Indian cinema & 60, 000 km railway network
4 Jul 2009, 0040 hrs IST, Nandini Raghavendra & Krishna Gopalan, ET Bureau
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AR Rahman’s iconic Jai Ho symbolises the symbiotic relationship of Indian
cinema with the 60,000-km railway network, which binds the country [image:
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*Kambakkht Ishq: Movie Review
*<http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4732452.cms>
together.
It could be a choreographer’s nightmare or a challenge—but India’s
ubiquitous sawari continues to chug in and chug out of the Bollywood factory
with aplomb and chutzpah.
>From the 1954 release Jagriti’s ‘Aao bachchon tumhe dikhayen’ written by
Bharat Ratna awardee Pradeep, to Anand Bakshi’s philosophical lyrics in
‘Gadi bula rahi hai’ in the 1974 film, Dost, to the unforgettable ‘Mere
sapnon ki rani’ from Aradhana to the more recent AR Rahman’s Oscar
crescendo, ‘Jai ho’ from Slumdog Millionaire, trains and Hindi music have
been inseparable.
“Bakshiji’s lyrics have a fantastic connection with life. It’s really about
leaving people behind and meeting new people. At the end of it, the journey
just continues,” says an emotional Dharmendra when queried about the song
from Dost. It was shot in Simla over three days. “The song gave me a chance
to reflect on the past. A lot of events close to my heart came to the fore,”
adds the actor.
The juice of creativity
The allegory of a journey — life, a blooming romance or just the wheels of
history (as in Jagriti) — is irresistible for a lyricist. Some, like
Shailendra, effortlessly combined a situation with humour, which lyrically
found its way into the 1960 Dev Anand and Waheeda Rehman starrer, Kala
Bazaar. The song was ‘Apni toh har aah hi ek toofan hai, uparwala jaan kar
anjaan hae’, which scriptwriter and lyricist Jaideep Sahni of Chak De fame
recalls rather fondly.
“These were lyricists who knew what they were doing,” says Sahni. Take a
look at this. “The obvious meaning is Dev Anand singing to the gods but the
twist in the line, ‘Uparwala jaan ke anjaan hae’, brings a smile to the
viewer when he sees Waheeda Rehman being aware of the actor’s message to
her. After all, she is on the upper berth of the train,” he says with a
laugh. Other songs that he recalls are the poignant ‘Wardhi hai Bhagwan,
fauji mera naam’ from Fauji and the qawaali from Ravi Chopra’s The Burning
Train. Gulzar’s lines for ‘Dhadak, dhadak’ from Bunty aur Babli is about a
train though the word is never mentioned, says Sahni with admiration. The
song and beyond..
Many songs with trains as the backdrop or focus have done remarkably well.
Interestingly, the success of the music was not exactly planned in advance.
Slumdog Millionaire, the film that put India on the Oscar map, is one such
instance.
T-Series president (marketing) Vinod Bhanushali has acquired films with AR
Rahman’s music over the past two years and Slumdog Millionaire was a given.
Trade reports were pretty lukewarm on ‘Jai ho’ though Bhanushali knew he had
a winner on his hands when he heard the number. “There is an Indianess to
‘Jai ho’. It is a term which most Indians greet each other with. It was
catchy, what followed was history,” says Bhanushali who is said to have
bought the music rights to the film for less than Rs 1 crore.
For choreographer Longinus Fernandez, who recently won the Astaire award for
‘Jai ho’, shooting the song at Mumbai’s iconic CST station was a dream
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*Kambakkht Ishq: Movie Review
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come true. “Platforms 3 and 4 were the location and three days were all we
had. Shooting was allowed only between midnight and half past four in the
morning, the period between Mumbai’s last local train out and the first in
the morning. The cooperation from the railways was hugely helpful. I had a
tight brief from Danny Boyle who said this was the film’s climax. I had
around 3,000 people who had to look like daily commuters, and the dance had
to be combined with the celebration of the hero having won the contest and
found his love. For their part, the railways had everything in place —
security, restrooms apart from the train drivers being there well after
their working hours,” says Fernandez.
Like Fernandez, Farah Khan has a close relationship with Dil Se’s
chart-buster ‘Chaiyya chaiyya’. She underplays her contribution saying the
choreography looks more difficult in retrospect. “We did shoot the song over
four days on a moving train, but with Mani Ratnam, Malaika and Shah Rukh
things were only easier. Speaking for SRK, he wanted to jump all over the
train and even climb up the funnel,” says Khan with a laugh, who took a
break from attending to her triplets. The song was shot on the Nilgiri
Mountain Railroad in Tamil Nadu.
The moolah for good music always exists and songs like ‘Chaiyya chaiyya’ and
‘Jai ho’ merely confirm that. For Bhanushali, ‘Jai ho’ was hit and the
Congress party acquired the rights to the song for reportedly Rs 80-90 lakh
for one year for their election campaign, which saw the Congress forming the
government. An additional Rs 40 lakh came in through offerings such as
ringtones while CD sales were reportedly between 60,000-70,000 units.
For Bollywood, the song with the train has been historical. While ‘Mere
sapnon ki rani’ gave the country its first superstar, ‘Jai ho’ brought India
international recognition. Through the years, the inextricable link between
great music and trains has made for some great moments. That story is
unlikely to end in a hurry.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Features/Business-of-Bollywood/Indian-cinema-60-000-km-railway-network/articleshow/4735862.cms?curpg=2
--
regards,
Vithur
