Hrithik Roshan & Bobby Deol’s Debut: Bollywood Flash Back

Bollywood in 2003 (June 8 – 14)

Bed Rest For Karisma Kapoor: Karisma Kapoor was laid up in bed with mumps. The doctor advised the actress to stay put at home for about a fortnight. Giving Karisma company at home was mom Babita. In fact, Babita did not see younger daughter Kareena Kapoor’s Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon only because elder daughter Karisma couldn’t accompany her for the trial show.

Wedding Bells: Ramya Krishnan, the South Indian actress who has worked in several Hindi films, tied the nuptial knot with director Krishna Vamsi on 11th June at a simple ceremony in a temple in Hyderabad.

No Fear, Mummy Is Here! Sushmita Sen returned to India without completing her work in Canada where she was shooting for Boney Kapoor’s Bewafaa with Anil Kapoor. No, it wasn’t unprofessionalism. Sushmita’s little adopted daughter suddenly took ill in India and had to be hospitalised. As soon as she got the news of the hospitalisation, the loving mother packed her bags and flew straight to India to be with her.

Trouble: Kamal Haasan was forced to cancel the shooting of his new Tamil film, Sandiyar, at Theni (Tamil Nadu) on the very first day (June 9) after activists belonging to a local Dalit political outfit, Puthiya Tamizhagam, disrupted the shooting. The district police, which had provided protection to the unit, withdrew the permission for shooting as well as police protection after seeing the violent mood of the mob which had gathered at the location.

Bollywood in 1998 (June 7 – 13)

Censored: Certain shots in a song from David Dhawan’s Gharwali Baharwali were objected to by the censors, leading to their deletion from the film. The objectionable shots appear in the antra of the song, Ek taraf hai gharwali, and depict hero Anil Kapoor tapping (as if he were playing drums) on the backsides of heroines Raveena Tandon and Rambha, of course, in humour. The accompanying lines go thus: Yeh mera bongo, yeh meri dafli…! The censors chose to literally go by the guidelines even when it is obvious that the shots have been included in jest rather than due to any ulterior motive. Incidentally, a while before this, the censors had not insisted on the deletion of similar shots showing Shah Rukh Khan playfully pinching Juhi’s backside and Sonali Bendre slapping Shah Rukh Khan’s posterior in the song Ek sharaarat hone ko hai from Duplicate. So while the shots of the bottoms in ‘Duplicate’ were allowed to remain in the film, those of ‘Gharwali Baharwali’ were left behind in the editing room.

More Bells! South Indian heroine Gauthami wedded Sandeep Bhatia, a Mumbai-based businessman, on 7th June in Madras.

Copycat: Music director Anu Malik and lyricist Rahat Indori were served legal notices by lyricist Syed Mohammed Hasan Imam for alleged plagiarism of his lyrics, in Kareeb. According to the notice, Hasan Imam had a music sitting with Anu Malik in March 1992 when he had narrated the lyrics of the mukhda of a song written by him, which went as Haan judaai se darta hai dil. The lyrics were also registered by Imam with The Film Writers’ Association. Anu Malik had, at that time, assured Hasan Imam that the lyrics would be used in the then under-production film of producer Salim Akhtar. It was stated in the notice that while this never happened, Anu Malik later used the lyrics, without Hasan Imam’s consent or knowledge, in two songs composed by him for Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s ‘Kareeb’. Accordingly, a notice was also served on Tips, the film’s audio rights holders, as well as producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

Debut: Hrithik Roshan’s debut film, Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai, went on the sets on June 12, with a ten day stint on a specially erected set at Convent Villa in Bombay. Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor (who was later replaced by Amisha Patel) participated with Farida Jalal, Satish Shah, master Abhishek, Vrajesh Hirjee and Ashish Vidyarthi. The film was produced and directed by Hrithik’s dad, Rakesh Roshan.

Bollywood in 1993 (June 6 – 12)

Epic Tale: B.R. Chopra’s super-hit television serial, ‘Mahabharat’, was to be re-telecast by Doordarshan from June 13 onwards, every Sunday night, but the re-telecast was postponed for the second time. The repeat telecast was to have started from 6^th June but that too was postponed. By June 1993, ‘Mahabharat’ had already completed two runs on BBC Channel 2 in London. It was in its second run in Indonesia even before all its 94 episodes had completed their initial run. On Mauritius TV too, the second run of the serial was on. The mythological serial had already been telecast on the East Coast in America, in New York, in the Tristate area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut), in Toronto (Canada), on Nepal Television and in Thailand. It was being shown in Singapore, Kenya, East Africa, South Africa and Uzbekistan.

Accident: The set of TV serial Mrityunjay at Film City’s Kranti Maidan came crashing down on 10^th June due to the pre-monsoon thunder showers. Director Jyoti Sarup was shooting the first episode of the serial when the accident occurred. Actress Sukanya Kulkarni and some other unit members were seriously injured.

Barsaat: Shooting of Dharmendra’s untitled film commenced on 7^th June at Filmistan Studios in Bombay. The film, later titled Barsaat, was Bobby Deol’s launch pad. Bobby faced the camera for the inaugural shot, with debutante Twinkle Khanna, daughter of Dimple Kapadia. The film was written and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi.