Rediscovering Subash Ghai..
Subash Ghai… not a very Hot Topic here in PFC, then why did I choose him for my first Post at PFC?Firstly, Off Late, rediscovering People, movies etc is quite ‘HOT’ in PFC and Subash Ghai is in the news for his “Kaun likhega Karodpati” script thingy.
Cinephiles tried finding his vile intentions and motivations behind the scheme, which at least brought him back to the news, and now with the so called ‘Intellectual’s Favourite bashing boy B Grade superstar’ Himesh reshamiaaya (did i get the no. of a’s in his name right??) buying the rights for a Ghai Classic ‘KARZ’, I decided… this is the time when Mr. Ghai deserves a full blown article and maybe a discussion on his films (and not him).
Finally, there is one more reason why i choose him as my first topic, as when i look at the name of PFC, the P stands for passion and my passion for cinema, right from my childhood has been shaped by many and the first and foremost among them is Mr. Ghai, whose films i grew up on.
I will start this article with 10 Ghai scenes, which are permanently embedded in my memory.
Film- KARZ(1980)—————-With the guitar prelude to ‘Ek Haseena Thi’ going on in the background, Raj Kiran and Simi Garewal are returning back home in the jeep.
Unknown to what future holds for him, Raj Kiran is humming away with the tune. The picturesque backround adds to the calming down and soothing effect. Suddenly, the Jeep comes to a halt. Raj Kiran climbs down to see what is happening, but what is this, the love of his life, his bride, Kamini, the enchantress starts the engines to a roar and drives the jeep again and again over him.
Afterthought:- Long before we had the RGVs and the Bhatts exploring the shock value of Dhokas and infidelity, we had this movie. Imagine the kind of impact this scene would have had on the people watching it for the first time.
Film- HERO(1983)—————Meenakshi Seshadree is praying in the temple, while jackie is lying wounded elsewhere in the village. She has not eaten since days. Suddenly the village elder annonces, ‘Beti use Hosh aa gaya”, the sombre mood changes and guitar notes start flowing in the background.
A chorus starts humming, “Mera janam, Mera Balam, Mera Balam,Mera Janam..”. Meenakshi starts running singing a long Janoooo….., and then they meet and as clichéd as it may sound they run towards each other, with the song “Tu Mera janoo hai” playing in the background.
Afterthought:- As artificial as it may seem, this sequence defined and embodied Hindi movies for the entire 80s.The Girl running to the boy sequence is present in thousands of more movies, but this scene refuses to get lost among them, maybe the superlative music has something to do with it.
Film- MERI JUNG (1985)———————-“Jeet Jayenge hum, Jeet Jayeeenge Hum…tu agar sang hai”, it starts out with this song being played on a Piano by Girish Karnad and within a span of 10, 15 minutes , with different parts of the song “Zindagi har kadam.. ek nayi jung hai” playing intermittently, Anil kapoor’s family is destructed.
His father is wrongly convicted and Hung, mother goes mad, and with the song closing out, we have scenes of waves crashing against huge rocks and the ‘now grown up’ Anil delivering animated dialogues in the court room, (suggesting that he is winning all the cases) facing towards the camera with a different pose every time.
The song within it’s start and end covers decades of time and shows the good times, the pathetic times and the slow and painful rise of Anil’s family again.
Afterthought:- Again a defining scene of the 80’s, many movies have used this type of story telling hence, but this one stands out primarily because of the music and the figurative execution of events.
Film- KARMA(1986)—————–Dileep Kumar is away with his band of boys to fight the evil ‘Dr. Dang’, when Shanta Tai comes and announces that his wife has called him. He goes, picks up the phone and starts asking Nutan about her well being. Alas he has forgot that she has lost her speech after the terrible shock she had when her entire family was killed by Dr Dang, and she can speak no more.
Suddenly he realises that her wife can’t speak to him, the dejection and grief evident in his eyes. How will they speak now? Suddenly, Nutan’s bangles make a sound and to his utter disbelief, he can understand what she is saying. He talks while she just shakes her bangles again and again, to convey what she means.
Afterthought:- Agreed, Ghai’s stories have always been inspired, but its scenes like these which don’t come any more original and take his inspired movies to a level above the original ones.
