Monday 5 November 2012

Jaane Bhi (mat) Do Yaaro




A month and a half before the 1983s cult classic was re-released by PVR, I laid my hands over Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, the book written by Jai Arjun Singh. And, as I've said before the only thing as interesting as watching movies is to read about them. So, I bought the book to read about what went behind making this classic and I found out that Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is a labour of love, passion and a lot of madness.

As I was reading the book the re-release was announced and it only made sense that I watch it, again but this time on a bigger screen. And I am writing this post just after watching the film, the madness, the satire and the message which is still as relevant as it was back then. This post is not a review. It's about my experiences with the film clubbed with a little trivia from Jai Arjun Singh's book. I would like to thank him for writing it and taking me closer to the film I've loved and lived.

I don't exactly remember how old I was when I first watched Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, around 10-11 maybe. Not too old to understand the darkness of it but old enough to understand that there was something more behind that laughter and insanity. Growing up watching my dad's plays (he is a theatre actor and director in Gorakhpur) helped in a way to develop that kind of understanding. I remember when I watched the last scene I asked my dad if Sudhir and Vinod died. His explanation was that it's just metaphorical, to explain in one scene that "phansta common man he hai." I wasn't too convinced and was taken aback by the sinister hand movement of slitting throat. It was a direct, in your face statement telling us that this is the reality. The laughter and comedy is just a mask. Dad wanted an ending inspired by this for a play he was directing called  'Wey Hi'. As I remember the play, he managed to do that pretty well.

Then came a time when the film was watched multiple times and some of the dialogues became a part of our conversations. We still say "shant gadadhari Bheem shant" when someone is worked up or "CIA, humko bahar tak chod aiye" when we are seeing each other off. "Adharmi, paapi, bhrashtachari, durachari, bol sorry!" is our favourite line to abuse. According to Satish Kaushik who wrote the dialogues, the most loved Mahabharat scene was the easiest to write. A trip to a road-side comic vendor was all it took for them to figure out a befitting scene to conclude the madness.

Surprisingly, Kundan Shah didn't imagine the final product the way we see it now. A lot of scenes that were close to his heart were mercilessly chopped off. Reason was that it needed to be shorter than 2 hours 25 minutes to reduce the taxation. A little known fact that Anupam Kher too was a part of the film took me by surprise when I read the book. He played a mad Disco Killer and was envied by everyone for bagging the craziest role. But the whole footage was chopped off to shorten the length of the film. Sadly, there's no record of Anupam Kher's first ever film since the footage was lost. Imagine if we had that character in the movie it could've beaten Crime Master Gogo in creating that genre of villains. There are more such scenes which were edited out much to Kundan Shah and Ranjit Kapoor's (co writer) grief.

A couple of scenes were inspired from Kundan Shah's real life experiences one of them was the whole satire built around 'gutter'. In today's time of Aquaguard and Kent Water Purifier we might not understand the irony behind the dialogue, "America mein gutter ka pani alag aur peene ka pani alag" but it was and still is the reality for many people who still get drinking water as bad as the water in their sewers.

Kundan Shah is honest in accepting that Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro could've been much better but with the limitations they had it's hard to do even now what he and his team did back then. Their were a lot of patchworks to hide the continuity disasters and shooting mishaps. And still we know that a better movie in this genre has not been made again.
The madness is only enhanced by the brilliant actors who despite thinking that whatever was happening was insane kept playing along. While shooting 'Albert Pinto' scene Naseeruddin Shah thought that two people standing in the same room and talking over phone with each other was plain stupid but he still enacted the scene with full conviction. Every actor added his/her two bits in the character and made it his own. Om Puri's exaggerated Punjabi accent, dead DeMello's changing expressions according to what's happening in the scene, Pankaj Kapoor's dead pan and sinister Tarneja and to top it all Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Vaswani's innocence and buffoonery was par excellence.

A film like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro can not be made again and that is why we go and watch it in theatres 30 years after it was first released; cheering, clapping and mouthing the dialogues along the scenes, "aisi sati ki jai ho...jai ho!"

Saturday 3 November 2012

The Bankster - Book Review


It's very complex to write a novel with one main plot woven with many sub plots. Because of this very complexity there are chances of the writer going completely wrong. Despite a strong main story the novel can crumble if the sub plots are not in sync with the main one. Somehow, this is the case with Ravi Subramanian's The Bankster which looks good in the beginning but gets too confusing trying to include or rather comment on too many issues.

Greater Boston Global Bank is a well known bank with high level of trust and ambitious employees. But the bank's reputation is threatened  when a series of murders happen. A couple of employees are killed to hide a secret that could threaten the whole world. Karan Panjabi, a banker turned journalist steps in to investigate these murders and finds out that the scam is bigger than they thought.

The story begins with the trading of blood diamond in Angola and soon drifts away to banking in Mumbai. Nothing much happens even after 1/3rd of the book is over and the author tends to get too descriptive about things as small as functioning of an iPad. These unnecessary descriptions slow the pace of the story. Jumping in and out of the main plot also causes distraction and stops the flow. Too many characters and not even a single well defined one is another reason why the book fails to impress. In an attempt to tell too many stories the writer forgets that connecting the readers to characters is also an aspect of writing. A couple of key characters remain neglected and you cringe when they turn out to be really important in the end.

There is an effort to squeeze in issues like illegal trading of blood diamond, corruption in banking, money laundering, nuclear power and arms dealing. Out of all the author does maximum justice to banking since it's his home turf.

The end is treated like those investigative TV series where the whole case is solved sitting in a room and talking on the phone. As far as the suspense is concerned it's there and have been protected well and you really want to know what happens in the end only if too many stories don't hinder the flow.

The Bankster is a mish-mash of many issues. I think it's too early to call Ravi Subramanian 'John Grisham of banking'.

Book: The Bankster
Author: Ravi Subramanian
Publisher: Rupa
Price: Rs 250
Pages: 358

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

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