DIRECTOR Prakash Mehra’s blockbuster hit Zanjeer (1973) had turned struggling newcomer Amitabh Bachchan into an overnight superstar and launched the greatest acting career in Bollywood.
Not surprisingly, Bachchan would become the filmmaker’s favourite lead star and they would team up again in blockbuster hits like Sharaabi, which released in cinemas on May 18, 1984, to great acclaim. The successful drama about an alcoholic from an affluent family yearning for his father’s love celebrates 40 years this month.
Eastern Eye decided to mark the special occasion by presenting 40 facts connected to the super-hit movie filled with unforgettable moments and a standout lead performance.
- The movie, loosely inspired by 1981 Hollywood film Arthur, was officially launched on August 29, 1983 and released in cinemas less than nine months later.
- Sharaabi was the sixth Prakash Mehra directed film headlined by Bachchan and their last big success together. He had also produced his 1977 action-drama Khoon Pasina and would make one more Bachchan starrer with their only box office failure, Jaadugar (1989).
- It is said that Mehra had a very strained relationship with his own father and explored the theme in Sharaabi. He had done the same before that too with his 1981 Bachchan starrer Laawaris.
- Director Mehra claimed to have met a successful alcoholic industrialist while making Laawaris and used him as an inspiration for the lead character in Sharaabi.
- The producer/director had pitched the story idea of an alcoholic son’s relationship with his father to Bachchan during his 1983 world tour. Bachchan had revealed: “The seed of the film was sown over the Atlantic Ocean, about half way in the air at 35,000 feet.”
- Sharaabi was popular actress Jaya Prada’s first film with Bachchan and earned her a second Filmfare nomination for best actress.
- Child artiste Mayur played the young Bachchan in Mehra’s previous films Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and Laawaris. He finally shared screen space with the Big B in Sharaabi.
- Vijayendra Ghatge was the original choice for Deepak Parashar’s role.
- Mehra regularly repeated actors like Om Prakash, Ranjeet, Pran and Satyen Kappu in his films with Bachchan. Sharaabi remains the only Mehra-directed Bachchan starrer not to include Ram Sethi.
10.Suresh Oberoi stated that his guest appearance in the film was originally meant for Shashi Kapoor.
11.Bachchan had burned his hand badly while handling a Diwali firecracker. He hid the scar by keeping his hand in his pocket throughout most of the film. This inadvertently ended up creating a unique style statement, many copied. The Big B had once revealed: “My hand was gone; there were no fingers, no blood. Doctors worked on it for a year and I got it back. I am a southpaw and I could not use my left hand. It was terrible. I could not wear clothes, nothing. I was lucky I got my hand back.”
12.The iconic performance by Bachchan as a drunkard was particularly brilliant when you consider that the actor had become a teetotaller many years before Sharaabi.
13.Bachchan joins Jaya Prada half way through the song Mujhe Naulakha Manga De Re song like he joined Rekha half way through Salaam-E-Ishq in Mehra’s movie Muqaddar Ka Sikandar.
14.The set of musical number Thodi Si Jo Peele To from Namak Halaal was reused for the song Manzilen Apni Jagah Hain in Sharaabi.
15.Bachchan dances with a wedding procession on the streets in the De De Pyar De song, something he also did in Aaj Rapat Jaaye in Namak Halaal.
16.De De Pyar De became such a national anthem in 1984 that it was played by most wedding orchestras. It remains popular today and even inspired the title of 2019 Ajay Devgn starrer De De Pyaar De.
17.The leading lady’s father is blind in Sharaabi. In Namak Halaal it was her brother who couldn’t see. Both lived in a similar looking flat.
18.During the Mujhe Naulakha Manga De Re song, Bachchan tapped his hand on the anklet so hard that he started bleeding. So, it is his real blood in the scene and not fake.
19.During the recording of Inteha Ho Gayi, composer Bappi Lahiri asked singer Kishore Kumar to put more expression into the song. The response was “you put in more money; I will put in more expression.”