Film- RAM LAKHAN(1989)———————-“Ae ji, Oo Ji, Lo Ji, Suno Ji” Anil kapoor sings, while his group of Mohalleh ka lafangas dance in gay abandon with him. Anupam Kher, playing the quintessential bania, is rightly found to be looting people using false weights, much to the happiness of KashiRam ( Satish kaushik) his assistant as the song goes on.Where as radha, played by madhuri has given her heart away to lakhan and unable to resist his spell on her, her feet defy her and start dancing to his tunes as we enter the antara “main tera Mohan, tu meri radha” and the tabla beats start growing stronger.
Afterthought:-Ghai’s heriones, in 80s represented the Gaun ki Gori to the T, she would give her heart away to the hero and not able to control her emotions, would dance behind close doors and closed eyes, as the hero would be singing in the mohallah. Ahh!! adolescent innocence was never this believable in any other movies after this.
Film- SAUDAGAR(1991)———————-Employing the similar technique (as in Meri Jung) of having a song in the background while giving the story development across decades, this time the song is ‘imli ka boota’, with a badly wigged Anupam Kher playing mandhari telling a group pf village children the story of saudagars, right from their childhood, to youth to their present Dushmani. Another scene which uses a song to terrific effect in the background is the entry scene for Vivek Musran. With his mother and all relatives singing “Gopi jan ras raas abhilaashi, kaurav kaaling kans vinasi, himkar baanuk saan prakasi, sarva bhut hi vas vaiyakhi, bolo jai kanhaiyya ki…natkhat bansi wale gokul ke raja, meri ankhiyaan taras gayi ab toh aaja , aaja.., with this song palying Vivek Musran enters the frame, displayin all the sastra traning he has had all these years, bows before his elders and jumps on to the horses, signifying that he , indeed is the kanhaaiya here.
Afterthought:- Executions like this prove beyond doubt that Ghai is the master of picturisations and the justice he does to the music he has is unparalled.
Mandhari has come to attend a party thrown in favour of Rajeswar as he has returned from the jail, after 14 long years( please note that it’s 14 here, signifying ram’s vanvaas maybe??), he accuses Rajeswar of having forgotten him. Raj Kumar thunders, “Mandhari, Ek baar tumne awaj to di hoti, hum salkhon ko cheer ke aa jaate, itihas gawah hai ki jab rajeswar ne dosti nibhayi hai. to afsane likhe gaye hain aur dushmani nibhayi hai to..”. There were lots of other great confrontration scenes between him and Dileep kumar, notably the one where dileep kumar gets drunk and shouts across from the other side of the river, when Raj kumar’s helicopter runs out of fuel and he has to land in Sanatanpur ( the garh of Dileep Kumar) and he says “Hum tumhe aisi jagah maarenge, jahan bandhook bhi hamari hogi, goli bhi hamari hogi aur jameen bhi hamari hogi” and of course the final Holi scene where they patch up again.
Afterthought:- Handling egos, massive ones at that is a consistent rumble in our film industry, but Subahs ghai showed not only how to handle the egos of Huge actors correctly, but also to harness moments of pure brilliance from them.
Film- KHALNAYAK(1993)———————-Ballu, the true embodiment of pure evil has been caught by inspector Ram. Now behind the bars, he refuses to have food and throws it away. When confronted, he hits the hawaldaar. The hawaldaar goes and complains to Jackie saying that Ballu has bashed up a police wallah. Inspector Ram tells them to bring him. When he confronts Ballu for a fight, Ballu points out that a fight is not justified, since Ram has a VARDI and he doesn’t.
