Even as the nation adjusted to Aishwarya’s deglamourised visage in Sarbjit, a week before that it was witness to Emraan Hashmi with an upturned collar and a gait peculiar to one of India’s most successful cricket captains, Mohammad Azharuddin, in the biopic Azhar. Come September, the saga of India’s most successful cricket captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, will unfold in M S Dhoni: The Untold Story. Aamir Khan’s December release Dangal, which has him essaying the role of wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, is the next most-awaited film in the biopic genre. Phogat trained his two daughters to superlative wins in the sport.
The year 2016 ushered in a new journey for Bollywood with the release of Airlift, based on true events of the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait when Saddam Hussein attacked his tiny oil-rich neighbour. In February came Neerja, a biopic based on 22-year-old Pan Am purser Neerja Bhanot, who was shot dead by hijackers while trying to save passengers, and Aligarh, in which a Marathi professor is sacked from his job on account of his sexual identity.
Then there’s the upcoming 7 Hours to Go, which is based on a true incident of a hostage crisis in Mumbai. Earlier, its director Saurabh Varma had made a comedy titled Solid Patels. “The audience’s taste changes every three months. You can’t serve them the same thing,” says Varma. Another film based on real incidents is Rustom, starring Akshay Kumar, said to be based on the 1959 story, in which Naval Commander K M Nanavati was tried for the murder of Prem Ahuja, his wife’s lover.
Carrying the momentum will be Udta Punjab, slated to release in June, which is another hard-hitting film based on the rampant drug abuse in Punjab. Written by Sudip Sharma, who scripted NH 10, the film took shape when director Abhishek Chaubey approached him, saying he wanted to do a film about drugs. “I had been reading about what was happening in Punjab and those stories had stayed with me. Abhishek and I took off to Punjab, camped there and tried to understand the nature of the problem and why it was happening. When we compared notes, we knew there was a story waiting to be told,” says Sharma, who gave up a corporate career for films.
Director Omung Kumar is smack dab in the middle of this new trend. In 2014, he debuted as a director with the biopic Mary Kom, which attracted awards by the dozen. When Sarbjit’s script came to him, he refused at first, not wanting to be typecast as a biopic director, but relented after reading the script. Kumar believes that Bollywood is poised at an interesting stage. “I am glad that such movies are being made. The audience wants something new, they are waiting to hear such stories,” says Kumar. He took it up as a challenge when choosing Aishwarya to play Sarabjit’s sister, with her role spanning the ages between 22 and 60. “I used to put make-up and show it to her and then get it done on her face. She has sensitive skin, and we would shoot in the hot sun where you can get wrinkles and pigmentation on the skin. But it was a challenge for her and she took it up bravely,” says Kumar.
For her role, Aishwarya pored through many videos and clippings of the case. She credits the movie’s cameraman Kiran Deohas for capturing every little nuance. Aishwarya is also all praise for Dalbir, who fought for her brother’s release for 23 years. “Adjectives fall short to describe Dalbir’s strength and spirit. A story such as this one needs to be told. This is one that I can’t say was a pleasure doing, it was too intense and trying to do the role,” says Aishwarya.
Veteran theatre artiste and National School of Drama alumnus Robin Das, who teamed up with Kumar for Mary Kom, believes that real-life roles must be celebrated, be it heroes or anti-heroes, like the elephant hunter bandit Veerappan. “The audience wants to see real crises, confront it or get away from it if it is some kind of evil. It’s a changing phase of cinema, though I am just an observer,” says Das.
Actress Ankita Shrivastav, who plays Sarabjit’s daughter and does not support the family’s struggle in the biopic, believes that if such films do well, they will set the tone for the next few years. “People want to see and hear stories of those around them. I remember seeing Paan Singh Tomar, which had a packed audience even in the second month of its release. I saw Sarbjit’s characters in the flesh, as Dalbir Kaur and other family members often came to the sets,” says Shrivastav, adding that a few months into the shoot, she was approached for roles in big banner films.
Sharma attributes the current trend to a change in the mindset of writers, filmmakers and audience’s tastes. “For the longest time, our films were set in la la land. Through the 80s and 90s, one never really knew in which place the film was based, with the hero being called Ravi Kumar, giving no clue about his caste or where he was from. Movies were made in such a way that everyone could understand everything, pandering to the lowest common multiple. This created an artificial world of Bollywood films, which only existed within the industry and not outside. It all started changing a few years ago when Satya, which was rooted in Mumbai, was released. Of course, at the end of the day, the focus is on telling an engaging story,” says Sharma.
While successful sports-persons are a winning subject for biopics, some such as Malayalam director Kamal are rooting for literary superstars. During a press conference in July 2014, Kamal announced that he was making a biopic on the life of acclaimed Malayalam poet-novelist Kamala Das. “Although she’s moved on, for the family it’s great to see her life being recreated on screen,” says Jaisurya Das, a media professional and the youngest of her three sons. Jaisurya is happy that Vidya Balan, who he says has a “dignified elegance”, is playing the role of his mother. “The passion with which Kamal has approached the film, it ought to be a great one,” he says.
International cinema is no stranger to biopics, having covered everything under the sun. But the India connection in the British biopic The Man Who Knew Infinity might have assured our filmmakers that they were on a good wicket. Based on the life of Srinivasa Ramanujam, the greatest mathematician the country has ever produced, the recently released film saw Dev Patel playing Ramanujam and Jeremy Irons playing Professor Hardy, the man who projected Ramanujam’s mathematical genius to the world.