20.The song Jahan Chaar Yaar was a copy of Bondhu Teen Din from Bangla film Koshai (1980). Sharaabi music director Bappi Lahiri had worked with the original singer Runa Laila and launched her career in India with the album Superuna in 1982.
21.The music of Inteha Ho Gayi was inspired by the song, The Runner, by American all-women vocal group The Three Degrees. Giorgio Moroder produced the original, which was part of their album New Dimensions (1978).
22.Kuch Log Mohabbat Ko from Dhanwan (1981) was filmed on Reena Roy performing on stage, as Rajesh Khanna sits alone in the arena after buying all the tickets. The same was done with Jaya Prada and Bachchan in Sharaabi for Mujhe Naulakha Manga De Re.
23.Kader Khan was given the script four months before shooting so that he could add outstanding dialogues, which he did. Bachchan brilliantly brought them to life onscreen.
24.Bachchan had suggested to Mehra the dialogues be made shorter because an intoxicated individual takes more time to speak, which he agreed to do. The actor had written in his blog, “I told Prakash ji, since my character is intoxicated for most of the film, and since a drunk takes a lot more time to say his dialogues, if the dialogues were going to be long and lengthy, then he should be prepared for a five hour film, for, it would take time for me to say those lines, since they were going to be measured and in a state of intoxication. Point noted. And the scenes were shortened and made amenable for the situation.”
25.Mehra used a camera to shoot, which eliminated the need for dubbing. The emotional hospital scene with Bachchan and Om Prakash was shot as a real take and not dubbed yet was still flawlessly natural.
26.Yesteryear comedian Mukri made a memorable onscreen pairing with Bachchan in many movies. One of his most popular characters wasNathulal in Sharaabi. What most won’t remember is that he also played a character called Nathulal in Jaadugar, which was Mehra’s last film with Bachchan.
27.In Sharaabi, Pran exits in a small private plane. In Jaadugar, Bachchan and his troupe exit in the same plane.
28.The fight scene in the bar when he takes on guys that had stolen his watch, chain, wallet, rings and handkerchief was choreographed by Bachchan himself.
29.Bachchan always visited a bar before a confrontation in Mehra’s films, including in Zanjeer, Hera Pheri, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, Laawaris and even a comical confrontation in Namak Halaal. This was repeated with his character in Sharaabi fighting pickpockets in a bar.
30.Bachchan wore the yellow shirt under a white blazer in the De De Pyar De song and later for a scene in Agneepath (1990) when he leaves his mother’s house and arrives at Madhavi’s house unannounced. He also repeated the striped sports blazer in both films.
31.Rival director Manmohan Desai was making the movie Mard with Bachchan. He took a dig at Mehra by saying that, ‘only a sharaabi (drunkard) can make a film like Sharaabi, while only a mard (man) can made a film like Mard’. Mehra responded that only a coolie (labourer) could stoop so low with such a comment, referencing Desai’s 1983 film Coolie.
32.Sharaabi ran for 175 days straight with three daily shows in 70mm in Maheshwari cinema in Hyderabad, from May 18 to November 8.
33.All the Filmfare nominations for best male playback singer in 1985 went to Kishore Kumar, and all four songs were from Sharaabi. He won the award for Manzilein Apni Jagah Hain.
34.Bappi Lahiri won the 1985 Filmfare award for best music director for Sharaabi.
35.Other Filmfare nominations included best film, best actor (Bachchan), best director (Mehra), and best lyricist (Anjaan and Mehra).
36.Sharaabi was the third highest grossing movie of 1984 after Tohfa and Maqsad.
37.Bachchan was reportedly unhappy with the end product after Mehra ignored his suggestions – the first cracks in their long working relationship.
38.Sharaabi was later remade in the Kannada language as Nee Thanda Kanike (1985).
39.The forgettable Emraan Hashmi starrer Tumsa Nahin Dekha (2004) had a similar storyline and set-up to Sharaabi.
40.Tamil superstar Dhanush expressed an interest in remaking Sharaabi and playing the main lead in 2021, but it didn’t materialise. Acclaimed director Abhishek Kapoor has a forthcoming movie titled Sharaabi.
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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