Ram, being the true embodiment of RAM, takes out his shirt and although his well oiled biceps are nothing to show in front of the massive iron pumped biceps of Sanju, he manages to beat the shit out of Ballu. As he goes on beating the pulp out of him, he keeps on reminding him ” Police wale pe haath mat uthana”, finally it seems ballu is going to be killed today and that’s when the tuccha subinspectors and hawaldaars come in and stop Jackie. As Jackie walks away,he reminds ballu one final Time..”police wale pe haath mat uthana”. Then as ballu is being carried away by the hawaldars, he manages to give one huge blow back to a hawaldar, who promptly falls behoos. Finally, before fainting himself, ballu tells “Jakke apne Raam sahab se bol do, aaj ballu ne fir se police wale pe haath uthaaya’
Afterthought:- Talking of originality, sequences like these where Ghai played out unique and original scenes ( with a dash of humour)for the masses, must have fetched the maximum seeties and hoots from the crowds in the UPs, MPs and Berar sectors.Film- KHALNAYAK(1993)———————-As, Ballu is again languishing behind the bars, Anupam Kher playing Jailor Ishwar Girdhari Pandey stops by to have a check on his high profile kaidi. As he looks at Ballu, who is humming ‘nayak Nahi, khal nayak hun main, nayak nahin, khal nayak hun main’, ballu suddenly proclaims, “aaj se theek 11 din baad, 11 tareek, raat 11 baje, main, ballu balram aap ke jail se Furr ho jaunga..mujhe kasam hai , meri maa ki”, he then gives a twitch to his long hairs and starts humming ‘nayak nahi, khalnayak hun main’ again.
Hiding his hichki, Anupam kher informs jackie about Ballu’s challenge, and tells his forces to tighten the security on Ballu, suddnely, wire mashes get started to be built, the walls start getting higher and teh entire jail starts preparing for teh D Day. Meanwhile, jailor Ishwar, keep looking at the watch and the calender alternatively. Th eD Day comes, the destined time also comes and goes. But, what’s this..ballu doesn’t even make a effort to move, let alone breaking the jail.
As inspector Ram, asks him about his challenge and how he lost it, Ballu replies very naively” Shab aapne mujhe itna maara, mujhe itna dard hua aur aap log aaram se so rahe the, to maien socha ki aap log kuch din kaam karen, aur main aaram se soun”.
Afterthought:- This scene shows that Ghai was the master of prison sequences, court sequences where the use of subtle humour creates just the desired impact. Again, a scene which shall leave a huge impact on first time watchers.
Film- PARDES(1997)——————As Arjun(Shahrukh), is getting hit from all the goons in the climax,( with teh song Nahi hona tha, playin in the background, in typical Ghai style).. he bounces back very much liek baazigar and DDLJ and starts hitting them all. He goes on hitting Rajiv, with blood flowing from all possible places of his face, as if he would kill him. Suddenly, a hand comes into the frame and stops him. The hands belong to Amrish Puri, who was such a important part of all Ghai movies.
They break into confrontation, where Amrish Puri accuses Arjun of treachery and asks him what is his relation with Ganga,and in a style of his own, Shahrukh replies,”Hai..Pyaar hai..babuji..agar..kisi ke liye ladhna pyaar hai..to hai..pyaar hai..and so on and on..”Afterthought:- As Ghai was truly looking for inspiration for his movies after the debacle of ‘TRIMURTI, this is in my opinion, his ode to DDLJ, with the climax almost resembling the one at DDLJ. But as always, Ghai tells the story in his own special style and leaves a strong mark.
Hmm…there are scores of Ghai scenes about which i can go on writing, but i have tried selecting the 10 which cover the maximum number of his films. I would like to remind you guys that all these scenes have been based on my memories and may not be 100% faithful to what happened in the movies, but these are rather what i remember of those scenes.
Coming to Ghai, i agree that originality has never been his forte, and he himself agrees that he is a ‘Story teller’ rather than a director. It’s the way he tells his story is what sets him apart.Musically, his ability to extract good music from his music directors is perhaps second to only Yash chopra.But as they say, ever product has an expiry date and he seems to have run out of ideas.His contemporaries have either fizzled out (N Chandra, KC Bokadia, FC Mehra etc etc) or have reinvented themselves (Rakesh roshan, Yash raj films) or retired ( Mahesh Bhatt), but Ghai refuses to give up and is still searching for re invention.
Form is temporary and class is permanent, and i for one believe that Ghai, the master story teller has still some great stories to tell. One still yearns to see, the Middle aged man in a white Hat and Black Overcoat coming back with one special story of his, to win over the masses as well as the classes, one final time and giving that SPECIAL appearance in one of the songs of the movie, ( a blockbuster one at that!!!!).
----------------------------------------
This article written by me, was published in passionforcinema first..here goes the link:-
http://passionforcinema.com/projekt-iview-rediscovering-subhash-ghai/
Cinephiles tried finding his vile intentions and motivations behind the scheme, which at least brought him back to the news, and now with the so called ‘Intellectual’s Favourite bashing boy B Grade superstar’ Himesh reshamiaaya (did i get the no. of a’s in his name right??) buying the rights for a Ghai Classic ‘KARZ’, I decided… this is the time when Mr. Ghai deserves a full blown article and maybe a discussion on his films (and not him).
Finally, there is one more reason why i choose him as my first topic, as when i look at the name of PFC, the P stands for passion and my passion for cinema, right from my childhood has been shaped by many and the first and foremost among them is Mr. Ghai, whose films i grew up on.
I will start this article with 10 Ghai scenes, which are permanently embedded in my memory.
Film- KARZ(1980)—————-With the guitar prelude to ‘Ek Haseena Thi’ going on in the background, Raj Kiran and Simi Garewal are returning back home in the jeep.
Unknown to what future holds for him, Raj Kiran is humming away with the tune. The picturesque backround adds to the calming down and soothing effect. Suddenly, the Jeep comes to a halt. Raj Kiran climbs down to see what is happening, but what is this, the love of his life, his bride, Kamini, the enchantress starts the engines to a roar and drives the jeep again and again over him.
Afterthought:- Long before we had the RGVs and the Bhatts exploring the shock value of Dhokas and infidelity, we had this movie. Imagine the kind of impact this scene would have had on the people watching it for the first time.
Film- HERO(1983)—————Meenakshi Seshadree is praying in the temple, while jackie is lying wounded elsewhere in the village. She has not eaten since days. Suddenly the village elder annonces, ‘Beti use Hosh aa gaya”, the sombre mood changes and guitar notes start flowing in the background.
A chorus starts humming, “Mera janam, Mera Balam, Mera Balam,Mera Janam..”. Meenakshi starts running singing a long Janoooo….., and then they meet and as clichéd as it may sound they run towards each other, with the song “Tu Mera janoo hai” playing in the background.
Afterthought:- As artificial as it may seem, this sequence defined and embodied Hindi movies for the entire 80s.The Girl running to the boy sequence is present in thousands of more movies, but this scene refuses to get lost among them, maybe the superlative music has something to do with it.
Film- MERI JUNG (1985)———————-“Jeet Jayenge hum, Jeet Jayeeenge Hum…tu agar sang hai”, it starts out with this song being played on a Piano by Girish Karnad and within a span of 10, 15 minutes , with different parts of the song “Zindagi har kadam.. ek nayi jung hai” playing intermittently, Anil kapoor’s family is destructed.
His father is wrongly convicted and Hung, mother goes mad, and with the song closing out, we have scenes of waves crashing against huge rocks and the ‘now grown up’ Anil delivering animated dialogues in the court room, (suggesting that he is winning all the cases) facing towards the camera with a different pose every time.
The song within it’s start and end covers decades of time and shows the good times, the pathetic times and the slow and painful rise of Anil’s family again.
Afterthought:- Again a defining scene of the 80’s, many movies have used this type of story telling hence, but this one stands out primarily because of the music and the figurative execution of events.
Film- KARMA(1986)—————–Dileep Kumar is away with his band of boys to fight the evil ‘Dr. Dang’, when Shanta Tai comes and announces that his wife has called him. He goes, picks up the phone and starts asking Nutan about her well being. Alas he has forgot that she has lost her speech after the terrible shock she had when her entire family was killed by Dr Dang, and she can speak no more.
Suddenly he realises that her wife can’t speak to him, the dejection and grief evident in his eyes. How will they speak now? Suddenly, Nutan’s bangles make a sound and to his utter disbelief, he can understand what she is saying. He talks while she just shakes her bangles again and again, to convey what she means.
Afterthought:- Agreed, Ghai’s stories have always been inspired, but its scenes like these which don’t come any more original and take his inspired movies to a level above the original ones.
