JOSH

Josh hai toh hosh hai Hosh hai toh zindagi hai Josh nahi to kuch bhi nahi hai

The day writer-director Mansoor Khan, came up with the idea of working on a story which he was fully confident of, he was fully excited (Josh). Soon he added some more ideas to his own original ideas (story-screenplay and dialogue by Mansoor himself) and he realised that the excitement was not just ordinary excitement but the kind that covered a complete range of exciting entertainment which is what filmmaking is all about. He worked harder. There were times when his confidence staggered but he did not

give up his original idea because he was sure that ideas like the one he had worked on do not fail if they are pursued with perseverance and hard work and above all the Josh (excitement) to make the film that would appeal to every section of society.

It took Mansoor time to work on the script "Because, frankly, I didn’t want to work on an ordinary script, a script I didn’t believe in." Once the script was ready he went around seriously looking for actors and actresses who could fit into the roles he had conceived. He was very lucky. He didn’t have to take time to find the artistes who were charged by the script he narrated to them, "the stuff, the story was made rich with" according to Shah Rukh Khan who heads the cast of Josh. Mansoor was more than lucky to find the ideal producers to make a film which excited them, the seven Jain brothers, the men behind Venus Tapes & Records who had made a major contribution to the world of Hindi film music and were gradually growing into a giant of a filmmaking company. Their motto, from the beginning, was to make exciting films, entertaining films, enlightening films. Josh fulfilled their motto to the brim. "We firmly believe that films are made for the entertainment and excitement of the masses. There are many other elements which can make good films but excitement is something that comes just once in a way. We save that once in a way chance to make an exciting film which we are sure would cater to the tastes of the millions of filmgoers because there was need for enthralling excitement in an otherwise drab and deary life. Life is tough. We try to make it exciting in on our own way," Ratan Jain the producer of Josh says.

The title, Josh, goes very well with the character Shah Rukh plays. The josh in Shah Rukh comes out of his great love for his little sister, the beautiful Aishwarya Rai. Shah Rukh, the leading man of some of the most-talked about films to come and who has taken the kind of risks no other actor of the younger generation has once again taken the risk of playing the protective elder brother of the gorgeous Aishwarya, the beauty queen who every popular hero would like to work with as a hero.

The story and the screenplay of the film is a challenge when it comes to the treatment of the subject. "I know it is very difficult to make films which are very different because of all the dictates of the distributors and financiers who fear change when it comes to making films on which crores of rupees are spent but I have tried my best and I am surprised how much I’m satisfied with the results I have been able to achieve. Josh is way away from the two other films I have made till now. I hope the difference shows both the in quality and the results at the box-office which seems to be in a very foul mood these days. It is high time I came up with the film that gave me a steady standing as a filmmaker. I am very excited with the way Josh has turned out as a complete film.

And my satisfaction would not have been possible without the co-operation of my artistes who went out of their way to help me make a film just the way I wanted to make it. I can bet I have made a film which will bring in excitement at a time when dark clouds are hovering all around", Mansoor says...

The tussle starts when Shah Rukh finds a rival in Sharad Kapoor who tries to play the fool with Aishwarya who is the only reason Shah Rukh lives for. Shah Rukh is on fire. He declares war on Sharad. Incidentally Shah Rukh is also the leader of his own gang (The Eagles), which is deadly against the other group of desperados known as The Bichchus. The tussle between the two now grows into a violent war and almost reaches a point of no return.

In the midst of this deadly war, Josh also tells the story of the excitement of love, the love between Chandrachur Singh and Aishwarya Rai. Chandrachur believes in pure love. He believes his love will triumph over all the violent forces which rise against their love. The true excitement of their love triumphs inspite of all the heavy odds against them.

The clash, the violence, the war ultimately lead to dangerously exciting limits. Love however runs its own course. The coming together of violence on the one hand and love on the other is the base of all that Josh brings alive on screen. The excitement finds a new touch of class when it reaches untouched locations of Mauritius and Goa, locations which have been captured by cinematographer K.V. Anand.

Every character in Josh adds a new touch, a new colour, a new shape to the film. Among them are Sharat Saxena, Viveck Vaswani, Suhas Joshi, Anjan Shrivastav and the veteran Nadira - all of them exciting characters in an exciting saga created by a young Mansoor Khan.
And if the film is produced by Venus, it has to be music extraordinary, music par excellence, music exciting.

And if everyone has worked hard to make Josh an exciting film the entire credit goes to the leader of the team, the captain, Mansoor Khan, the man without whom Josh would have found a new meaning an ordinary meaning or no meaning at all. Manoor has taken it upon himself to change the meaning of excitement. The excitement now is in seeing what a man who is seen as a great hope for the future of Indian cinema has achieved.

Ali Peter John