Once upon a time, Mumbai had a verbal diarrhea: The last to review

"Jo apni maa ki izzat nahi karte, unka baap banke mein aata hoon" -
Just when Sultan Mirza speaks these amazing pulp lines, on the screen the credit comes: written by rajat arora. Now, was it deliberate or was it just an accident? lets leave it to that. But having said that, Once upon a time in Mumbai has so many such pulp lines that you start wondering "dude, everyone's poet in the movie". Something that the phenomenal Kanti Shah and his writer Bashir-ji can do even in their sleep. Now coming back to the topic: Once upon a time in Mumbai isn't a Gunda, no it can never be - but it is a movie that I so loved watching it, mind you, i didnt like it esp the later half, but i enjoyed it.

In the world of multiplex movies, here is one movie that you would want to watch in a single screen with its amazing ambience, seeti-maaroing masses and something that the whole India loved to do before the dreaded multiplexes came. And when a dialogue like "har kitab ki kismat main library nahin hoti, kuch kabadi ki dukan main milti hain", comes, you know what you are in for -its like Ajay Devgan trying to get his 'Dilwale, Diljale', 'Jigar' fan-base back in his kitty. But leave those inhibitions because the movie "Once upon a time" is a super entertainer at least when Ajay Devgan is there on the screen.

The best part about the movie according to me is that it tries to be as politically clean as it can be. Take for example a ridiculous popular film like Wanted, it was shot so badly, it had all its politics wrong esp the way women characters were shot, as if the audience is dying to see how the character of mahesh manjrekar looks at a woman's bust. Outrageous Prabhudeva, I am so sorry, you are a loser! Here's hoping that Dabanng entertains and doesnt get into other territories. That brings me to the camera of "Once upon a time". The movie is very well-shot, watch the sea shots in opening sequence (of course they were digitally worked upon), but wow they do give an idea of how entertaining the half-biography of Sultan Mirza would be.

While sitting in the theatre and listening to lines like "Jinki manzil ek hai woh raaste par hi milte hai" - I simply loved it. Yess!! don't you know the other India always talks in idioms and phrases. The simple ones. Get into a railway compartment and strike a conversation with the uncle sitting opposite and in a while he will speak in idioms, "beta sab oogte sooraj ko salaam karte hain", and "beta aam tabhi girta hai, jab woh poori tarah se pakk jaaye". Now havent you heard that so many times, thus if these kinda lines come on screen and a star delivers it the way it is meant to, then you have a winner in your hands, undoubtedly!

And by the way, these are dialogues that very few, take my word: very few writers can write like this. Its an amazing flourish on the paper: take some more punchlines:
"bus, dua mei yaad rakhna"

- "Barf ki tarah thanda rehne ka bhi kya fayda sahab… Thodhi der akde, phir pighal gaye?"

- "Kya Khan, athaarah saal mein kabhi tune prasad nahin khaya, aur aaj bhagwan badal liya"?

- "Tasveer kheench ke apni dukaan mein laga le, Shoaib, Kabhi zaroorat padhe, to donon mein se ek bhagwan chun lena"

- "Vardhan main un cheezon ki smuggling karta hoon jiski ijaazat sarkar nahin deti…unki nahin jiski ijaazat mera zameer nahin deta".

(the last one had audience clapping on it! Someone shouted paisa vasool)

Rajat Arora is a genius. We knew it post-Bluffmaster:

Sample these lines that Nana Patekar speaks:

- "line achchi boli hai tunne, likh leta hoon, kaam aayegi kabhi"

- "2 crore rupiye chahiye, Kis Liye? Picture Bahot Acchi Chal Rahi Hai..Parade Pe Fekne Hai".

- "Goli sirf wahi chalate hai jo apna dimaag nai chalate"

Waah Rajat-ji, I am a fan for sure!

The point is that "Once upon a time" is an amazing popular movie that takes me back to my world of late 80s yes 80s and not 70s. The time when I used to hover around video cassette parlours and choose titles to watch - the pomp and galore of Tridev, the three-hero multi-star sagas, the dialogue baazi of Shaheshah (remember the famous line from Shahenshah. "Jab bhi mei kisi hassen ladki ko dekhta hun, toh mere andar ka kutta jaag jaata hai, aur tab mei Black Dog peeta hoon' courtesy: Kadar Khan)

But my only complain is that a little bit of restrain in the dialogue-baazi was required esp for actors/characters who cannot carry the dialogues with them. The police commissioner character was a serious case of verbal diarrhea. Like Ajay Devgan knows how to deliver the written lines but some actors cant pull it like him.

The music is pretty neat. esp the sufi-inspired stuff, but hello did they credit Guy Ritchie's Rock N Rolla or Black Storbe for lifting the "I'm a man" soundtrack. coz that sound goes good with Sultan Mirza too. By the way there was a random song called 'Baburao' - a perfect misfit. As in just when you were enjoying the soundtrack with some harmonium, some tabla and somethign melodious, out comes Mika with his 'Babaurao mast hai..' aaargh!! Its as if the Ekta Kapoor brigade pulled out an unused song from Shootout at Lokhandwala.