Film- RAM LAKHAN(1989)———————-“Ae ji, Oo Ji, Lo Ji, Suno Ji” Anil kapoor sings, while his group of Mohalleh ka lafangas dance in gay abandon with him. Anupam Kher, playing the quintessential bania, is rightly found to be looting people using false weights, much to the happiness of KashiRam ( Satish kaushik) his assistant as the song goes on.Where as radha, played by madhuri has given her heart away to lakhan and unable to resist his spell on her, her feet defy her and start dancing to his tunes as we enter the antara “main tera Mohan, tu meri radha” and the tabla beats start growing stronger.
Afterthought:-Ghai’s heriones, in 80s represented the Gaun ki Gori to the T, she would give her heart away to the hero and not able to control her emotions, would dance behind close doors and closed eyes, as the hero would be singing in the mohallah. Ahh!! adolescent innocence was never this believable in any other movies after this.
Film- SAUDAGAR(1991)———————-Employing the similar technique (as in Meri Jung) of having a song in the background while giving the story development across decades, this time the song is ‘imli ka boota’, with a badly wigged Anupam Kher playing mandhari telling a group pf village children the story of saudagars, right from their childhood, to youth to their present Dushmani. Another scene which uses a song to terrific effect in the background is the entry scene for Vivek Musran. With his mother and all relatives singing “Gopi jan ras raas abhilaashi, kaurav kaaling kans vinasi, himkar baanuk saan prakasi, sarva bhut hi vas vaiyakhi, bolo jai kanhaiyya ki…natkhat bansi wale gokul ke raja, meri ankhiyaan taras gayi ab toh aaja , aaja.., with this song palying Vivek Musran enters the frame, displayin all the sastra traning he has had all these years, bows before his elders and jumps on to the horses, signifying that he , indeed is the kanhaaiya here.
Afterthought:- Executions like this prove beyond doubt that Ghai is the master of picturisations and the justice he does to the music he has is unparalled.
Mandhari has come to attend a party thrown in favour of Rajeswar as he has returned from the jail, after 14 long years( please note that it’s 14 here, signifying ram’s vanvaas maybe??), he accuses Rajeswar of having forgotten him. Raj Kumar thunders, “Mandhari, Ek baar tumne awaj to di hoti, hum salkhon ko cheer ke aa jaate, itihas gawah hai ki jab rajeswar ne dosti nibhayi hai. to afsane likhe gaye hain aur dushmani nibhayi hai to..”. There were lots of other great confrontration scenes between him and Dileep kumar, notably the one where dileep kumar gets drunk and shouts across from the other side of the river, when Raj kumar’s helicopter runs out of fuel and he has to land in Sanatanpur ( the garh of Dileep Kumar) and he says “Hum tumhe aisi jagah maarenge, jahan bandhook bhi hamari hogi, goli bhi hamari hogi aur jameen bhi hamari hogi” and of course the final Holi scene where they patch up again.
Afterthought:- Handling egos, massive ones at that is a consistent rumble in our film industry, but Subahs ghai showed not only how to handle the egos of Huge actors correctly, but also to harness moments of pure brilliance from them.
Film- KHALNAYAK(1993)———————-Ballu, the true embodiment of pure evil has been caught by inspector Ram. Now behind the bars, he refuses to have food and throws it away. When confronted, he hits the hawaldaar. The hawaldaar goes and complains to Jackie saying that Ballu has bashed up a police wallah. Inspector Ram tells them to bring him. When he confronts Ballu for a fight, Ballu points out that a fight is not justified, since Ram has a VARDI and he doesn’t.
