Happy Birthday Mithun Da; From Gunmaster G-9 To Grandmaster!

Happy Birthday Mithun Chakraborty: He was born as Gourang Chakraborty and popularly called Mithun Da is Hindi film industry’s first dancing star. 16th June is his birthday. Let us reminiscence his career and discuss some interesting trivia about him and his top films.

Mithun Chakraborty made his debut with the art movie Mrigayya, for which he won the National film award for best actor. Acclaimed director Mrinal Sen was teaching at FTII Pune, and Mithun was a student there who Mrinal Ji thought would be perfect for the role of Ghinua. Mamata Shankar, daughter of dancers Uday and Amala Shankar played the female lead. Later in his career he won two more National Awards for Tahader Katha and Swami Vivekanand.

Disco Dancer firmly established Mithun as India’s Number 1 dancing star. It was the 1st Hindi movie to break the Rs 100 crore barrier worldwide and later this record was broken by My Name is Khan and 3 Idiots. Mithun became a household name in Soviet Union. The songs and dances of the movie and music by Bappi Lahiri became a nationwide craze. Jimmy Jimmy became a popular song even in China. Aamir Khan also spoke about the Jimmy Jimmy craze of Mithun in China from his 1st hand experience when he went to promote PK there. Aamir also gave a tribute to Mithun Chakraborty by emulating him in his special appearance as Disco fighter with the song I Hate You Like I Love You in the movie Delhi Belly.

Surakksha, meaning protection had Mithun Chakraborty in the interesting character of CBI Officer Gopi, known as Gun-master G-9. The movie was deliberately meant to be larger and louder than life itself, with gadgets such as flying car with parachute, cigarette lighters with sleeping gas, stun guns and so on.