When a Deol Marries a Roy

The only advertisement for nepotism is that some filmmakers who deserve to be remembered get forgotten. Nowhere was it clearer than when Dharmendra’s grandson wed Bimal Roy’s great-granddaughter recently. Actor Karan Deol, actor Sunny Deol’s son, wed Drisha Acharya, granddaughter of Rinki Bhattacharya’s daughter, Chimoo Acharya, whose husband Sumit runs a travel company in Dubai. Rinki, Roy’s daughter, was married to filmmaker Basu Bhattacharya for a while. The Deols and Roys have an old connection. Bimal Roy cast a young Dharmendra in Bandini, with Nutan, the 1963 premiere of which Roy’s son, Joy, remembers, at Mumbai’s Royal Opera House. But apparently, 87-year-old Dharmendra, who called it his “career-defining moment”, doesn’t recall much of that time. And neither does most of Mumbai’s paparazzi, for whom the Roys were invisible. Joy, a filmmaker and sari upcycler, was involved in the wedding in a hands-on way but spent most of the time smoking outside in the company of many convivial guests. With the two families being united in marriage, Joy calls it “life coming full circle”. It was also an endless ramp show, he says, but since he could not compete with a Sabyasachi waistcoat for ₹2.65 lakh, he settled for his own for under ₹10,000. He economised by designing the rest of his clothes, too, and also saved expenses for others by lending/ gifting upcycled saris for the event. Now, if only all Bollywood weddings followed this trend, much of the country, which takes its cues from the blingy Mumbai film industry, would be a simpler, less wasteful place. Joy dates the Punjabification of Bollywood to 1963, the year his father made his final feature, Bandini. Roy passed away in 1966, and many of his colleagues returned to Calcutta or faded out, with a mere handful, Hrishikesh Mukherjee (who came to Mumbai along with Roy) and Basu Bhattacharya, keeping the Bengali sensibilities alive.

When Karan Met Ray

A Karan Johar movie with an ode to Satyajit Ray’s 1964 classic Charulata? Stranger things have happened. In the forthcoming movie, Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, where the Randhawas unite with the Chatterjees, Shabana Azmi’s character sings the famous Rabindranath Tagore song, ‘Ami Chini Go Chini Tomare, Ogo Bideshini’ (I know you well, O stranger from distant land, I know you well). The poet wrote it in 1895 while he was in Shilaidaha (now in Bangladesh), at the country home made by his grandfather Dwarkanath. Tagore gave his Brazilian friend and admirer Victoria Ocampo (he called her Bijaya) a translation of the song within days after they had first met in 1924. Anyone who has seen Ray’s Charulata cannot forget the song, sung by Kishore Kumar and lip synced by a handsome young Soumitra Chatterjee while serenading his onscreen sister-in-law, played by Madhabi Mukherjee. If the Karan Johar production Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) introduced Gujaratis to the North Indian wedding mix, it is now Bengal adding spice to the blend in Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, with Alia Bhatt playing a Bengali . It may have something to do with two of his three writers being Bengali, Ishita Moitra and Sumit Roy. Will it bring old-fashioned romance back to the big screen? If a Karan Johar film cannot do it, then no one else can.

Scene and Heard

Deadline.com has finally confirmed what everyone knew about Dibakar Banerjee’s Tees. The film, originally titled Freedom, has been shelved by Netflix after being announced in 2019. Set in three time periods, 1989, present-day and 2047, it tells the story of a Muslim family from the Kashmir Valley. It tracks a matriarch, played by Manisha Koirala, her daughter (Huma Qureshi) who can’t find a flat in contemporary Mumbai, and her son, played by Shashank Arora, who is unable to get his novel published in a dystopian future in 2047. It begins in 1989 in the Kashmir Valley. Fear is everywhere, in hurried phone calls from outside the Valley, in scathing critiques of sudden wealth, and in absences of Hindu teachers and thought leaders from life in the Valley. Two lifelong friends, one Hindu, another Muslim, are about to be torn apart by forces beyond their control, by indoctrinated boys from across the border. What can survive in such an environment? Two communities that lived together peacefully? A culture that celebrated inclusivity? Or a mere recipe book of dishes they once ate? Tees looks at these issues and more against the backdrop of a changing India. Sometimes, too much reality is too much to bear.

BollywoodcinemaHuma QureshiJoy Bimal RoyKaran Johar