Ram, being the true embodiment of RAM, takes out his shirt and although his well oiled biceps are nothing to show in front of the massive iron pumped biceps of Sanju, he manages to beat the shit out of Ballu. As he goes on beating the pulp out of him, he keeps on reminding him ” Police wale pe haath mat uthana”, finally it seems ballu is going to be killed today and that’s when the tuccha subinspectors and hawaldaars come in and stop Jackie. As Jackie walks away,he reminds ballu one final Time..”police wale pe haath mat uthana”. Then as ballu is being carried away by the hawaldars, he manages to give one huge blow back to a hawaldar, who promptly falls behoos. Finally, before fainting himself, ballu tells “Jakke apne Raam sahab se bol do, aaj ballu ne fir se police wale pe haath uthaaya’
Afterthought:- Talking of originality, sequences like these where Ghai played out unique and original scenes ( with a dash of humour)for the masses, must have fetched the maximum seeties and hoots from the crowds in the UPs, MPs and Berar sectors.Film- KHALNAYAK(1993)———————-As, Ballu is again languishing behind the bars, Anupam Kher playing Jailor Ishwar Girdhari Pandey stops by to have a check on his high profile kaidi. As he looks at Ballu, who is humming ‘nayak Nahi, khal nayak hun main, nayak nahin, khal nayak hun main’, ballu suddenly proclaims, “aaj se theek 11 din baad, 11 tareek, raat 11 baje, main, ballu balram aap ke jail se Furr ho jaunga..mujhe kasam hai , meri maa ki”, he then gives a twitch to his long hairs and starts humming ‘nayak nahi, khalnayak hun main’ again.
Hiding his hichki, Anupam kher informs jackie about Ballu’s challenge, and tells his forces to tighten the security on Ballu, suddnely, wire mashes get started to be built, the walls start getting higher and teh entire jail starts preparing for teh D Day. Meanwhile, jailor Ishwar, keep looking at the watch and the calender alternatively. Th eD Day comes, the destined time also comes and goes. But, what’s this..ballu doesn’t even make a effort to move, let alone breaking the jail.
As inspector Ram, asks him about his challenge and how he lost it, Ballu replies very naively” Shab aapne mujhe itna maara, mujhe itna dard hua aur aap log aaram se so rahe the, to maien socha ki aap log kuch din kaam karen, aur main aaram se soun”.
Afterthought:- This scene shows that Ghai was the master of prison sequences, court sequences where the use of subtle humour creates just the desired impact. Again, a scene which shall leave a huge impact on first time watchers.
Film- PARDES(1997)——————As Arjun(Shahrukh), is getting hit from all the goons in the climax,( with teh song Nahi hona tha, playin in the background, in typical Ghai style).. he bounces back very much liek baazigar and DDLJ and starts hitting them all. He goes on hitting Rajiv, with blood flowing from all possible places of his face, as if he would kill him. Suddenly, a hand comes into the frame and stops him. The hands belong to Amrish Puri, who was such a important part of all Ghai movies.
They break into confrontation, where Amrish Puri accuses Arjun of treachery and asks him what is his relation with Ganga,and in a style of his own, Shahrukh replies,”Hai..Pyaar hai..babuji..agar..kisi ke liye ladhna pyaar hai..to hai..pyaar hai..and so on and on..”Afterthought:- As Ghai was truly looking for inspiration for his movies after the debacle of ‘TRIMURTI, this is in my opinion, his ode to DDLJ, with the climax almost resembling the one at DDLJ. But as always, Ghai tells the story in his own special style and leaves a strong mark.
Hmm…there are scores of Ghai scenes about which i can go on writing, but i have tried selecting the 10 which cover the maximum number of his films. I would like to remind you guys that all these scenes have been based on my memories and may not be 100% faithful to what happened in the movies, but these are rather what i remember of those scenes.
Coming to Ghai, i agree that originality has never been his forte, and he himself agrees that he is a ‘Story teller’ rather than a director. It’s the way he tells his story is what sets him apart.Musically, his ability to extract good music from his music directors is perhaps second to only Yash chopra.But as they say, ever product has an expiry date and he seems to have run out of ideas.His contemporaries have either fizzled out (N Chandra, KC Bokadia, FC Mehra etc etc) or have reinvented themselves (Rakesh roshan, Yash raj films) or retired ( Mahesh Bhatt), but Ghai refuses to give up and is still searching for re invention.
Form is temporary and class is permanent, and i for one believe that Ghai, the master story teller has still some great stories to tell. One still yearns to see, the Middle aged man in a white Hat and Black Overcoat coming back with one special story of his, to win over the masses as well as the classes, one final time and giving that SPECIAL appearance in one of the songs of the movie, ( a blockbuster one at that!!!!).
----------------------------------------
This article written by me, was published in passionforcinema first..here goes the link:-
http://passionforcinema.com/projekt-iview-rediscovering-subhash-ghai/
posted by Perfect Misfit at 10:39 PM
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