
striker, dabba, etj, wb – thanks! praise sun ke dar jata hoon aur woh David Dhawan uncle ka jungle wala gaana yaad aa jata hai – jungle hai aadhi raat mein lagne laga hai dar
K3 – Bhavani Prasad Mishra on Satpura:
(sandarbh sahit vyakhya kijiye)
Satpura ke ghane jungle
Need mein doobe huye se
Oonghte Anmane jungle
Jhaad oonche aur neeche
Chup khade hain aankh meenche
something something chup hai
something something dhansho is mein
kya yaad dilaya hai!!
Arijit, Gajendra, luckykabutar (neele nainon waala??), Indraneel, Shailesh – keep the comments coming. Shailesh – Aamir-Juhi jungle movie, I guess, Daulta ki Jung would qualify more. Also, Jeetu bhai wasn’t there in Jaani Dushman so the movie might be Nagin (Jeetu bhai did a friendly snake appearance)
DPac – Kirti Singh in A National Award winning mallu movie?? Was this the national award for a movie providing wholesome entertainment to teenagers? Then she has my vote
@Subrat,
Jungle mein mor nacha aur sabne dekha.
Majedar read.
—–
@Kavita
Bhavani Prasad Mishra’s “Jungle” (satpurha wale) and “Jungle mein mangal”, Tarzan ke jungle?
ye kab kaise aur kyon ek ho gaye? jaise pen paper and Mishra ji had become one while writing his poems.
:-?
and Tarzan had Alisha Chinoy’s voice used in Tarzon O my Tarzon aaja mein sikha dun tujhe pyar kaise ho.
Did Hemant Birje and Kimi Katkar’s love produce any child in the film? Then we can have sequel of that film as now Tarzonputra will be ready to be launched:)
RK – yes they produced a love child who Sanjay Khan adopted. He goes around by the name Zayed.
Ohh had not seen the film hence did not know. but its better to drop idea of sequel then.
Or they had another child also, who is yet to be launched? may be Tarzonputri?:-?
Subrat for the whole poem:
http://www.anubhuti-hindi.org/gauravgram/bhavaniprasadmishra/satpuda.htm
Gustaakhi Maaf RK bhaiyya but I cannot BUT remember this poem whenever JUNGLE is mentioned.
Each time AP Express whizzed past Ratlam this poem would ring in my ears and I would day dream about being lost alone in a middle-of-nowhere railway station, raat ko kameenon say bachnay kay liye and to save my honour,I would take succour in the Satpura kay ghanay Jungle…..and of course there would be NO Shahid to save me, I would reach home safely after many adventures and NO Tarzan…..
this was first a short story, then a HUGE novel and then a Film concept
Now I am left with only the poem after Imtiaz Ali stole my plot!!
galay pattay, haray pattay, saday pattay……….
Hilarious!! saari neend chali gayee padh kar=))=))
sahi!
something to cheer me up after a bad exam.
wasn’t there a jungle wali movie starring Govinda and Manisha?
There was also one with sanjay dutt and juhi chawla ….
Safari ! .. and i remember another one “Maharaja” where govinda does a desi ace ventura.
i guess Jungle is the best jungle movie made by bollywood
@subrat
“in a national award winning mallu movie” is misleading thats y i added a disclaimer…
since no one has got it till now – the award was for best playback singer of that year for the movie
it was so totally kirti singhs best performance EVER (ehehe it helps that she hasnt done much else)
one of the scenes has her character reading and discussing Borges with another character
subrat // n
man i was reading this with this mix in the background “fatboyslim is fucking in heaven”…somewhere in the midway it sounded like “fatboyslim is fucking in jungle”
remember this from jungle by rajpalyadav
“goriya re goriya re dil churake lejaa
tantanaktan tantanaktan…….”
K3 – thanks for the full poem. It’s been a while
Dpac – what is the movie?
Suchita – Jungle mein often neend chali jaati hai
Neeraja – Bad exam?? tautology.. all exams are bad
‘Moonam Pakkam’(The Third Day)
- Padmarajan (dir.)
G. Venugopal got best playback singer (male)
Another one of those heart wrenching Pappan films..
@Subrat
hehe…you are right!
waise, thanks for spelling my name as Neeraja and not Neerja as you did last time(your other post)
Subrat…sanjeev kumar was not there in naagin.. so the movie must be jaani dushman…
also thanks for reminding me Daulat ki jung… it was searching for treasure. and producer/director’s name was jalil ahmed.. i used to laugh that”kisi ka naam jalil bhi ho sakta hai!
another film on same searching for treasure was “zalzalaa” starring dharmaji, shatrughan sinha and rajiv kapoor
BTW, the samjay dutt-juhi starrer film was Safaari
pls can any1 tell me where can i download full movie (jungle love), i would really appreciate if any1 can guide me.