ICONIC Bollywood film Mr India marks its 35th anniversary this month.
Originally released on May 29, 1987, the story about a kind-hearted man balancing looking after orphans with becoming the invisible man and battling a fearsome villain was a runaway success when it released. It also gifted audiences many memorable moments that are still revered to this day.
To mark 35 years of the heroic film, Eastern Eye decided to celebrate with 35 quick facts about the cult classic.
1. Mr India was the final collaboration between legendary writing duo Salim-Javed, who had previously delivered screenplays for all-time classics like Zanjeer (1973), Deewaar (1975), Sholay (1975), Trishul (1978), Don (1978) and Shakti (1982).
2. According to producer Boney Kapoor, the seed of the invisible man idea came to Salim-Javed when Amitabh Bachchan couldn’t attend a film launch and just his voice was played on a speaker instead.
A poster of the film
3. There are similarities between Mr India and 1971 film Elaan, which also has an invisible man.
4. Sholay director Ramesh Sippy was considered for the film, but he felt it was too expensive for a single hero film. Shekhar Kapur was brought on board to direct after his acclaimed debut Masoom (1983).
5. The film was specifically written for Rajesh Khanna, but when it was decided the actor didn’t suit the character, it was offered to Amitabh Bachchan. He turned it down and Anil Kapoor finally landed the lead role in the film.
6. Anil Kapoor revealed he added his own style to the role, so audiences wouldn’t realise it was offered to Amitabh Bachchan first.
7. Anil Kapoor pretty much wore the same outfit throughout the film. The iconic hat and jacket were apparently picked up from a local market.
8. It was the film that finally dethroned Amitabh Bachchan as the box office king and turned Anil Kapoor into Bollywood’s most bankable star at the time.
9. Producer Boney Kapoor cast Sridevi in the film and would later get married to her in 1996.
10. Sridevi was the highest paid heroine of the day and received a record-breaking amount to star in the film.
11. Although Satish Kaushik has had a distinguished career as an actor and filmmaker, he is most associated for his supporting role as the loveable cook Calendar. He also worked as an associate director on the film.
12. Ashok Kumar, who plays Professor Sinha in the movie, had starred in 1957 film Mr X, which was the first commercial Bollywood film to feature an invisible man.
Amrish Puri as Mogambo
13. Anupam Kher was considered for the role of the villainous Mogambo, but Amrish Puri was cast instead because he looked more menacing and subsequently became the highest paid antagonist in Bollywood.
14. According to some historical literature, part of Mogambo’s look and mannerisms were inspired by Adolf Hitler and then Pakistani president Zia-ul-Haq.
15. Mogambo is seen as the second-most iconic villain in Indian cinema after Gabbar Singh in Sholay. His dialogue ‘Mogambo khush hua’ is regarded as one of the most memorable in Hindi film history.
16. Actor Aftab Shivdasani made his Bollywood debut as a child actor in the movie.
17. Choreographer turned director Ahmed Khan also made his cinema debut as a child actor in the film.
18. Ajay Devgn’s father Veeru Devgan was the action director on Mr India.
19. Although she had recorded a number of songs, pop icon Alisha Chinai first came to global prominence with the film’s song Kate Nahin Kat Te.
20. Saroj Khan once said that Kate Nahin Kat Te was one of the most difficult songs to choreograph because it was more about sensuous movements than dancing.
22. There is an opening dedication to late actress Geeta Bali, who had coincidentally starred in a 1961 film titled Mr India and tragically passed away in 1965, aged just 35.
23. Look carefully at the blackboard in the background of Ashok Kumar’s opening scene and you will notice a scientific formula is named as Boney’s Law (named after the film’s producer Boney Kapoor).
24. Mr India was the second-highest-grossing film of 1987, behind long-forgotten action film Hukumat.
25. This would be the last commercial Bollywood film Shekhar Kapur would officially direct. (But he did start and abandon a number of Bollywood projects after
the success of Mr India, including Joshilaay (1989), Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja
(1993) and an aborted remake of Back To The Future).
26. Mr India was a frontrunner to win big at the Filmfare Awards, but no ceremony was held that year. Sridevi would later be given a special award for the film in 2013.
28. In 1989, the film was remade in Tamil (En Rathathin Rathame) and Kannada (Jai Karnataka).
29. Anil Kapoor plays Arun Verma in Mr India and would use the same character name in 1998 comedy Gharwali Baharwali.
30. Producer Boney wanted to make a 3D sequel, but then permanently shelved the idea when Sridevi passed away.
31. Director Kunal Kohli once claimed to have watched the film 200 times.
32. In 2019, Madame Tussaud’s in Singapore unveiled a wax statue of Sridevi in her golden Hawa Hawaii look from the film’s song.
33. British rapper Riz Ahmed’s second studio album The Long Goodbye has a track titled Mogambo, which was inspired by the film’s character.
34. Sridevi once said that Mr India couldn’t be remade, but that isn’t stopping director Ali Abbas Zafar from planning a new version, which he said will be a brand-new modern-day interpretation and part of a potential trilogy.
35. Several international film festivals have screened Mr India, which has been named in pretty much every 100 greatest Bollywood film list published in the last few decades.
And we give the film a big salute on its 35th anniversary.
The actor’s evolving style from youth to maturity getty images
Aamir Khan embracing vintage looks with classic charmgetty images
Bold and dramatic changes defining Aamir Khan’s careergetty images
From rugged to refined Aamir Khan’s versatile appearancesgetty images
Memorable film moments showcasing Aamir Khan’s unique stylegetty images
Aamir Khan’s blend of classic and contemporary fashiongetty images
Aamir Khan’s dedication to authentic character portrayals getty images
Cinematic milestones reflected in Aamir Khan’s on-screen imagegetty images
A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5