Weekend

In today’s weekend blog, I am writing about a Hindi film which was released 42 years back in 1978. This film was one of those film, which was part of series of films where Amitabh Bachchan enacted the role of angry young man. The character  of angry young man was made famous by the writer duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, who were popularly known as Salim Javed, and the first time they used this character in 1973 film Zanjeer. In this film character takes revenge for the wrong doing done by his father (he being illegitimate child) with his mother. It was a big star cast film starring Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Raakhi, Hema Malini, Prem Chopra, Sachin, Poonam Dhillon and Waheeda Rehman.The film was produced by Gulshan Rai and directed by Yash Chopra, written by Salim Javed and music was by Khayyam. Friends, I hope by this time you must have guessed the name of the film, yes I am talking about the super hit film TRISHUL.

I am giving below some of the interesting facts related to this film :

1. The film had a budget of approx Rs 2 Cr and did the business on Rs 5.5 Cr in India, and its worldwide collection was Rs 11.5 Cr.
2. Before the film went on the floor, writer Salim Khan met Mithun Chakravorty at one tailoring shop. Salim Khan liked Mithun’s personality and enquire whether he is interested in doing films, actually Mithun has just passed out from Film Institute and he said yes. Salim then gave Yash Chopra’s telephone number to him, but when Mithun met Yash Chopra, he was informed that just few days back they have finalised Sachin for the particular role, for which Salim had recommended Mithun. Otherwise Trishul would have been Mithun’s first film.
3. The father’s role was first offered to Dilip Kumar but he refused the role because at that time he was still doing leading man’s role and till that time he had not decided to work in multi star cast film or switched over to character roles. Sanjeev Kumar who was already working in multi star cast film said yes to this role.
4. Actually Shashi Kapoor was elder by few months to Sanjeev Kumar, but in the film he played Sanjeev’s son. Waheeda Rehman who is elder to Amitabh by 5 years played his mother in this film, although before this she had played  his wife in 2 films Adalat and Kabhi Kabhi.
5. Amitabh was nominated in Filmfare awards for best actor category in this film, but he lost to himself for film Don.
6. Salim Javed wanted initially Rishi Kapoor to play the role, which was eventually played by Sachin, but he refused the role saying that it has nothing much to offer, other than one song and few scenes.
7. In the film Shashi Kapoor calls Rakhi as ‘Computer’ in this film, although at that time in India people hardly knew about computer. The use of computer was prevalent only in USA that time.
8. Poonam Dhillon was introduced in this film and she acted as Sanjeev Kumar’s daughter. In a film she is met with an accident, and Amitabh carries her and bring her home. 3 decades in a talk with Amitabh Bachchan , she told him that when friends came to know that Amitabh had carried her in his arm for scene, they started teasing her and started asking how it felt to be carried in Amitabh’s arm.
9. In the film Geeta Kak had played the role of Sanjeev’s wife, in the earlier film Sholay she had played the role of his daughter in law.
10. Amitabh, Hema Malini and Yash Chopra who were associated with this film, but 25 years later their children Abhishek Bachchan, Esha Deol and Uday Chopra acted together in a film called Dhoom.
11. Like in Deewar had iconic dialogue “ Mere Paas Maa Hai”, this film also had one iconic dialogue When Vijay (Amitabh) tells RK Gupta (Sanjeev Kumar) “ Aap Mere Nazayaz Baap Hain”, most of the films have used the dialogue like “ Main Aapka Nazayaz Beta Hoon”.
12. In the film character played by Prem Chopra was called Balwant Rai. 12 years later Amrish Puri also played a character called Balwant Rai in film called Ghayal. Both the characters were negative.
13. Business wise this film was ranked behind ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’ who was top ranked film, and at third place also there was Amitabh’s film Don. So the year 1978 belonged to Amitabh Bachchan.

The film had become famous not only for its songs,  but also for the scenes and dialogues where Amitabh and Sanjeev Share the screen.

For my young friends, if you have not seen this film, you might feel this as an outdated film, but you must watch for Sanjeev Kumar & Amitabh Bachchan.

Awaiting your views/comments/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

5^th June 2020