ENTERTAINMENT REDEFINED - ILLOGICAL MAN - MOHAN DESAI
ENTERTAINMENT REDEFINED - ILLOGICAL MAN - MOHAN DESAI
ENTERTAINMENT REDEFINED - ILLOGICAL MAN - MOHAN DESAI
DREAM……fantasize….dream even bigger and portray the same on celluloid. Manmohan Desai aka Manji as he was fondly called was an exciting Dream Merchant and an Entertainer par excellence of Bollywood. Leave your brain at home when you go to a movie auditorium to watch a Manmohan Desai film. He was an outright entertainer without logic and had no pretensions whatsoever that his productions were serious cinema.
He was the Miracle Man of Bollywood and the uncrowned King of Bollywood of his heydays in the late 1970s. The maverick Filmmaker of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s during his career span of 29 years (1960-1989) he was involved with many films out of which 13 were blockbuster mega-hits. His success ratio was 65%. His films with Amitabh Bachchan in the late 1970s and 1980s were phenomenal super hits. He truly believed that nothing succeeds like success.
Manmohan Desai (1937-1994) was a Director, Writer, and Producer of Bollywood films. He was born in Mumbai and shot most of his films in Mumbai City.
The man who firmly believed in the “Lost and Found” formula left behind an indelible mark in Bollywood film history, with films that spun magic with great music, top-order performances, and thoroughly enjoyable storylines that worked even with a touch of incredulity.
You must be wondering why Manmohan Desai has been given a mention in JOHNNY’S BLOG. My nostalgic feelings about Manji and his production house MKD Films where I literally started my career graph in Mumbai tempted me to write a post about him. Though it was a brief stint I got an opportunity to encounter the great entertainer in his prime glory and that was the time his most popular movie “AMAR AKBAR ANTHONY” was running to packed houses in Mumbai cinemas and Manji was celebrating that success. MKD Films was situated at “Pratap Niwas” in Jeevan Complex, Khetwadi, Mumbai, a modest destination in Mumbai City. MKD Films had Mr. Ashok B. Desai and Mr. Milind Joshi apart from myself as key staff members. I was greeted by Mrs.Jeevanprabha Desai, his wife, with a steaming cup of coffee and a pleasant smile in the mornings in this residence-cum-office. She was a kind and sweet person. His young son Mr. Ketan Desai was a nice guy too.
Mr. Siddharth Bhatia’s book titled “Amar Akbar Anthony” was reviewed in an open session at Godrej Culture Lab in 2013 in the presence of the author wherein I shared my experience with Manji to thunderous applause of the participants who were mainly from affluent South Mumbai other than Godrejites.
He was a hardworking filmmaker and directed five highly successful films in a single year in 1977 namely Amar Akbar Anthony, Dharamveer, Parvarish, Chacha Bhatija, and Suhaag. He used to switch his shifts from one film set to another and created this record of directing five films in a single year. The song “Anhonee Ko Honee Kar De…(meaning Make the Impossible Possible) from his film Amar Akbar Anthony was a befitting testimony of this success.
Interestingly, Manji was known to do some of the craziest stuff but it always worked for him.
Remember the famous `blood donation’ scene, where three sons of a mother donate her blood at the same time! The scene was criticized for being a medical improbability. Three separate tubes carry the men’s blood to a suspended bottle from where one tube carries the collected blood to the mother Bharti (Nirupa Roy)! The sequence is a medical impossibility. But Desai did it and it is said that when the scene opened, there was unbelievable applause in the theatre. That’s the unique and highly saleable creativity that director Manmohan Desai exhibited.
"Amar
Akbar Anthony", the evergreen entertainer that has captivated millions
of movie lovers continues to be one of the most remembered films for its
performances, dialogues, and scenes. Amar Akbar Anthony deserves a
separate mention at the end of this blog post.
The maverick Filmmaker Manmohan Desai etched his place in the history of Bollywood for delivering some of the biggest hits that whizzed audiences away into a world of make-believe, where simple people did wondrous things and made you laugh and cry with them.
*************
The song ‘My name is Anthony Gonsalves’ begins with these lines spoken by Anthony in one go when he emerges from the Easter egg – “You see, the whole country of the system is juxtapositioned by the hemoglobin in the atmosphere because you are a sophisticated rhetorician intoxicated by the exuberance of your own verbosity.” It is an almost exact quotation from a speech in the Parliament of the United Kingdom given by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in 1878. Disraeli (who was referring to William Ewart Gladstone) used the word “inebriated” rather than “intoxicated.”
Manmohan Desai was often criticized for his absurd themes and storylines - blind people in his films suddenly regain sight and twins separated at birth are reunited under bizarre circumstances - but he never sought to justify the nature of his work, saying he made movies to help people forget their tensions and worries. If any of his films carried a social message, it was incidental, he said. Desai had a keen wit and sharp repartee and his modest way of life changed little with success.
