Three’s Company: Sizing Up Bollywood’s 3 Living Box-Office Legends
When Aditya Chopra, Sooraj Barjatya and Ramesh Sippy came together for a photo-session.
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Galloping inflation, beyond inflated ticket rates sparked by the multiplex boom, spiralling movie budgets and the opening-up of new markets – China for instance – have muddied the statistical records of Bollywood’s all-time blockbusters.
In fact, paratrooping into the Rs 100 crore-plus-profit club class is no longer a big deal. Slide into the Rs 300 crore-plus enclave and then we’re talking. In such a scenario, taking all the pros and cons into consideration, which are the six top mega-hits which have had the masses as well as the mandarins asking for more?
Quite unarguably among the all-time top six hits , there are at least three living cash counter blockbusters which have been in a league of their own: Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay, Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! and Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
Sippy’s curry western, Sholay (1975) one of the last 70 mm films of Bollywood, notched a lifetime tally of Rs 1,500 crore, Sooraj Barjatya’s family-friendly Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994) waltzed to the figure of 1,197 crore, and Aditya Chopra’s Euro-romance DDLJ (1995) returned home with a cash flow of Rs. 915 crore. The three vastly imitated but never equalled films perch comfortably at the third, fifth and sixth at the box office tower, respectively.
Which are the certified two top all-time great blockbusters then?
Answer: K Asif’s monumental Mughal-e-Azam (1960) with a collection of Rs 2,000 crore and Mehboob Khan’s rural saga Mother India with Rs. 1,600 crore which are cherished as much for their timeless classicism as they are for cutting across the varied tastes of the Indian audience.
Incidentally, sneaking in at fourth rung, there’s the special effects-suffused period pageant Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017), with a count of Rs. 1,430 crore.
To return to the Sholay front, Sippy was 28-years-old and had two breezy entertainers already on his filmography (Andaz, Seeta aur Geeta).
Barjatya was 29 and had kickstarted his career with the ever-adored Maine Pyar Kiya. As for Chopra Jr, he was a debutant, at the time of scaling the peak of the popularity summit with DDLJ.
Sippy’s biggest ticket to fame had served a spectacle of technical chutzpah, action, romance and music. Barjatya and Chopra were both love story raconteurs, the lead players supported by an ensemble of extended family members, quotable dialoguegiri and oozed over with the milk of human kindness.
Personality-wise, the trio don’t share anything in common. The stubbornly reclusive Aditya Chopra had agreed to a photo-session for Filmfare quite willingly (surprise, surprise) when he was informed it would be in the company of Sippy, who’s always been gregarious, and Barjatya, who wears his shyness on his rolled-up sleeves.
Not that there was much crackling conversation at the shoot between the champion directors. Chopra admitted to being an admirer and influenced by Barjatya, who had blushed beetroot red. Sippy had laughed full-throatedly on being asked to dart his better profile to the camera lens. “Are directors supposed to be worried about their looks?” he had guffawed. The studio photo-session, which usually takes hours, was completed in 15 minutes flat, all the three casting their vote for the black-and-white version of their group portrait.
Ever since then, none of the three has been able better their act as directors. Sippy, now 72, may have helmed seven more films of varying quality besides creating the ground-breaking TV serial Buniyaad. Yet like Banquo’s ghost, Sholay shadows him. The last film he directed, Shimla Mirch, was over four years ago and still has to find a theatrical release.
Today, Sooraj Barjatya’s family banner Rajshri Pictures isn’t exactly abuzz. Still most famously known for Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! and Maine Pyar Kiya, his oeuvre includes four more films directed by himself, with Salman Khan serving as his lucky mascot (Hum Saath-Saath Hain, Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo). As for Main Prem ki Deewani Hoon, an attempt with Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan in the male leads, it had tanked, while Vivah with Shahid Kapoor was an okey-dokey success.
At 48, Aditya Chopra has enlarged his father Yash Chopra’s YRF banner, the only film production company to own a sprawling studio ground in the city. That none of the three films after DDLJ -- Mohabbatein and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi with Shah Rukh Khan and Befikre with Ranveer Singh -- has matched up even remotely would be an understatement.
In his humbler moments, post the Euro-romedy’s across-the-globe craze, the Chopra scion would shrug, “Maybe, I’m a fluke.” He’s not likely to say such self-deprecating words ever again, not to a journalist anyway.
Somewhere down the line, Taranchand Barjatya, the founder of Rajshri Pictures had aspired to make a film which would run forever – literally-- a far-fetched dream perhaps. Yet Aditya Chopra appears to be striving towards that impossible dream, what with DDLJ still running since almost 24 years – albeit only for a morning show at Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir cinema.
Meanwhile the multi-crore record-smashers of today, barely survive a fortnight or at most a month – and that’s putting it politely, at the ‘plexes. Aah, show business issi ka naam hai.
(The writer is a film critic, filmmaker, theatre director and a weekend painter.)
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