He’s alive in each word of his songs

Manoj Kumar remembers Gulshan Bawra, who gave us the legendary song Mere desh ki dharti.

Average-wise, Gulshan Bawra was the Don Bradman among lyricists. We had the pleasure of knowing each other before we entered the world of cinema. He was almost a family member for me. Meri desh ki dharti from the film Upkar happened when we had gone to a shrine to pay our respects. When we returned to the car, he was singing Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle… jawanon bhar bhar lo jholiyan… khushi se bolo boliyan… I had remained quiet as he hummed these lyrics.

A couple of years later when I made Upkar, I went to music composer Kalyanji and narrated the script. I called up Gulshan at home and told him the situation from the film. I recalled the lyrics I had heard him hum as we were returning from the shrine. They had stayed in my mind… I thought that it was a great idea for my film, given a bit of improvisation. I did not like the lines: jawanon bhar bhar lo jholiyan… khushi se bolo boliyan. I had them removed from the song finally. Instead, I insisted on: Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle ugle heere-moti. Both, Kalyanji and Gulshan were hesitant about the change. They advised that the mukhda of a song cannot have just one line. But I remained adamant about the song and suddenly, an hour later, Gulshan jumped in his room where he was sitting. ‘This is great!’ he exclaimed with joy.

Every filmmaker, while writing the screenplay arrives at a landmark point in the plot where he believes that the scene can be narrated musically. The situation is then explained to the lyricist and that’s exactly how Mere desh ki dharti happened.

Gulshan had written another song, Har khushi hai wahan tu jahan bhi rahe for Upkar. Now, he could not finish writing the whole song because he had to escort my brother to a college in Ajmer. Later, Gulshan himself confessed to the media that the second stanza of the song was not written by him, but was penned by Aziz Kaifi and me.

Gulshan was a jolly good fellow. I got to know about his illness some two-and-a-half months ago. He had told me that he was undergoing the last radiations and was all right otherwise. When we had met at Shakti Samanta’s chautha ceremony, he had said that he was doing absolutely fine. In fact, he was truly excited about a new car he had purchased after 27 years. He was proud to have paid the money to buy the car. I was thankful to God that my friend was doing well then… But again, he’s alive in each word of Mere desh ki dharti. That song is imperishable!

When Mahendra Kapoorji, who sang Mere desh ki dharti, passed away, our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said that he would always be remembered for the song. It hurts to know that so many people associated with the song — Kalyanji, Mahendra Kapoor and Gulshan Bawra — are no more. Gulshan worked very well with Prakash Mehra on songs like Yaari hai iman mera. Before he became well-known, Gulshan wrote songs under a pseudonym.

Gulshan was also an entertaining comedian. Hardly brooding, he always had everyone in splits with his act of mimicry. I don’t understand when he used to sit and write. He always seemed on the move. When I would ask him how he was, he would often hum the lines of his hit song, Iss gulshan ko ujde huey ek zamaana beet gaya… Gulshan and I were from the same village near Lahore, Pakistan. My chief assistant Sikandar was Gulshan’s cousin. So we bonded on much beyond just cinema. Filmmaker Kewal Sharma, cricket player Manmohan Sood, Gushan and I we were good friends.

Gulshan has only gone away physically. He was a wonderful man. He was a friend to everyone and would never spread gossip. God bless his soul. My love to his wife.

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Movie Review : Ek: The Power of One

Ek: The Power of One (Drama)
Cast: Bobby Deol, Nana Patekar, Shriya Sharan
Direction: Sangeeth Sivan
Duration: 2 hours 10 minutes Critic's Rating:**

Someone's suddenly woken up, pulled this out of the cans and peddled it as brand new cinema. Sad. The ruse doesn't work. For the viewer immediately sees through the stale plot and narration and wonders why Bobby Deol would do something he's done before: sleepwalk through a role as an assassin who suddenly gives up his trigger-happy ways for a change of heart and role. Actually, he wasn't too bad in films like Baadal and Bichoo, which showcased his bleeding heart once the bullets had all been fired. But here, he simply chooses to do a ramp walk through the rough and tumble of a mercenary's life, complete with designer glares, guns and goth make-up.

Nandu, the man from nowhere, is hired by a CM aspirant to fake-out an assassination and help garner the sympathy votes. But the killing turns out to be real and before you can say whodunit, Nandu is on the run, ending up in distant Hoshiyarpur. He enters a pucca Punjabi household as their long-lost son and begins on his arduous journey of remorse and redemption, with the large extended family gorging him with sarson ka saag and sermons. Of course, he gets enough time to flex his muscles here too, as there are a whole bunch of bad farmers ready to usurp his adopted dadaji's land. But bone-crunching is relatively easy for our crook-turned-saviour compared to the nosey investigations of the CBI officer (Nana Patekar) who is determined to nab the politician's killer.

It's Nana Patekar's tapori act as the hard nosed cop which actually saves the day for this dismal film which keeps drifting into schmaltzy family business, whenever the action revs up. Watch it only if you want to see what old-fashioned Bollywood looked like, before the smart new wave swept away the cobwebs.

