| I’d love to do DDLJ again and the only thing I’d change is the short white skirt I wore when singing ‘Mere khwabon mein jo aaye...’ It may have been every male’s fantasy but it wasn’t mine
KAJOL | |
Dilwale Dulhaiya Le Jayenge was being readied for its first “public” screening. All day, the film’s young director was stationed at Mumbai’s New Excelsior theatre where the film was going to be premiered. But as the appointed hour approached and the city’s elite began to trickle into the well-lit foyer, Aditya Chopra disappeared from view. He told his family he was going to the nearby Taj Mahal hotel to change his clothes. And turned up only after the interval. The silence inside the auditorium was disconcerting. The film ended. No one moved. Then, suddenly, the theatre rang with deafening applause that lasted for a full five minutes.
Ten years have passed since. On May 13, 2005 DDLJ enters its 500th week at Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir. For the first time in the history of Hindi cinema a film has enjoyed such a long and uninterrupted run at one theatre. The film’s producer, Yash Chopra admits that he’d been told that this film, released on October 25, 1995, in the 25th year of Yash Raj Films, would definitely celebrate a silver jubilee. Many others were convinced it would enjoy a golden run. But no one, not even the veteran producer-director himself, had expected even in his wildest dreams, that it would rule for a decade.
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Today, the manager of Maratha Mandir who has seen the unlikelist of patrons stream in to watch the cross-continental love story, is confident of DDLJ captivating the aam janta for another 100 weeks. At a time when recent releases are falling like nine pins at the turnstiles, DDLJ, he insists, still manages to draw a good crowd.
The story of DDLJ began when Aditya came to his dad with an idea revolving around an NRI family which relocates to India to nip a romance that starts off on the Euro Rail. Unknown to the girl, Simran’s family Raj has followed her across the seven seas to Punjab and infiltrated their household to charm everyone while they are preparing to marry her off to a local boy. Of course, before the pheras can take place an incriminating photograph carried away by the wind, reveals the truth about Raj. Simran’s dad is livid at the duplicity but eventually even he is tamed by the power of love and let’s her dilwale carry his dulhaniya away.
Chopra was impressed but more at 22-year-old Aditya’s ability to conjure up an original idea. To his son’s disappointment he didn’t appear very excited though he gave his go-ahead to the film.
Aditya was not disheartened. He started work on the script. After a couple of months when it was completed to his satisfaction, he returned to give dad another narration. This time Yash Chopra was so moved that he had tears in his eyes.He was confident he had a hit on his hands.
However, not everyone was as convinced for DDLJ’s commercial viability. The climax in particular gave some reason for concern. But Aditya adamantly refused to change even a word. Instead he took his love story to Shah Rukh Khan who after Baazigar, Darr and Anjaam was the bad guy everyone loved to hate. Shah Rukh had never played the conventional lover boy before and had no intentions of playing one. Adi had to fool Shah Rukh into listening to his script by telling him it was an action film. Shah Rukh heard him out patiently but didn’t exactly jump with joy at the end of the narration. However, that evening, when Yash Chopra asked him if he was doing the film, the actor was quick to assure him that he was.
Despite his rather subdued reaction, Raj and Simran’s prem kahani struck a chord with Shah Rukh because, as he later confessed, his six-year courtship with Gauri had also been fraught with similar family problems. But eventually, like Raj he too was able to woo Gauri’s parents and wed her. “For me Raj was never a character. He was me. May be there are some things he did that I never would but I can still identify with him completely,” confesses Shah Rukh.
| For me Raj was never a character. He was me. May be there are some things he did that I never would but I can still identify with him completely
SHAH RUKH | |
Kajol has fond memories of DDLJ too and insists that the outdoors in Switzerland was one of the best outdoor shoots she’s been on. However, unlike Shah Rukh she frankly admits that Simran was the extreme opposite of her. “The only time I could identify with her was when she goes to Amrish Puri to ask for permission to go on the Euro Rail. Everyone at some point goes to her parent asking for permission. I did too. But Simran did it so sweetly,” she smiles.
DDLJ, Kajol, asserts, “has lived up to all my expectations, and that is something that very rarely happens. I’d love to do the film again and the only thing I’d change is the short white skirt I wore when singing ‘Mere khwabon mein jo aaye...’ It may have been every male’s fantasy but it wasn’t mine.”
‘Mere khwabon mein jo aaye...’ was the first song Jatin and Lalit composed for Aditya keeping the Padosan song, ‘Bhai batoor, bhai batoor ab jayenge kitne door...’ and Sairaji (Saira Banu) in mind. He loved the song. So did Yash Chopra who immediately picked up the phone and dialed Lata Mangeshkar. “Lataji, I’ve taken these two young boys to work with Adi in his first film. They’re ready with their first song. You have to sing it,” he requested. Lata Mangeshkar asked to hear the song. Lalit crooned it for her over the phone. At the end of his recital she didn’t comment but asked to be put back to Yash Chopra. “Jatin-Lalit ne bahut achcha gana banaya hai,” she told him appreciatively. It was her way of saying she’d sing it.
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Farida Jalal who plays Kajol’s mother in the film, agrees that DDLJ is special. She points out Lajwanti was unlike the mothers you usually see on screen or meet in real life. “Which mother advises her daughter to run away with the boy she loves?” she asks.
While Simran’s bauji, Amrish Puri, was the rigid patriarch, Anupam Kher as Raj’s dad, Dharamvir Malhotra was a friend to his son. The character is very close to Anupam because his own father too was always very supportive of his every dream, and wife Kirron avers that Anupam himself is ever encouraging to their son Sikander. Incidentally, Kirron was the one who gave Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge its title.
It was Kirron also who happened to mention in passing one day that Yash Chopra’s son Aditya was turning director and for one of the roles was looking for a guy who in many ways resembled Bittu (Parmeet Sethi’s nick name). Parmeet who was desperately looking to break into films, thought to himself, “Why like Bittu? Why not Bittu himself?” Immediately, he dialed Aditya and got himself invited to the office where he turned up the next day with half-a-dozen tapes of Dastaan and Kurukshetra. Aditya was not impressed. He insisted Parmeet looked too positive to play the bad guy in his film. Parmeet insisted he would be able to convincingly carry off the role. “Let me give it a thought. I’ll get back to you,” Aditya told him.
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For three weeks Parmeet waited for Aditya to call. Then he heard that Armaan Kohli had been signed to play Kuljeet. For three nights Parmeet couldn’t sleep. On the fourth day he called up Aditya and begged him to at least screen-test him. Aditya agreed and Parmeet dashed to the office for one scene he could rehearse. To his surprise Parmeet found Kuljeet speaking in chaste Hindi and showing great initiative he made the character more real, adding Punjabi touches to his dialogue. On the day of the screen-test he even dressed for the part turning up at Aditya’s office in green jeans, green shirt, waistcoat, knee-high boots and a jumble of tabeezes. Aditya was enchanted more so after he watched the two scenes Parmeet performed. Parmeet was on.
After DDLJ’s release, Kuljeet became every Punjabi’s hero. Viewers up North were livid when he was beaten up by Shah Rukh in the end. Even his elder son was angry that papa took the bashing lying down. “I finally convinced him that despite losing in the knock-out stage I was the strongest guy in the field,” laughs Parmeet.
Interestingly, the fight in the climax was not there in the original screenplay. According to some, Shah Rukh insisted on it. Some say it was the distributors who demanded forit. Whatever be the reasons, after all the action love triumphed. And as Shah Rukh says, “Legendary love stories have to be made with love. And Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge had a lot of love.”