While biopics have injected new blood into tired film plots, wishy-washy love stories, etc., they have also given actors a completely new image as well as a new lease of life. For instance, Neerja was a high point in Sonam Kapoor’s till now moderately successful acting career. Films like Airlift and Rustom are milestones in Akshay’s long and successful career. After a break, Aishwarya is back in the groove, thanks to author-based roles in Jazbaa and Sarbjit. Serial kisser Hashmi and his bad boy image were kept at bay when he stepped into Azhar’s shoes. “My experience with the sport was gully cricket. I used to watch matches and keep a tab of the scores. For the biopic, I used to meet Azhar almost every day to know more about his life and his game. He would bowl and show me how to bat as well as help me master his trademark wristy flair,” says Hashmi, drawing a parallel between the life of actors and cricketers, saying they face “the same high-profile success and high-profile failure”.
The biopic trend, though going strong, has come under fire for not highlighting the true story, fudging facts or being one-sided. For instance, audiences were served a googly when Azhar opened with the disclaimer that it is not a biopic but a work of entertainment based around facts about a person’s life. More like generous helpings of cinematic liberty, though director Anthony D’souza says “without tampering with facts or twisting accuracy, we’ve tried to tell a dramatic story with plenty of twists and turns”. Incidentally, D’Souza is a huge of Azharuddin. “Azhar has been an amazing support and was with us from the start. He allowed Emraan to observe him and his cricketing moves. When the film was about to be released, Azhar walked that extra mile with us, held our hand and took us to the release,” says the director.
Jaisurya believes that a little bit of cinematic liberty is fine. “The biopic on Kamala Das will cover much of her life in detail, even the controversies. She seemed always to be in the eye of the storm,” he says with a laugh. “Even her autobiography does not cover a great part of her life, it does not cover her move from Bombay to Kerala, my dad’s passing away, her conversion to Islam or her ill health.”
Retired IAS officer and Tamil director Gnana Rajasekaran—who has made the biopics Bharathi, Periyar and Ramanujam, based on the lives of the great Tamil poet Bharathiyaar, eminent social activist and politician Periyar and renowned mathematician Ramanujam, respectively—insists that the soul of the character should be retained. “I don’t take liberties with the characters because very easily one can get an idea from a certain character and then develop it with a commercial tint. The inner element of the character should be brought out. When I made Bharathi, I took some liberties because there was nothing written on him, no biography or anything. But when it came to Ramajunam, there were detailed records about his life,” says Rajasekaran.
He thinks The Man Who Knew Infinity was a letdown, with Ramanujam’s life in India not being profiled accurately, though the Cambridge portions were done excellently. For instance, he says that Ramanujam was not assertive or confident, as portrayed in the movie. “His behaviour bordered on the abnormal, he was a genius who was not recognised in India. My film captures that,” says Rajasekaran.
Not only are biopics giving love stories a breather, but they seem to be making a positive impact on society. Sarabjit’s story has so impacted director Kumar and his crew that they have started a foundation, Bring Them Back Home, which will focus on bringing back Indian prisoners from Pakistan. Manjhi: The Mountain Man, based on the life of Dashrath Manjhi who singlehandedly carved a path through a hill, has produced many Manjhis in society. Last we heard was of a teen from Settisara village in Karnataka digging a 55-ft-deep open well for his mother.
“Hitherto unknown facts also get highlighted. For instance, there were only 14 people who were present at the funeral of the great Tamil poet Bharathi,” says Rajasekaran, adding that he based his film on the premise that though the poet was not recognised during his lifetime, he was a man far ahead of his times. Says Jaisurya, “Not many know that my mother was a Nobel Prize (for literature) nominee, winning awards from international universities, but did not win the Padma Shri. Whatever reason the government must have to deny it to her, it is ridiculous.”
Getting clubbed with the biopic trend, true stories, real-life happenings and incidents from history are giving Bollywood bankable scripts as well as a whole new platform for ideating stories. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani released to packed theatres in December last year. It not only got the great Peshwa to transit from the stuffy history books onto the big screen, but also got locals and tourists making a beeline to Pune’s Shaniwar Wada, the seat of the then ruling Peshwas. What’s creating a buzz now is Ashutosh Gowariker’s Mohenjo Daro (releasing on August 12) said to be based on the ancient city of the Indus Valley Civilisation. There’s also Vishal Bharadwaj’s Rangoon, a period film set during World War II, starring Saif Ali Khan, Shahid Kapoor and Kangana Ranaut. Whether it is Casablanca-inspired is anyone’s guess.
The Hindi-Telugu bi-lingual Ghazi is another film that is generating a lot of interest, based as it is on the mysterious sinking of the Pakistani submarine PNS Ghazi during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. What appealed to actress Taapsee Pannu, who stars in the film, is that it is based on recent history. “I have never done a film based on a true story, on history, and for me this was the film’s biggest draw. I play a Bangladeshi refugee, and what struck me was that I would be reprising roles of people from a time when I was not even born,” says the actor, who is paired opposite Rana Daggubati in the film. “I have lived in Vizag all my life, and PNS Ghazi had sunk off the coast of Vishakapatnam. I never once realised the significance of its presence there,” says Rana.
The lament is that in Bollywood there are hardly any movies that revolve around history or important historical figures. We probably know more about the Holocaust than our own freedom struggle. “In India, we do not have many movies on history because we lack good screen writers,” says film historian Randor Guy, adding that when he was in Hollywood for two years, he had developed a script for a biopic on Rani of Jhansi, but the then government had turned it down.
Rana Daggubati, who has starred in period films such as Baahubali and Rudramadevi, the latter based on the prominent ruler of the Kakatiya dynasty, says, “Period films are tough to make, but tougher still are period war dramas. They might have a great story to tell, but making them is a challenge,” he says.
History, real life and biographies should make for an interesting potpourri. Besides, Bollywood does not have to look elsewhere for inspiration. More than 100 years ago, it had produced its first full-length film, a biopic on the legendary king Raja Harishchandra.
with Shama Bhagat