Bollywood rendezvous with Shimla

Shriniwas Joshi

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Shimla has been the rendezvous for film shooting for years. The recent films on the minds of any Shimlaite could be "Bang Bang", "Black", "Three Idiots", "Tamasha", "Jab We Met", "Ghadar-Ek Prem Katha", "Main Tera Hero", "Udaan", "Raju Chacha", "Main Aisa hi Hoon" etc. But let me take you to 1960 when Joy Mukherjee was pulling Sadhna down a rickshaw from The Ridge to the Scandal Point for "Love in Shimla" or to 1963 when Dev Anand was following Nutan to Shimla in a scooter for "Tere Ghar ke Saamne".

“Mere dil mein aaj kya hai, tu kahe to main bataa doon”, the melodious voice of Kishore Kumar was picturised here on Rajesh Khanna starrer Dagh in 1973. The darling of the film producers, Shimla-Kalka train, gave that popular song “Gaadi bula rahi hai, Seeti bajaa rahi hai” sung by Kishore on Dharmendra in film ‘Dost’ in 1974. The old timers still remember the Paro-Madhu Deodar tree at Mashobra of "Kudrat" fame christened in 1981 on the names of the lead cast - Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini. Interestingly, another Deodar tree near Paro-Madhu was used as a meeting point in 1985 by Mithun Chakraborty and Padmini Kolhapuri in "Pyar Jhukta Nahin".

Who does not know that Anupam Kher and Manohar Singh were actors from Shimla? But do you know that Pandit Vijay Kumar (1905-1977) was the first hero from Shimla? His maiden appearance was in a silent movie "Dukhtare Zamana". In the era of talkies, he led in "Sanjivmurti", "Azadi", "Abhagin", "Sunahra Sansar", "Hari Kirtan" and "Meri Asha". He had to return because his father fell ill here and then could not go back to the cine-world. Rajendra Krishan - famous song and dialogue writer - for the films was an employee of the Municipal Committee, Shimla. It was he who wrote ‘Suno, suno ae duniya walo Bapu ki ye amar kahani’ besides the songs of several hit movies.

As if these pips were not enough, Shimla has risen to be the venue of International Film Festival and that surprised Deepti Naval too who had come here to be the chief guest for its third version. An organisation, Himalayan Velocity, whose backbones are Dev Kanya and Pushp Raj do the spadework. And it astonished many that the entries this year included films from Singapore, Australia, Portugal, South Korea, Hong Kong, Italy, Nepal, Bhutan, Germany, France, the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland, Africa, Switzerland, Japan, Turkey, Oman, Tajikistan and Iran. I feel that the programme became too crowded for the two days on which the festival was celebrated.

Donning the Himachali cap and shawl (See photo), Deepti praised the organisers of the film festival and hoped that such festivals should be held here more than once in a year. She said, "People from Bollywood descend on Shimla for shooting films, so why we should not have the facility of film studio or a film school here.” May be she had in her mind "Bang Bang", partly shot in Shimla, in which she shared the credits with Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif.

She told the gathering that she was in Manali before coming to Shimla where her friend had opened an art gallery to which she had donated all her art work and that she was not only a film actor but also a director, writer, painter and photographer. She referred to one of her poetry books ‘Lamha Lamha’ published in 2013. And her anguish was visible when she said her directorial debut with "Do paise ki dhoop, chaar aane ki baarish" starring Manisha Koirala and Rajat Kapoor remained unreleased in India despite winning the best screenplay award at the 2009 New York Film Festival. She lamented that if there were a role in a movie which she wanted to but could not do was that of ‘Umraao Jaan’.

She said she started acting directly in the films and not went there via the stage because she was afraid to take part in a play lest she forgot her lines. Today, she is confident and acting in a play ‘Ek Mulaquat’ starring Shekhar Suman and herself. It has crossed 60 shows. She longed to stage it in Shimla too. Welcome.

Tailpiece

Remove Art from the Earth; the remainder is just Eh.