Weekend

In today’s weekend blog, I am writing about a 1968 Bollywood film which is considered to be a cult comedy film.  When released , this film was panned by critics and even audience reaction was a mixed one, but in the later weeks it went on to become super hit film of that year. The film was produced by comedian Mehmood, who also acted in it . I hope by this time you may have guessed  the film’s name, yes I am talking about evergreen comedy film PADOSAN. Even the present generation enjoy this film whenever it is shown on some TV channel.

The film was directed by Jyoti Swarup and story was by Arun Choudhary. It had  star cast  of Sunil Dutt, Saira Banu, Kishore Kumar, Om Prakash and Mehmood. Lyrics, screenplay and dialogue were written by Rajender Krishan, and super hit music was composed by RD Burman. In nut shell story is that Sunil Dutt falls in love with his neighbour (Padosan), whom he can see from his window, Mehmood who plays south Indian music guru who teaches music to Saira and also having a one sided love with her. Just to impress Saira, Sunil Dutt approaches his friend Kishore Kumar to teach him music/singing to impress Saira, but Sunil can not sing after many attempts, so Kishore decides that he will sing and Sunil Dutt will lip sync to impress Saira, and rest of the film is about what funny incidences  happens with this arrangement, which is total laugh riot.

Today I am writing about some interesting facts about this film :

1. The role of simpleton Bhola, which was played by Sunil Dutt in the film , actually Mehmood had wanted composer RD Burman to play this role who had enacted small roles in few earlier films. But RD Burman’s father SD Burman advised him not to venture into acting field and focus on his music career.
2. The film was made on the budget of Rs 80 Lakhs, and did the business of Rs 1.40 Cr in the country. A sure shot super hit in those times.
3. In fact on this story a Bengali film by the name Pasher Baadi in 1952, which was based on writer Arun Choudhary’s short story. Later on the same story many films were made in different south Indian languages.
4. Initially when Mehmood approached Kishore Kumar for the role of Vidyapati, he refused to do the role, but Mehmood persisted him for one month still Kishore never relented, then one night Mehmood erected a tent in front of Kishore Kumar’s house, and full night on mega phone he started requesting Kishore to do the role,  in the very next morning  Kishore agreed.
5. If you have scene this film, you will remember the song “ Meri Pyaari Bindu”, and you must have noticed the dance movements of Kishore and other actors Mukri, Keshto Mukherjee and Raj Kishore and you must have wondered about the choreography of the song, which was quite different and reminded you are 40s films. The fact is , on the day of shooting this song, Choreographer of the for some film could not come to set, so not to waste time Kishore took it on himself to choreograph this song, which in the end became milestone song of the Indian cinema, I do not how many remix songs have been made based on this song. This song was also sung by Kishore Kumar, who was never considered as classical singer, but at the end of the song he sang an alaap and this surprised many classical singer.
6. When the most famous song of the film “ Ek Chatur Naar Badi Hoshiyar” was to be recorded, It was decided by Mehmood & RD Burman that Mehmood’s (Master Pillai) portion of the song to be sung by Manna Dey. When RD approached Manna Dey , he refused the song on the pretext that as a trained classical singer he can not loose the contest of 2 gurus singing to Kishore, as he is not trained classical singer. Then Mehmood with director explained the situation in the story where this song is to be picturised, then only Manna Dey agreed.
7. When this song was being recorded, Kishore Kumar never followed the lyrics completely and started adding few words of his own to give additional comic touch to the song, which are more prominent during the end of the song.
8. For Mehmood, the role of master Pillai was the one of the biggest highlight of his career. For this role he spent almost one month to master the accent of South Indian person, for this role he even shaved his head to give authentic look to the character of Master Pillai.
9. Kishore’s look for the role of Vidyapati was inspired by his uncle Dnananjay Banerjee and music director of 1930s and 40s Khemchand Prakash. There was a big rumour in those days that Sunil Dutt and even Mehmood got afraid that Kishore’s performance will overtake their performance, so many of the Kishore’s scenes were edited out for final print.
10. If you see the film now you will notice that when titles of the film are shown there is one tune is being aired in the background. Years later RD used this tune for the song “ Muttu Ko Kawda Hi Hada” from Do Phool. Similarly in the film when Kishore and his friends are enacting play Laila Majnu, you will see Kishore playing piano and singing “ Koi Pathar Se Na Maare Mere Deewane Ko”. This was also used as Mukhda  in film Laila Majnu (1976) in  one song.

So these were few of the interesting facts of film Padosan.

Waiting for your views/comments/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

29^th May 2020