Manmohan Desai was known for his hot temperament and anger a fact none of his biographers tried to avoid. His confession about vices was also noteworthy. He never used to drink alcohol, was not a smoker and never gambled. His weakness was the fairer sex. Let us see what he spoke to Connie Haham who had written a book about him.
Excerpted from Enchantment of the Mind: Manmohan Desai’s Films; by Connie Haham
Manmohan:
his name literally meant ‘mind charmer’ ' Man: mind; Mohan:
enchantment, charm. It was a fitting name considering the enchanting
fantasy that he brought to the screen. Manmohan Desai himself saw his
name in a different light and found it appropriate for other reasons:
“Manmohan
is one of the names of Krishna. My father and mother must have given me
the name because they knew I’d turn out a womanizer; they gave me the
correct name. Once I told my wife that if I womanize, it’s not my fault.
My father gave me the name Manmohan, that Charlie who had 1,000 gopis ' women ' around him. So if I have a couple. She said, ‘That’s no excuse!’”
While at one moment Desai was ready to use his namesake’s activities as a rationalization for his own behavior, at other moments he vehemently lashed out against the lord he considered to be unworthy of worship:
“Krishna! He’s no god! He left Rukmani for Radha. Why glorify a man who has a mistress, who was a womanizer with all those gopis! He won the whole Mahabharata war by cheating, deceit, and treachery. I have no respect for Krishna. He makes my blood boil. I’ve talked to pundits, but they can’t answer my questions about Krishna!”
“Krishna! He’s no god! He left Rukmani for Radha. Why glorify a man who has a mistress, who was a womanizer with all those gopis! He won the whole Mahabharata war by cheating, deceit, and treachery. I have no respect for Krishna. He makes my blood boil. I’ve talked to pundits, but they can’t answer my questions about Krishna!”
Manmohan
Desai was as energetic talking as film-making. His boisterous
enthusiasm whipped contagiously through the room as he added rhythm and
emphasis to his speech by raising his arms, beating the air, and
slapping the back of one hand against the palm of the other. Finally, he
punctuated his sentences with a nervous tick, drawing his forefinger
assertively under his nose to the accompaniment of a loud sniff. He
spoke at such a rapid clip that it was often difficult to catch each
word, but when he decelerated, his intonation became eloquently lilting.
His voice was that of a much younger man, and in 1984 at 46, when he
broke into song, one could easily have divided his age in half. By his
own admission, he was no diplomat. His rage at his pet peeves was
unapologetic, uncompromising, and easily provoked. Lord Krishna, school,
and art films were a few of the subjects that sparked his fury.
“I had a very tough time between 1960 and 1970, the 10 worst years of my life. That’s when my wife stood by me like a rock. A great lady she was. I couldn’t have asked for a better wife than her. She said, ‘Don’t give up films.’ And I used to think up ideas in the night. I couldn’t get to sleep. I’d wake up my wife. I’d wake up my son. ‘Please, look, I made up this idea. Here’s a plot.’ She would hear me for two hours. She would say, ‘Now it’s late, Manmohan. Go to sleep. Okay, We’ll hear it in the morning.’ I am what I am because of her. She prayed for me. She stood by me and was very possessive. Naturally, since we had a love marriage, I wasn’t supposed to monkey around after marriage. But I did. She didn’t like that. But she looked after me and my home. She was very loyal to me, very faithful, and looked after every need of mine.
“Now I realize. There’s a saying: you know a person’s worth when he’s not there. Why a person any object, for that matter. You only know when it’s not there. Now I think she might have been my spinal cord, my backbone. I never had to bother in my house whether anything was there or not. So I miss her. Now my spinal cord is my son. I suppose all filmmakers are womanizers in a way. Anyway, I don’t like to be a hypocrite and say I’m a person of virtue. No. But just one vice! Others have plenty. I used to say to my wife, ‘Look, in the film world, people drink, smoke; gamble; they go to the races. I don’t do all that. I only womanize.’
“She said, ‘That’s no excuse.’
“But
my weakness is like my father’s. My brother died in August, 1983. He
was elder than me by six years: cirrhosis of the liver. So I always told
him, ‘We have divided the vices in our family.’ He never womanized. He
only drank ' cards, races, smoking ' no womanizing. I suppose any man
who thinks, who works mentally, he needs a diversion. Alcohol is not a
good diversion. I feel alcohol benumbs your nerves in the long run. So I
don’t take refuge in alcohol, nor in gambling. I don’t like to lose.
I’m a bad loser. So I said my only refuge is womanizing. But I used to
get in trouble with my wife.”
