What's great about Bollywood@100, Karan Johar explains

by Karan Johar On 3 May, 2013 Bollywood turns 100. So when HISTORY TV18 approached me to be a part of their flagship show Bollywood@100, I just couldn’t say no. I liked the approach. It wouldn’t be a chronicling of history. Instead, the team and I would go digging for rare, untold stories that are not out in the public domain. Stories that got made on our sets, behind the scenes, in sound studios & music rooms… and in the world of our divas and heroes. Stories that changed our cinema. Stories that would make viewers go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know that!’ [caption id=“attachment_687720” align=“alignleft” width=“385”] Image courtesy: Network 18.[/caption] This was an ambitious project and something that had never been done before. We had 6 months and our target was a 100 odd stories across 100 years, right from Dada Saheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra way back in 1913 to the 100 crore blockbusters of today. The key was access. Access to private collections, forgotten archives, dusty library shelves… and most importantly memories! As a Bollywood insider, I’m glad I could bring my share to the table – from my father’s production days with Sunil Dutt to his own Dharma Productions. And my collection of anecdotes… from the first time I met Yash uncle, his stories on how he made his films to life on the sets of our movies today. As we dug up our stories, I was personally fascinated by what we found. For instance, when Raja Harishchandra was released, people were not too keen on paying 3 annas for a 1 1/2 hour film, when they could get a 6 hour long stage-play for 2 annas. So, in order to make it paisa vasool, Dada Saheb Phalke pegged it as a “performance with 57000 photographs and a picture 2 miles long… all for 3 annas only!” That change in marketing strategy obviously worked like magic. And then Bimal Roy’s first Hindi film Humrahi featured Rabindranath Tagore’s Jana Gana Mana much before it became the national anthem of the country. We also found stories about method acting… the extent to which actors went to perfect a role - V Shantaram partially lost his eyesight while shooting the climax of Do Aankhen Barah, the very sophisticated, British-educated BBC Radio announcer Balraj Sahni drove a rickshaw and lived with rickshaw-walls for a while to get his act right in Do Bigha Zameen… If we go into the world of our larger-than-life divas, I’ve not only found some rare pictures of what many of them looked like when they were kids… I’ve also unearthed stories of their on-set romances – how the slap in Mughal-e-azm was much more than a slap between Dilip Saab and Madhubala, and how ‘The Swayamvar of Hema’ be it to Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar or Jitendra was the media’s favourite story in the 70s. I had no idea that if Nassir Hussain had not cast Juhi Chawla in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, we would have lost a fine actress to television, as she had been picked up for the role of Draupadi in Mahabharat. Our music rooms threw up another set of fascinating stories from the sound of our cinema – how Kishore Kumar had a rough, raspy voice as a kid, how Saigal thought he couldn’t get a tune right without a drink, how the seductive Roop Tera Mastana was originally composed as a boring folk tune and how Kal Ho Na Ho was composed & written in 17 mins flat. I could go on and on… Sharukh initially refused Dilwale Dulhaniya Le jayenge, Mr India was originally written for Amitabh Bachchan and the song Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh in 1942 A Love Story was actually all about Madhuri Dixit. But I’m not going to spill everything here. You have to watch the show. All I can say is that the team and I have met a whole lot of people including Amitabh Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Anil Kapoor, Dharmendra, Anil Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Farhan Akhtar, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, A R Rahman, Javed Akhtar… and a lot of our stories stem from them. But Bollywood@100 is not only about the movies, it’s also about the people who watch them, you the viewer. Everyone has a personal favourite, that one movie we love and that one film personality be it an actor, director or singer we absolutely idolise. To have your say, we’re running an interesting poll from 8 April onwards to choose the greatest among the greats. The selection of nominees across key categories was entrusted on a panel of 15 odd eminent juries from various walks of life including of course cinema, likes of Harsh Goenka, Aditya Puri, Geet Sethi, and Rajeev Masand to name a few. To make the selection procedure extremely transparent the entire process is being audited by Grant Thornton with equal weightage being given to three parameters, i.e; public voting, jury selection - both by an eminent jury and one of film aficionados. I’m sure this series will trigger an enthusiastic debate in homes, offices and public places around the country. Just from the internal debates among the team, I’ve got a real sense of how passionately people feel about the initiative. We hope that the series will continue to provoke debates and encourage people to cast their vote for the Greatest among our Industry. The categories will be announced on the channel’s website www.bollywood.co.in along with other social media platforms. We also have a panel of jury members comprising of luminaries from different fields to have a say in the process. So, do get online and vote for your personal greats. The results will be announced in a Grand Finale hosted by me. If I have intrigued you enough, then meet me every Friday evening at 9 on HISTORY TV18 and celebrate Bollywood@100. Be there. I will be waiting for you. Disclaimer: Bollywood@100 will air on HISTORY TV18 which is a part of the Network18 group which also owns Firstpost.