{"id":3587,"date":"2019-10-01T18:13:18","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T18:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ashokkarania.com\/?p=3587"},"modified":"2019-10-01T18:13:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T18:13:18","slug":"bapu-bollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/bapu-bollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Bapu & Bollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bapu & Bollywood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most significant and enduring gifts of India to\nthe world. And so is Bollywood. How is the relationship between India\u2019s biggest\nexports? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahatma Gandhi saw only two movies in his\nlifetime. The first was a Hollywood movie called \u2018Mission To Moscow\u2019. And the\nsecond one was the 1944 Indian movie \u2018Ram Rajya\u2019, which was directed by Vijay\nBhatt. Thus, he saw only one Indian movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us look at representation of Mahatma Gandhi\nin movies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Richard Attenborough\u2019s Gandhi – The Gandhi Movie of All Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me first take Richard Attenborough\u2019s Gandhi out of the way. This is\n\u2018The Gandhi Movie of All Time\u2019 – the one movie that everyone should watch!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an amazing epic of all time, a movie par excellence and a life story\nbeyond imagination! Everyone was at their best in the movie \u2013actors, director, producer,\ncinematographer, music director, costume designer. Nobody could have done\nanything less good for this project \u2013 It was a divine duty or a \u2018Sistine\nchapel\u2019 of their lives!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gandhi movie swept all the major awards including Oscars, Golden Globe\n& BAFTA. It won the 8 Oscars including the Best Film and Best Actor. The\nmovie had a very successful box office run across the world. In India, it had\nan ordinary response.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Attenborough\u2019s Gandhi is a moving experience. It transforms you. It keeps you engaged. It is one of the best tributes to Gandhi and his ideals. Ben Kingsley gave a performance of his lifetime. Ben Kingsley has Indian-Gujarati roots and his original name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji. Hence it was apt to see an Indian origin Ben play the legendary role. Rohini Hattangady, Amrish Puri, Om Puri and Saeed Jaffrey enact key roles in the movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The trivia of movie Gandhi are endless. One of the most interesting is that\nthree lakh extras participated in Gandhi\u2019s funeral procession scene in the\nmovie. Only a few claimed the remuneration – everyone did it as their duty and\ntribute to Gandhi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing as a young kid in late 80s, Richard Attenborough\u2019s Gandhi was a\nconstant fixture of your Doordarshan life. Every important day including October\n2, 2019 would be the day to view Gandhi. And what gem we had been offered\nregularly – Maybe like other Doordarshan offerings like Tamas, Buniyaad, Yeh Jo\nHai Zindagi, National Programme of Music, we ignored the priceless gift! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gandhi & Bollywood<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Attenborough\u2019s Gandhi remains one of most significant movies of our\ntimes. But Richard\u2019s Gandhi is not a Bollywood movie. It is a British movie.\nLet us turn our eyes to Bollywood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the first though indirect portrayal of Gandhi on screen was in the\nDwarkadas Sampat\u2019s 1920 movie \u2018Mahatma Vidur\u2019. The character Vidur was dressed\nand walked like Gandhiji. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first significant Indian attempt on Gandhiji was by Shyam Benegal. The 1996 movie \u2018The Making Of The Mahatma\u2019 focussed on the 21 years of Gandhi\u2019s life in South Africa and his transformation.\u00a0 It is true that Gandhi discovered himself, his philosophy and political tools in South Africa. The movie is based on his South African experiences including the iconic incident of being thrown out of the train at Pietermaritzburg station. As Gopal Gandhi said later that the man who stood up from the fall was a revolutionary! Actor Rajit Kapoor did a splendid job and the movie is a great piece of work. The movie failed at the box-office though it won few awards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kamal Hasan made a movie named \u2018Hey Ram\u2019 in 2000 and depicted the struggle\nof a man trying to kill Mahatma Gandhi. Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukherji joined\nKamal Hasan but they could not save the movie from tanking at the box office.\nAnupam Kher and Urmila Matondkar had used Gandhi\u2019s killing as a backdrop Jahnu\nBarua directed 2005 movie \u2018Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara\u2019. Anil Kapoor produced\n\u2018Gandhi My Father\u2019 in 2007. The movie was based on Feroz Khan\u2019s play and was\nadapted for the big screen. The movie focussed on the troubled relationship\nbetween Gandhiji and his son Hiralal Gandhi. Many people amplified Harilal\u2019s\nnegative views on Gandhi – How \u2018Father Of The Nation\u2019 could not be a great\nfather to his own son! But it backfired. The movie also bombed at the box\noffice.