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Leave me alone

A harassed Rahman, fed up of non-stop felicitation, seeks peace and solace in Bengaluru

Post-Oscars it's not been an easy time for A R Rahman. He returned home to a kind of hysterical fanfare that exhausted and alarmed him. Rahman has been beleaguered by a blitzkrieg of attention. He is finding it tough to cope with all the adulation. Suffering from serious fatigue the maestro has decided to go completely underground for a while.

After cancelling his work-related trip to London, Rahman has now disappeared from his home in Chennai to destinations unknown. Presumably he has surfaced in Bengaluru . But none of his close family and friends are telling his fans, admirers and the media about his whereabouts. A close friend, on condition of anonymity, spilled the beans. “All the international and national attention finally got to Rahman. He is essentially a very very shy artiste. All he cares about is God and his music, in that order. He doesn't talk about anything else. Going on stage and being the cynosure of thousands of eyes is death for him. He went into hiding with only his God and music for company.”

Inaccessible at the moment to all but his closest family members, Rahman reluctantly replied to persistent queries about his health. He said, “I am just recovering from all the exhaustion.”

The question is, how will this media-shy genius cope with all the demands on his time and attention that are bound to be showered on him? A producer who has worked with Rahman followed him all the way to Bengaluru to sign him for his next project, but he refused to meet him.

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Movie Review : Siddharth: The Prisoner

Film: Siddharth: The Prisoner (Thriller)
Cast: Rajat Kapoor, Sachin Nayak
Direction: Pryas Gupta
Duration: 1 hour 34 minutes
Critic’s rating:***

There's a whole new breed of filmmakers who are trying to find a foothold in Bollywood with their different background. These are the cine-literate folks who have learnt their craft from French, Italian, Iranian art house cinema and their philosophy from existentialists like Kafka and Camus. Small wonder then, director Pryas Gupta chooses to pay tribute to Albert Camus' 1942 classic, The Stranger (L'Etranger) by having our hero pick up a copy from the footpath and walking off lovingly with it. Only this time, the book has been written by Siddharth Roy (Rajat Kapoor), the hero who missed the Booker and somehow ended up in jail. Don't know why. Don't need to know, perhaps.

Having paid his tribute, the director gets on with the business of storytelling. Again an ambiguous, teasing exercise that sees you following our protagonist on his silent jaunts in the streets of Mumbai, as he tries to rebuild his life, after a stint in prison. Having been separated from his wife, he lives in a decrepit room and pounds on a typewriter, creating the new Booker-winning manuscript. Unfortunately, the manuscript gets exchanged for an ungodly wad of notes in a cyber cafe. While the cyber cafe boy (Sachin Nayak) desperately hunts for the underworld's moolah, our writer launches a frenzied search for his manuscript. In between, he takes a break to rebuild bridges with his three-year-old son, only to realise that despite being free, he has carried his prison within him.

A metaphorical film about freedom and desire, the film keeps you engrossed. Firstly, by its explorations on the leitmotif of greed. And secondly, due to Rajat Kapoor's nuanced, almost minimalist act of a man in torment.

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Sanjay Dutt and Akshay Kumar haven’t forgotten their past clash; are creating trouble on the sets of Blue

Ego clashes between two co-stars on the sets of a film is a director’s worst nightmare. And that’s just what is giving Blue’s director Anthony D’Souza sleepless nights.

Actors Sanjay Dutt and Akshay Kumar’s ego battle is proving to be hazardous to this film they have surprisingly consented to do together.

We hear that owing to Sanju’s demands, the shoot scheduled for Feb 22 had to be canceled. While some claim that Sanju is putting off shooting with Akshay, many say that Akshay too hasn’t done anything particular to make Sanju comfortable.

Little does everyone remember that the Sanjay-Akshay jhadga dates back to 1994, owing to an incident while working together on Raj Sippy’s Amaanat.

Recalls our reliable source, “Akshay was relatively new in the industry then and Raj was planning to picturise a song on him.

When Sanjay got to know about this, he managed to convince Raj to do the song with him instead of Akshay. And Raj had consented.

15 years down the line, Akshay is still nursing a grouse against Sanjay. He tactfully skirted around the topic and even reminded Sanjay of the Amaanat episode. Things get really difficult when the two are together on the sets.”

Director Anthony though prefers to put a brave face and says, “I don’t have any issues on my shoots.

Sanjay and Akshay will be shooting together only from March 1 and our sets are bring readied. The story about whatever happened on Feb 22 isn’t true.”

From Sanjay’s side, Dharam Oberoi, CEO of Sanjay Dutt productions, says, “Akshay and Sanjay have no issues. The two exchange hugs every time they bump into each other.”

However, a source close to actress Lara Dutta, who is also a part of Blue says, “We were informed that there’s a shoot on Feb 22. But just a few days before the shoot, Lara was told that the shoot was canceled.”

Phew! We wish Anthony all the best.

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