By the way what went wrong with the sound of the film. It was so bad. A movie that heavily depends on the dialogues and taali-maaro lines, has to at least have a clean sound, thats the least someone would expect, anyways those are complaints that a cinema fan like me will always have, if only they would care for sound as much as they spent on camera and creating digital images.

But if there are people like me who were brought up on regular 80s hindi movie masala, then this is the movie you should go for. By the way, my favourite dialogue in the movie and I was right there when Emran Hashmi speaks it:

"Supaari li hai, toh chuna nahi lagaunga...."


yeah boss!! style hai!!


On second thoughts how would someone enjoy these movies with subtitles? You dare not watch it! There is always a festival movie for you!


© Copyrights 2009 www.bhaandgroup.blogspot.com. All Rights Reserved. Hardik Mehta

Connecting the World!

While browsing through some of the pictures in last 6 months, I came across these two very very similar pictures that I had taken unconsciously at two very very different locations. And guess what, they both were exactly 6 months away from each other.

The first is taken at midnight on 1st Jan 2010 at Katni Railway Station, Madhya Pradesh. Its like the melting pot of India, where every train that goes from west to east or vice-versa passes through this junction. You could find the best of the both worlds here. Tea available in glass and tea available in kulhads (earthen cups). Trains arriving and leaving, Announcements being made on screechy speakers but people, who were suppose to catch the trains in morning, still sleeping on platforms unperturbed. We also had an amazing adventure at the Katni station.



The second picture again was taken at midnight on 1st June 2010 at Dubai airport. And well, if someone has been to Dubai airport then its the ideal melting pot of the world. Almost every destination on planet earth could be reached through this one city. This airport, was my first visual outside India. And to my surprise in the middle of the night, I saw Africans, Japanese, Europeans, South Americans, Indians, South-East Asians - all sharing the Starbucks Coffee and almost everyone looking for a lounge-like chair for catching a quick nap before their flight announcements are made.




© Copyrights 2009 www.bhaandgroup.blogspot.com. All Rights Reserved. Hardik Mehta

Reactions to a Bhaand

First the definition: According to the Sarai website and the writer Mahmood Farooqui (not sure if he's the same: co-director of Peepli Live) "Bhaands were mimics, lampoonists, satirists, outspoken commentators on the affairs of the day, stand up comedians, masters of pun, sarcasm, double entendre and performance.

Now, from how I see it - Europe is the best place where Bhaands get their due respect. They are encouraged there unlike India where the 3 Idiots will take the mantle to explain Indian parents whats the value of 'kala' in a 'kalakar'. The streets in Europe are full of artists. After all "kyon na ho" the place, the buildings, the atmosphere, the joie-de-vivre of European cities will automatically turn even a dull morose boring engineer into a poet. Its not surprising that over the years Europe has produced so many artists, painters, poets and writers. How can Mumbai produce such artists with the kind of atmosphere one lives here in. "khair chhodo yeh sab!"

Coming back to the topic. A photographer friend generously gave her amazing Tele lens to me on the last day of my stay in edinburgh. Without losing a single second, I took to the streets and tried capturing the spirit of the city in its people. Now mostly people who you will find in Edinburgh city are the visitors, travelers types who might have come for a good spring break. And after being there for 2 months, i was tired of the same places, thus capturing the portraits came to my mind. As i took to the streets with that amazing lens, I saw a whole lot of crowd where a street artist was performing. Everyone was enchanted by that Bhaand's performance. The Bhaand was a Polish immigrant into the UK and was known for his amazing fire juggling, sword guzzling, weird balancing and god knows what all kinds of acts. While performing one of those dangerous acts from a certain height he said
"If i fall down and die dont worry ladies and gentlemen there is another immigrant ready to come into the UK and entertain you all"

"Kitni badi baat, haste haste bol diya"


The following are some of the reactions from people to that wonderful act of the Polish Bhaand. Click on the picture to view large!














Finally, the Bhaand


© Copyrights 2009 www.bhaandgroup.blogspot.com. All Rights Reserved. Hardik Mehta

The Nightmare of a job called Script Supervision and my worst moment on the movie shoot

I have almost always refrained from writing on this blog about the ‘job’ I do in this big bad ‘stereotyped’ world of bollywood. And what job do I do. Hell… I want to make films that’s all I know. So before making them whatever ‘job’ I do or I will do is of not much consequence as far as the world goes. And Mumbai is a city that doesn’t allow you to live your dream without giving away a part of your soul. So different people do the ‘survival thing’ in different ways till that one fine good morning when the call comes that ‘your movie is on’. So measuring this predicament that every wannabe filmmaker in Andheri West goes through, I chose the nightmarish job called ‘script supervision’ – in the garb of ‘at least it allows me to be in the director’s mind’. The other options were already out, coz, believe you me, screenwriters are paid so badly that it’s not surprising that bollywood comes with the kind of shit that every Friday comes up at your nearby theatres. Also, I was not so confident about my screenwriting abilities so I kind of don’t want to die in poverty and keep whining and screaming my way about people and concepts, so I turned my eyes to Assistant Direction. But then came the reality. Assisting in Direction is the most fuck-all job on a movie set. Better to be an Assistant Editor, someone told me. After all, all that ADs (Assistant Directors) do is ‘breakdowns’ and ‘take the shit from director’. For more read this blog by a friend who has been in the same predicament and have been through that muck.