Comments from other famous filmmakers
Shyam Benegal, a New Cinema director who has gained recognition worldwide, was generous in his praise of Manmohan Desai:
“I enjoy Manmohan Desai’s films. I would never miss one. Manmohan Desai is definitely the best of the big mainstream directors. Amar Akbar Anthony is my favorite.
“I
respect Manmohan Desai for his honesty, for never having claimed to be
anything but an entertainer. In this respect, he is a success. Manmohan
Desai’s films are great fun. He has taken a stereotype and changed it
into an archetype. He has created a new mythology. It’s very clever,
too, the way he can use the same material over and over again, refining
it each time.
“I
think Manmohan Desai is totally uninterested in social messages;
everything happens by miracle on screen. People leave the cinema without
taking any messages, but they have been thoroughly entertained.”
Amitabh Bachchan’s fatal injury while shooting for Manmohan Desai’s film Coolie
It was on 25 July 1982 on the sets of Coolie that Amitabh Bachchan had his near-fatal accident; an overly realistic punch by villain Puneet Issar in the stomach and a fall against a sharp-edged table led to life-endangering complications. It was Amitabh Bachchan’s near and dear and his fans across India and the world whose prayer saved Amitabh Bachchan’s life from that near-fatal blow. This injury troubled Amitabh Bachchan throughout his life.
It was on 25 July 1982 on the sets of Coolie that Amitabh Bachchan had his near-fatal accident; an overly realistic punch by villain Puneet Issar in the stomach and a fall against a sharp-edged table led to life-endangering complications. It was Amitabh Bachchan’s near and dear and his fans across India and the world whose prayer saved Amitabh Bachchan’s life from that near-fatal blow. This injury troubled Amitabh Bachchan throughout his life.
Filmography
(For movie poster images google Manmohan Desai Movies)
A Brief Biography :-
Manmohan Desai, film director and producer: born Mumbai 26 February 1937; married 1959 Jeevanprabha Gandhi (one son); died Bombay 1 March 1994.
Desai was born in 1937 in Mumbai, the son of a moderately well-known producer and director of entertaining stunt films. After school Desai attended St Xavier's College, in Mumbai, but left before graduating for a career in films, and was apprenticed to Babubhai Mistry, a well- known film director. In 1960, at the age of 23, Desai made his directorial debut with Chhalia ('Trickster'), which starred two of the most popular stars of the day and was moderately successful at the box-office.
Born
to a Gujarati couple Kalavati and Kikubhai Desai, Manmohan Desai moved
to the Khetwadi locality in Mumbai at the age of four. Mumbai, the city
of dreams and dream merchants had always been his home. This love for
the city of Mumbai was often portrayed on the screen in his movies.
Not
many had heard of Khetwadi then in the early 80’s. There was a time
when the nondescript Khetwadi was not reflected in the maps of the city.
No doubt the taxi drivers gave blank look when asked for the address
for MKD Films.
Desai
had film making in his blood stream. His father was a film producer who
owned Paramount Studios (later Filmalaya) and made films, mainly stunt
films, between 1931 and 1941. When his father passed away at a young age
of 39 due to a ruptured appendix, the family plunged into heavy
liabilities and debts.
Desai’s
mother was pretty clear about not wanting to “live with debts”. She
sold off the massive bungalow they owned in Versova and the cars to
repay the debts. Only thing that she did not sell was the studio as it
was the source of their monthly income then.
Desai’s first directorial film was Chhalia with actor Raj Kapoor in the lead role. The movie was shot in black-and-white and the title song “Chhalia Mera Naam” became a hit. Desai’s creative thoughts and inputs regarding the plot or storyline were mostly drawn up below the famous landmark restaurant CafĂ© Naaz on the slopes at Malabar Hill.
He did not appreciate the idea where Chhalia ended
on sad note. He always believed in a happy ending even if it did mean
making the impossible possible. No doubt he was regarded as the master
entertainer whose passion was to please the mass audience with happy
endings. His career graph became more popular between the years from
1960 to 1988. Out of the 20 films that Desai directed in his career span
of 29 years (1960–1989), as many as 13 films were stupendous hits, a
remarkable success ratio for an industry where box-office disasters
abound despite huge budgets and star casts.
The characters that depicted in his movies were mostly the common people – be it the person on the railway platform Coolie, the waiter in Naseeb or the Anglo Indian from the streets of Bandra in Amar Akbar Anthony.
The confidence he exhibited in etching each of these characters which
later became iconic proves that this master entertainer knew the pulse
of the audience.
