As prolific in his 60s as he was in his younger days, Priyadarshan is one of the rare filmmakers who contributed the most in the making of the modern Hindi comedy film and yet remains uncelebrated.
Chances of Priyadarshan’s name making it to the top half of any list of all-time great Hindi filmmakers would be rare. Rarer still, would be him making the cut for the top three even in comedy, a genre that perhaps was redefined by him.
One of the most underrated comedy filmmakers, Priyadarshan, who turned 60 this week, ought to be celebrated as much as Hrishikesh Mukherjee and David Dhawan and so must his contribution towards the creation of the modern Hindi comedy film.
Although the likes of David Dhawan and Rohit Shetty might surpass him when it comes to the kings of the comedy genre in Hindi films, what makes Priyadarshan exceptional on the lines of an Hrishi da is his ability to excel at different genres.
By the time Priyadarshan directed Hera Pheri (2000), a film that came to define the comedy genre in the 2000s besides creating mythical figures out of the Paresh Rawal and Akshay Kumar, he was a much-established filmmaker across not only Malayalam cinema, but also Hindi.
He had made his Hindi debut in the early 1990s with Muskurahat (1992) - a remake of his own Malayalam hit KiIukkam (1991). While the Hindi version featuring Revathy and Jay Mehta, who also happened to be the son of producer Pranlal Mehta and his biggest achievement being a dead ringer for Biswajeet, sank at the box-office, it managed to do two things. It got Priyan in contact with Amrish Puri and more importantly, it laid the foundation for Puri’s second innings.
Puri had become the biggest villain in popular Hindi films after Mr India (1987) and was nearly relegated to playing the baddie or, at best, experimenting with Shyam Benegal. Memories of Puri’s brilliance as a ‘character’ artist with Govind Nihalani’s Vijeta (1982) and Ardh Satya (1983) had nearly faded away and the generation who grew up on the staple diet of a Meri Jung (1985), a Nagina (1986) and a Mr. India (1987) had almost forgotten what Puri was capable of. Muskurahat saw Puri portray the role of a strict retired judge who was being troubled by a girl, Revathy, claiming to be his estranged daughter. The film was practically sold on Puri’s name and even though it was a flop it got a very good opening solely on the basis of Puri’s presence.
The second film that Priyadarshan made in Hindi, Gardish (1993), was a remake of yet another Malayalam film Kireedam (1989) and it featured Jackie Shroff and Amrish Puri.
The film was a success and what separated it from Muskurahat was the manner in which it was organically transported to Bombay. For the want of a better expression, the narrative, as well as the visual treatment of Muskurahat, had a lot of southern sensibilities and perhaps this hampered the translation.
By contrast, Gardish seemed like an extension of Ardh Satya and Arjun (1985) where Puri played a police constable who has to live the horror of watching the dream of making his son, Jackie Shroff, join the police force as an officer die in front of his own eyes.
In 1996 he made Kalapani, a period piece with Mohanlal, Tabu, Prabhu, Amrish Puri and Annu Kapoor. The film was released in four languages - Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi. It was critically acclaimed but did not do too well commercially, at least in Hindi. The next year, he remade the Sivaji Ganesan - Kamal Haasan classic Thevar Magan (1992) as Virasat with Amrish Puri and Anil Kapoor, and the film’s success made him one of the most sought after directors in Hindi films.
In many ways, Priyadarshan was also seen as the poor man’s Mani Ratnam when it came to Hindi films. Unlike Ratnam, who had till Dil Se… (1998) steered clear of making films in Hindi, Priyan never had any trouble when it came to making films in Hindi. In fact, at times, he was the first choice of many actors and producers to remake south Indian films in Hindi. This, despite certain aspects his filmmaking, that to put it mildly, were nothing short of bizarre.
One of the most confusing things across many of Priyadarshan’s Hindi films is the geographical conundrum that both his narrative and characters suffer. Take for instance both Muskurahat and Virasat and you would notice how in the former everyone’s dialogue delivery resembles a Tamil film and the latter where the characters are supposed to be Thakurs but the entire costume and production design is an ode to the Thevars from Chettinad in Tamil Nadu. This became pronounced to the degree of confusion for the viewer with the film that followed, Saat Rang Ke Sapne (1998), where the lead characters lose their way and make it to an area where Hindi is not spoken. A remake of his own Malayalam film, Thenmavin Kombath (1994), Saat Rang Ke Sapne failed as an adaptation because unlike the original there was no justification for the sequence. Even years later, when he made Hulchul (2004), Priyan made all the Thakurs once again dress up like zamindars from the south and left it at that.
One often meets their destiny on the road they least expect, and similarly, Priyadarshan’s greatest success came in a genre that he was little known for, at least in Hindi films, with actors who, up until then were least suited for the roles he signed them on and with a producer who simply did not understand the kind of filmmaker that Priyan was.
Both Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty had dabbled in comedy with Waqt Hamara Hai (1993) and while the former even did a full-blown comedy with David Dhawan, Mr. & Mrs. Khiladi (1997) he was far from being a comedy star and Paresh Rawal, too, had not played a central role in a comedy but in Hera Pheri they all found a film that would change their lives.
A remake of the Malayalam Ramjirao Speaking (1989), Hera Pheri came to be recognised as the standard of comedies and broke the dominance that Govinda-David Dhawan enjoyed. Priyan’s finesse in taking the smallest of the characters like the late Razak Khan, who played the villain Kabira’s (Gulshan Grover) sidekick or the late Om Puri, who played Khadak Singh, the harassed villager with a heart of gold, and giving them well etched moments that stood at par with the lead made Hera Pheri rise above the usual trappings. The only trouble with the film was the producer Firoz Nadiadwala’s lack of faith that saw him push Priyadarshan to include far too many songs that slackened the pace of the film. Legend has it that Nadiadwala even shot the first song of the film, ‘Jab bhi koi haseena’ without Priyan’s knowledge and added it in the film.
Nothing that Priyadarshan did after Hera Pheri matched the commercial success of the film but there is much more to the filmmaker than a single film. Priyadarshan’s collaboration with Mohanlal that resulted in more than ten films in itself features some of the best known Malayalam films and his work with Amrish Puri besides his participation in transforming Akshay Kumar into a bona fide comedy star are some of the things that go beyond Hera Pheri.
The last film that Kumar and Priyan worked on, Khatta Meetha (2007), is almost an inspiration for the actor’s upcoming Jolly LLB 2 in more ways than one would imagine. The manner in which the good-for-nothing lawyer has a change of heart resembles the tale of Sachin Tichkule (Akshay Kumar), the struggling road constructor.
In the recent past, Priyadarshan has gone back to his early days as a filmmaker where he has liberated himself from the burden of stardom with a film like Kanchivaram (2008). The film depicts the pitiable state of the silk weavers in the town of Kanchipuram as they were unorganised and marginalised to live a perpetual ‘hand-to-mouth’ existence and was written by him as well.
Like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Priyadarshan too shone at comedy because he could make emotional dramas and socially conscious films that were not preachy. Priyan is also one of the very few filmmakers who continue to be as prolific in their 60s as they were in their younger days and one would love to see this underrated storyteller try to revisit yesterday once more.
(Gautam Chintamani is the author of the best-selling ‘Dark Star: The Loneliness of Being Rajesh Khanna’ and ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak – The Film That Revived Hindi Cinema’)
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