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Movies on Gandhi were not getting enough Gandhis! (currency notes)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had to take Rajkumar Hirani\u2019s Midas touch to turn the tide. Leveraging\nhis unique story telling skills and humour, he offered a completely new\nperspective on Gandhi. \u2018Lage Raho Munnabhai\u2019 did what thousands of historians,\nhundreds of books and several organisations could not do – bring Gandhi back in\nfashion. The simple story of a loveable Mumbai don using Gandhi\u2019s principles to\nsolve challenges and win his lady love. Munnabhai\u2019s Gandhigiri was observed\nthroughout the nation in ensuing months and years. It was Hiran\u2019s excellent\nvision, script and direction that delivered a genuine blockbuster at the movie.\n\u2018Lage Raho Munnabhai\u2019 was the biggest hits of 2006. Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra\nsmiled all the way to the bank. More importantly, it made Gandhi cool and\noffered a great new alternative narrative and a perspective on Gandhi to the\nyouth. He brought Gandhi out of the statues and photo frames and books into the\nlives of youth. A great achievement! The power of good cinema! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amit Rai made a movie \u2018Road To Sangam\u2019 in 2009 starring Paresh Rawal and Om\nPuri. The movie focussed on immersion of the ashes of Gandhiji against a\ncommunal backdrop. Gandhi\u2019s great grand-son Tushar Gandhi played a Cameo in the\nmovie and it won several awards. But it was a box office disaster. Rakesh\nRanjan Kumar\u2019s  2011 \u2019Gandhi To Hitler\u2019\nis based on Gandhi\u2019s letters to Hitler.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart from the above, Gandhi has been represented in biopics of other\nleaders like Shri Babasaheb Ambedkar, Iron Man Sardar Patel, Shaheed Bhagat\nSingh etc. Hollywood had made another movie called \u2018Nine Hours To Rama\u2019 in 1962\nwhere Gandhi\u2019s assassination was re-imagined and Godse was presented as hero.\nThe Mark Robson directed film never released in India and tanked globally. It\nhad no Indian actors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gandhi\u2019s Under-Representation In Indian Cinema<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahatma is under-represented in Indian film industry. The best work on\nGandhi is by a non-Indian – Maybe an outsider had more courage and better\nperspective to make a film on Gandhi. The greatest film makers of our time in\n1940s to 1980s never thought of making a movie on Gandhi. They must have\nthought – Gandhi is so much within us that we never need a movie for him.\nGandhi is a family member of every Indian. What is there to tell about Gandhi\nthat people do not know? The movie may not make money!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dada Saheb Phalke, Bimal Roy, V Shantaram, Himanshu Rai, Chandulal Shah, Mehboob Khan, Raj Kapoor, Chetan Anand, Satyajit Ray, Hrishikesh Mukherjee – None of them made a movie on Gandhi. The movies till 1950s and 1960s had a lot of influence of Gandhian values but there was no Gandhi movie. The erosion of patriotic feeling, the rise of corruption, the arrival of angry young man, the liberalisation of economy, the excitement of millennium \u2013 different phases of a growing India. And all this while Gandhi remained in background in the cinematic world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were occasional trace of Gandhi. In Bimal Roy\u2019s Nutan starrer Sujata,\nthe main protagonist avoids suicide after becoming aware of Gandhi\u2019s views on\nsuicide and changes her life. Salim Khan Saheb had once commented that the\npivoted character of movie \u2018Imaan Dharam\u2019 was inspired by Gandhiji. The\nprotagonist of his movie \u2018Kabza\u2019 was also Gandhi. Ashutosh Gowariker\u2019s movie\nSwades was influenced by Gandhian principles – Shah Rukh Khan is called Mohan\nin the movie. The interesting thing to note is that the movies on Gandhi and\nhis philosophy are limited and lacking depth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie Chaplin and Gandhi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, Charlie Chaplin was inspired by Gandhi and one can notice the influence in his film \u2018Modern Times\u2019. Charlie Chaplin had met Mahatma Gandhi in at a nondescript building at London\u2019s East India Dock Road in 1931. The two had discussions on lot of topic including machinery, socio-economic conditions, philosophy of principles driving Indian Independence struggle etc. Charlie Chaplin\u2019s memoir describe how he was transfixed to see Gandhi offer the evening prayers – a super intelligent being immersed in spiritual devotion! (An interesting point to note is the biopics of both Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin were made by one person – Sir Richard Attenborough.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How would modern directors interpret Gandhi? We have had Love Stories and\nLust Stories. How about \u2018Gandhi Stories\u2019 by Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap,\nSanjay Leela Bhansali and Karan Johar? <\/strong>Or if Hollywood presented Gandhi through\nthe eyes of Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan or James Cameron? Just imagine!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bapu & Bollywood Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most significant and enduring gifts of India to the world. And so is Bollywood. How is the relationship between India\u2019s biggest exports? Mahatma Gandhi saw only two movies in his lifetime. The first was a Hollywood movie called \u2018Mission To Moscow\u2019. And the second one was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[213,286,353,609,610,612,712,776,892,968,1387,1438,1739],"class_list":["post-3587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-bapu","tag-bollywood","tag-cinema","tag-gandhi","tag-gandhi-jayanti","tag-gandhi150","tag-hey-ram","tag-indian-movies","tag-lage-raho-munnabhai","tag-mahatma-gandhi","tag-rajkumar-hirani","tag-richard-attenborough","tag-the-making-of-mahatma"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashok-karania-wordpress.staging9.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}