Vijay Dinanath Chauhan… poora naam… I woke up to this teaser ad campaign from Amitabh Bachchan’s forthcoming BbuddahHoga Terra Baap one morning and immediately recalled the poora dialogue from his earlier movie Agneepath.
Vijay Dinanath Chauhan… poora naam… I woke up to this teaser ad campaign from Amitabh Bachchan’s forthcoming BbuddahHoga Terra Baap one morning and immediately recalled the poora dialogue from his earlier movie Agneepath.
‘Vijay Dinanath Chauhan; poora naam, baap ka naam Dinanth Chauhan, maa ka naam Suhasini Chauhan, gaon Mandwa, umarchhattissaal, naumahina, aathdin, yehsolvaanghantachalrahelahai… haaain!’ How many times I’ve heard these lines spoken, not just in the movie, but also in TV spoofs, award shows and more recently, on KBC 4, intoned by the Big B himself in the now-famous raspy whisper that’s so unlike his signature baritone.
The film’s director, the late Mukul S Anand who’d had a voice as mesmerising as Mr Bachchan’s, had admitted to being inspired by the Hollywood classic Scarface. His hero, or rather anti-hero, was a desi Marlon Brando, with cheeks stuffed with cotton wool and eyes streaked with kohl. But what made the Indian Godfather truly memorable was his voice, a husky impersonation of Manya Surve’s.
Surve was the first underworld gangster to be shot dead in a police encounter in Mumbai and reportedly inspired the character of Vijay Dinanth Chauhan.
Last year, in the course of a marathon interview with Amitabh Bachchan, we had touched on that National Award winning performance and he’d admitted that his ‘grand experiment’ had got the thumbs down when the film released 21 years ago. Without the promotional hype that preceded Paa, the ‘voice change’ had come as a ‘shock’ to the audience.
Many fans had refused to believe that it was Bachchan speaking and blamed the ‘audio problem’ on the HT Image
theatres’ sound system. In a desperate bid to woo them back, he’d re-dubbed his lines in his usual voice. "But in later years, whenever I recited lines from Agneepath, I’ve done it in a husky whisper and been flooded with compliments," he reiterated that evening at his office in Jalsa.
Interestingly, in Bbuddah, Bachchan’s character reportedly answers to the call of Vijay aka Viju. And with an Agneepath remake featuring Hrithik Roshan in the lead also coming up later this year, we’ll get to hear the name Vijay/Viju a lot in the next few months. Hrithik remembers watching the original film as a child, and being completely ‘blown away’ by Vijay’s look, the sounds of the eagle flying, and the background score.
"I don’t want to say too much too soon but Hrithik’s is a performance to watch out for," promises producer Karan, also gung-ho about Sanjay Dutt’s look. The star is turning ‘bald’ to play bad man Kancha Cheena and the filmmaker admits he’ll be in make-up for three hours everyday. Karan adds with a smile, "With Sanjay it’s like bringing family back to the production house. He used to call my dad (Yash Johar who produced the earlier Agneepath) Buddah uncle." Buddah again, one more coincidence!
Bbuddah Bachchan’s ‘cool dude’ look has already got him a flood of wow tweets while he was vacationing in Europe. And his lines are already being spoken about, like ‘Ek baar main maarna shuroo karta hoon to maar hi deta hoon…' which is a match for Salman Khan’s "Ek baar maine commitment kar diya…" from Wanted, remade from Bbuddah director Puri Jagannath’s Pokhiri. But what I’m waiting for is to see Big B running through the flames again, reciting his late father Harivansha Rai Bachchan’s famous stanzas from his poem, Agneepath…
Vriksh ho bhale khade, Ho ghane, ho bade, Ek patra chaa bhi, Maang mat, maang mat, maang mat, Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath.
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Tu na thakega kabhi, Tu na thamega kabhi, Tu na mudega kabhi, Kar shapath, kar shapath, kar shapath, Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath.
Yeh maahan drishya hai, Chal raha manushya hai, Ashru, shwet, rakth se, Lathpath, lathpath, lathpath, Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath.
Why not! Since he’s Vijay. May be we’ll even hear that in that raspy whisper. As they say, nothing is impossible in the movies.
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