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Varied shades of `Dhoop' and `Dhund'
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New Delhi was abuzz with "Dhoop" and "Dhund" this past week. On one side, different shades of light were canned for Revathy and Om Puri's "Dhoop", on the other, Amar Upadhyay, the hero of "Dhund", tried to brighten up the things. RANA A. SIDD IQUI takes us from smog to sunshine... .
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Revathi shooting for "Dhoop" under a setting sun at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi. Photo: S.Subramanium.
"Main apni hi uljhi hui raahon ka tamasha,
jaate hain jidhar sab main udhar kyon nahin jaata... ."
JAGJIT SINGH is singing this ghazal penned by Nida Fazli... a white haired, plump lady, short in stature, sitting under a leafless tree in a blue bordered white sari, seems to cry. She swabs her tears, looks up at the dark, starless sky, walks in vain, stops, looks back and well, smiles! "Cut, cut," shouts Ashwini Chaudhary. He is the 37-year-old director of "Laado" for which he won the National Award and the lady who sits quiet, shedding tears alone for the camera is Revathi, the one who sang "Sathiya Tune Kya Kiya" with Salman Khan in "Love" but you can't make her out. She looks like a copy of a 50-year-old woman from a financially feeble background. All this is the shooting of Ashwini's latest film "Dhoop" at New Delhi's Pragati Maidan this past week.
"We are picturising part of a ghazal," he informs. Why the location? "It's comfortable, nothing more." Is evening time must for the shot? "Not necessarily, just the gloom," comes a quick, crisp response.
"Dhoop" is all about a reality bite comprising the tale of an army officer who lays down his life in the war. His parents are promised a petrol pump by the Government after his death. They run from pillar to post for the same. "Dhoop", in its different shades, "talks of the pain and agony of the parents of the dead." Sanjay Suri plays the army officer while Om Puri and Revathi play his parents.
Camera on crane, a gelatine sheet to diffuse extra luminosity, several experiments for the right shot, make up man ready with glycerine for tears and well, a fleet of curious crowd as ever. "Aik rehearsal karenge?" choreographer Nimesh Bhatt is directed at camera crew on crane. The crowd consisting mainly of college goers, ragpickers and fourth-class employees of Pragati Maidan, is keen to have a glimpse of what's going on. A rope is fast brought to draw a laxman-rekha for them. Media men try hard to get access to Revathi in between shots, photographers have ample chance to click her. Endless camera angle corrections, Revathi is feeling bored, plays with her mobile phone. A shot is ready. Glycerine is brought. It is applied on her eyes. "Light, camera, action" Revathi swabs tears, looks up, walks... "Cut, cut, o.k. This time it is not Ashwini — but someone from the crowd. Laughter all around. But Ashwini is angry.
"Yeah! Who is this?" No answer. Shot is ready again. Before Revathi goes on camera, two stray dogs come in, fighting. Laughter again. A spot boy shoos them till far end of the site and promises also, "Don't worry we will shoot you too" and mutters, "They must have seen `Teri Meharbaniyan'... "
Shot ready, camera rolling, Revathi looks up. "Ooooo, aeeeee... " a passerby calls from a far end and runs away. Revathi can't stop laughing. "Oye, chup (shut up)," a crew boy scares the man running away.
"Can I listen to the ghazal once again?" she asks. It is replayed. The final shot now. She removes her brown shawl, gives her mobile to a crew girl, her hair is done fast, she checks her make-up in the mirror, moistens her eyes. "Main Apni Hi... " the ghazal is played. She walks with a heavy heart till the crowd and smiles! "Cut, o.k, done!" Ashwini, Nimesh heave a sigh of relief. The crowd has dwindled except for scribes who now rush to Revathi for interviews.
The shot takes more than two hours. "The easiest things are most difficult to handle. Songs seem most easy of all the scenes in a film, but shooting them is the most difficult you know," a senior cameraperson says.
Now we know.
Welcome `hero' Amar Upadhyaya. Photo: Anu Pushkarna.
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HE WAS about to fly to United States for doing his MS in Chemical Engineering after his graduation from Bombay Institute that he happened to be present at the shooting of Crunchi, a biscuit brand from South of India. But at the eleventh hour, the leading man of the advertisement cried out. The director got crazy. As luck, rather Amar Upadhaya, would have it, he spotted him out from the crowd. And Amar, better known as Mihir of "Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" fame was in, endorsing the product. It was in 1992.
The brand was a huge success in the South. Now, Amar cancelled the trip to US. He was fully into advertisement films and well, soon got entry into teleserials. "I don't know if the biscuit is still consumed but it changed my life," recalls this-27-year-old father of two kids, Aryaman and Chenaab and a hubby to a computer engineer wife. Amar is at New Delhi's Hans Plaza for the promotion of his debut film "Dhund--the Fog" by Shyam Ramsay now showing across India.
A natural query for him is why and how this transition from small to big screen? "I was bored out of my mind doing the same character in three serials for two consecutive years. Be it Mihir of Ekta Kapoor's KSBKBT, Ram of `Kalash' or Akshat of `Mehendi Tere Naam Ki'. Moreover I never wanted to play 20 years ahead at 27. I wanted to just get out of it. When I walked out of KSBKBT, Ekta was out of town but she was prepared for it as I had hinted at it. She took it sportingly and we are still on wonderful terms," says Amar.
Why suspense film for a beginning? "Love stories have a bad record, they are risky. After `Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai' in 1999, tell me which love story has been a major hit? But we still remember `Khiladi' that happened 10 years back. Now suspense films are a better bet."
And bet, he has absolutely no airs, he talks to you as a friend, goes for a long drive, comes to New Delhi "four-five times a year, stay in Green Park and eat lots of paani poori stopping the car anywhere I want. I never let myself miss the small pleasures of life."
A home bug who does not like going to discos, Amar defines himself as "humble, confident and amazing" who is all geared up for a comic role in "Jodi Kya Banegi" by Raman Kumar, as Vijayan Thapar in J.P. Dutta's "LOC", Reema Sen's "Ghost" and Partho Ghosh's "Aik Baar Kaho".
Ask this talkative guy about his choice of roles and he is quick to respond, "Ever since Saas Bahu experience, I am very careful about choosing roles. I don't want to get typecast."
But why did he accept Dev Anand's "Censor" for an insignificant role?
"He is so great, I could not say no to him."
Looking for "some good negative roles" Amar has no plans to go back to small screen.
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