Yes that’s the reality. I have seen Assistant directors with no fucking knowledge of the medium yet having the balls to take names of ‘Wong-Kar-Wais’ and ‘Almodovars’. “khair, koi baat nai, jaisi uparwaale ki marzi’

And then one fine day, ‘Road, Movie’ gave me this chance to be a script supervisor. Now the world doesn’t know what a script supervisor does. Of course koi rocket science nahi hai yaaron. But frankly, I don’t even want to get into that. So simply put – it’s the girl or the guy who is besides the director with the notepad and keeps reminding him/her of the script and actor’s action continuity –
- like if there are any shots remaining for the day or location
- If there is some action written in the script that is not visually captured on the camera or
- If the shots taken for the sequence will be able to make a smooth edit or not.
- And of course she/he takes a note of everything that happens – that doesn’t include ‘how many times the director burped post-lunch’. So now you know how this job can lead to the kind of stress sometimes. Oh am I romantizing it? ‘khair chhodo, aage suno!’

Yesterday we worked overtime and completed a given a number of scenes at a location that was given to us for only a certain amount of days. So as the director was about to call out for those 2 wonderful words - ‘pack up’, he asked me ‘just make sure if we are done with all the shots, sequences and scenes written in the script for this location’. I quickly went through my check notes and lists and after a while told him – that it looks like we have achieved all the shots here. He smiled and we left for our respective rooms. I slept and suddenly in the middle of the night I got up with a start
– ‘Was there one shot in the shot division that I didn’t mention to the director’?
– ‘What if we will have to get that location again’?
– ‘What if the scene on the edit table doesn’t give a completion sense’?
– ‘The producer will kill me’.
I checked the whole script again and thankfully no shots/scenes were remaining. But it reminded me a moment in my favorite movie ‘Road, Movie’ where I did forget to mention one such important aspect of the script to the director. We just had the location i.e the beach of Mandvi, Kutch for a day and we had to get the final scene of ‘Road, Movie’ in that one evening. Not even evening, it was the magic light time – the final minutes when the sun is about to set. So we took the shots and returned happily to the hotel. The shooting at Mandvi Kutch was the second last day of the shoot for the film and the next day most of the crew was retuning to Mumbai except a few of us who were going to Dholavira, Kutch for the final shot of Vishnu on his green motor bike. At night, post dinner I went to the director’s room to pass him some camera battery charger or a certain firewire cable. But as he took that cable from me and was about to close the door, he said: ‘hardik, we forgot one action to cover – of Vishnu splashing the seawater on the truck’. I heard him and ohh..!! yeah we forgot.

What we!!! It was ME who forgot to tell you sir, it was a part of my job. Now if the reader has been lucky enough to see ‘Road, Movie’ than during the film, Vishnu takes this lumbering elephant-like truck through the dusty landscapes of Rajasthan and Gujarat. And the dust and heat of seven days must have made it really weary. So, logically when a tired and transformed Vishnu jumps into the sea for a quick bath, it is apt for him to bath the truck too along with him and splash some water on it. After all, the truck had been his best companion all along, so what if it gave him so much trouble. In the script too Dev Benegal had clearly written these lines:

“VISHNU strips his T-shirt off and jumps into the water.
His head underwater all the sounds disappear. He opens
his eyes. The sounds of the fair come back to him. An
echo in reverse.

He stays underwater for an uncomfortably long time.
And just as we are giving up- his head bounces out. His
loud gasp for breath comes as a shock.

He splashes water on the truck and cleans the dust off. “


So once I turned away from him saying sorry, I realized what a grave mistake I had made. I wouldn’t know then that how much of a difference it would make to the film, its impact or the absence of such a gesture on Vishnu’s part. All through out the post production of the film, I kept thinking ‘how can I bring that moment back to the film?’ The whole journey of Vishnu culminates when he makes the truck too bath with him in that sea. But I was helpless. And everytime I think of this moment, I cringe within. ‘Would that have made a difference’? How will I tackle a low-budget film production tomorrow if I forget these small details of my film? But then life has its own way of teaching you important lessons. And amidst the many many lessons that ‘Road, Movie’ taught me, this was the most important one. But I have made it a point to myself that post 2010 I am not doing this hell of a job called script supervision, if am lucky I will make my own stuff however small it maybe or I would rather sing on Andheri station and fund myself for an all India tour on a general compartment of a train starting from CST Terminus. Believe me, the later is much more fun than making movies!

The only thing better than making movies - traveling.



© Copyrights 2009 www.bhaandgroup.blogspot.com. All Rights Reserved. Hardik Mehta