Despite
his roaring success, Desai remained at heart a middle class man. He
would hardly ever miss his hour-long afternoon siesta, whether it is the
shooting location or elsewhere and would emerge from it fresh and
recharged. After the success of his movie Amar Akbar Anthony he
bought an aristocratic apartment designed with modern amenities in one
of the most expensive places in Mumbai then. But, his heart was always
in Khetwadi the colony that belonged to the middle class people of
Central Mumbai.
In most of the Manmohan Desai films, one thing was evident; he always showcased his profound respect for the mother figure. He said, “In my films, I always talk about ‘Ma Sherovali’. I feel a woman is a supreme creation. It is she who conceives, she who bears the child after nine months, she who takes care through hardships. She brings into the world a new life. I rate them very high. I am a great believer in Durga, Amba, and Lakshmi.” If you look at films like Suhaag, Amar Akbar Anthony, and Mard, the mother figure plays a prominent role in the hero’s life.
Though Desai started his career with a love story Chhalia, he found his real form in action-packed multi-starrers such as Naseeb, Suhaag, Parvarish, Coolie, Mard, Desh Premee, and Dharam Veer. In fact, he repeated his successful male lead actor in at least one more film and so his repertoire involves two films with Rajesh Khanna (Roti and Sachcha Jhootha), two with Dharmendra (Chacha Bhatija and Dharam Veer), two with Randhir Kapoor (Chacha Bhatija and Rampur Ka Lakshman), two with Shashi Kapoor (Suhaag and Aa Gale Lag Jaa), two with Jeetendra (Dharam Veer and Bhai Ho To Aisa) and four with Shatrughan Sinha (Naseeb, Bhai Ho To Aisa, Aa Gale Lag Jaa and Rampur Ka Lakshman).
But it was his association with Amitabh Bachchan that became legendary. One after the other the duo delivered a string of hits – Amar Akbar Anthony, Parvarish, Suhaag, Naseeb, Desh Premee, Coolie, and Mard, with only their last film together Ganga Jamuna Saraswati failing at the box office.
In
“Suhaag”, Bollywood’s glitterati were paraded in one of the sequences a
la the lead actors and actresses of Bollywood were paraded at the end
sequence of the Bollywood film “Om! Shanti Om” in the song “Deewangi,
Deewangi”.
Towards
the end of his career, Desai's previously successful stories and style
began to lose favor with audiences. Critics accused him of self-parody.
His last film as a director Ganga Jamuna Saraswati and the films he produced with his son Ketan Desai directing, Allah Rakha and Toofan, failed at the box office.
All the star kids did not make it big in filmdom and Ketan Desai could not fit into the big boot of his dad.
Mr.
Prayag Raj, Manmohan Desai’s Asst. Director in a good number of his
films - who was with him from his struggling days - played a significant
role in Manji’s hit films.
When Manji’s wife Jeevan Desai committed suicide in 1979 that news item in a morning journal found a dejected me and I was stunned and upset because she was a great human being.
On 1st March, 1994 that fateful day when he was leaning on his balcony for support, the balcony collapsed along with him and met with his death. According to some sections of the press, his death was because of suicide is not confirmed and debatable.
Manmohan Desai's funeral was attended by the dignitaries and almost entire film industry people who mattered.
When we think of Manji and his life we come to the conclusion that he believed strongly that his medium of films had three divine aspects or mantras -
i.e. Entertainment , Entertainment and Entertainment.
Anhonee Ko Honee Kar Ke ............Manji left this world.
R.I.P. - AMEN.
AMAR AKBAR ANTHONY
Amar, Akbar, Anthony - an involved tale of secularism based on the camaraderie between three young men, a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian - was one of the first set of commercial Indian films to be broadcast by BBC television during prime time. With its way-out fantasies, saucy song, and dance routines, and convoluted plot, Amar, Akbar, Anthony broke all Indian box-office records. It also established the career of Amitabh Bachchan, India's most popular actor.
Desai had stumbled upon the idea for Amar Akbar Anthony from
a news item he had read in an evening newspaper. An alcoholic man named
Jackson was fed up with his life and one day he packed his three
children in a car and decided to drop them off in the park. Manmohan
Desai’s story began from where this news item ended.
Desai
twisted the story and did away with the alcohol angle. In the film’s
story when the father returns he finds that all his three children have
gone missing. The eldest kid Amar (Vinod Khanna) is adopted by a Hindu
police officer, the second one Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) by a Catholic
priest and the third one Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) by a Muslim Tailor.
It was the first and last time when Rafi, Lata, Kishore Kumar and Mukesh sang a song together in the film ‘Hum ko tumse hogaya pyar kya karein’. There were three different male voices for the heroes but only Lata Mangeshkar for all the leading ladies.
Amar Akbar Anthony was
the only film in the History of Hindi films which celebrated Silver
Jubilee in regular shows 7 cinema Halls in Mumbai and Suburbs.
*- : THE END :-
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