Fortieth anniversary special to celebrate a path-breaking and popular film
This week marks the 40th anniversary of classic Bollywood film Prem Rog, which became a big commercial success when it released on July 30, 1982, and has since become a cult classic.
The Raj Kapoor directed drama about a man who falls in love with a widow saw lead stars Rishi Kapoor and Padmini Kolhapure play path-breaking roles, not seen before in Hindi cinema.
Eastern Eye decided to mark 40 years of a film that remains popular today by presenting 20 interesting facts connected to it.
1. Prem Rog was the first time Bollywood legend Shammi Kapoor worked in a movie directed by his brother Raj Kapoor.
2. This was the third time the film’s writer Jainendra Jain collaborated with Raj Kapoor. He had previously written the dialogues for Bobby (1973) and the story for Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978).
3. Leading Indian film critic Anupama Chopra’s mother co-wrote Prem Rog.
4. Aside from casting him in the lead role, Raj Kapoor had wanted his son Rishi Kapoor to also direct the movie and use the project to groom him for a filmmaking career, but he was too busy with acting projects. Rishi was in fact shooting for Prem Rog, Naseeb (1981), Deedar-e-Yaar (1982), and Zamaane Ko Dikhana Hai (1981) simultaneously at that time.
5. Producer Raj Kapoor then handed the directorial reins to the writer Jainendra Jain, but cameraman Radhu Karmakar protested and said he didn’t know the basics, so the Bollywood legend took the helm himself.
6. Lead star Padmini Kolhapure had started her career as a child actress with roles that included playing a young Zeenat Aman in Raj Kapoor’s film Satyam Shivam Sundaram. The teenager was cast after being auditioned to allay any fears that she was too young to look like a widow in the film.
7. Acclaimed actress Sushma Seth starred alongside Rishi Kapoor for the first time in the film. She would later play his mother in multiple movies that included big successes Nagina (1986), Chandni (1989), and Deewana (1992).
8. Legendary actress Nanda played Padmini Kolhapure’s mother for the second time after Ahista Ahista (1981). Her role was originally offered to Simi Garewal and Asha Parekh, but both had declined it.
9. Anees Bazmee worked as an assistant director on Prem Rog. He would become a successful filmmaker in his own right and 40 years later directed the first Bollywood hit of 2022 with Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2.
10. Kuku Kohli, who successfully made his directorial debut with Ajay Devgn’s first film Phool Aur Kaante (1991), had also worked as an assistant on Prem Rog.
11. Rajiv Kapoor worked as an assistant on Prem Rog along with being elder brother Rishi Kapoor’s body double. He would later be cast in the lead role of Raj Kapoor’s next and final film as a director Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985). Many of the Prem Rog supporting actors were repeated in that film.
12. The song Bhanvre Ne Khilaya Phool was shot in Amsterdam and took nine long days to complete. Raj Kapoor had gone to the city with a minimal crew, especially to picturise the iconic number.
13. Kolhapure revealed she was reluctant to do the famous slapping scene and even more so as she had been instructed by Raj Kapoor to hit Rishi Kapoor for real. She had to do seven to eight takes and hit him for real each time.
14. Rishi Kapoor revealed in his autobiography that Raj Kapoor thought Dilip Kumar was the greatest onscreen romantic hero in Hindi cinema history and wanted him to be inspired by the actor for his role in Prem Rog. He was told to have the same intense look as him.
15. In his autobiography, Rishi Kapoor revealed that he and wife Neetu Singh had conceived son Ranbir Kapoor during the shooting of Prem Rog, and more specifically when the song Meri Kismat Mein Tu Nahi Shayad was being filmed. He added that it made the song more special for them.
16. Prem Rog became the second highest grossing Bollywood film of 1982, after the year’s most successful release Vidhaata, which also starred Padmini Kolhapure.
17. Prem Rog gained 12 nominations at the 30th Filmfare Awards, including for Best Film. The film would eventually win four awards for Best Director, Best Editing, Best Actress and Best Lyricist.
18. The 17-year-old Padmini Kolhapure became the youngest solo recipient of the Filmfare Best Actress award.
19. Film magazine Cosmopolitan once listed it as one of the 10 most romantic movies ever made.
20. Yeh Galiyan Yeh Chaubara Yahan Aana Na Dobara is one of the most popular classic Bollywood songs on YouTube and has been viewed almost half a billion times. The other songs and the film itself remain popular today. We give it a big salute and are now off to watch it again.
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Bold and dramatic changes defining Aamir Khan’s careergetty images
From rugged to refined Aamir Khan’s versatile appearancesgetty images
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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