Mona Ramavat goes spelunking back in cinematic history and discovers that southern cinema has been inspiring Bollywood for almost as long as it's been around!
Imagine Hindi cinema but without super hits like Solva sawan, Woh saat din, Sargam, Ek duje ke liye and more recently Beta, Judwa, Saathiya, Bhool Bhoolaiya, Ghajini, Kambakht Ishq and the most recent, Wanted. But also the super duper box office hit of 1948, Chandralekha. It's not worth investing so much energy in conceiving the idea of Hindi cinema sans all its inspirations especially south Indian. It won't be an exaggeration to say that several stars were made in Hindi cinema thanks to these remakes. Besides resurrecting sagging careers of actors like Jeetendra whose hit pairing with Sridevi and Jayaprada in umpteen films remade by Padmalaya studios put him back in business. Anil Kapoor, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Govinda, Amitabh Bachchan... Almost every super star in Bollywood has a super hit remake or a few to his credit. The list of Bollywood remakes of south Indian cinema is way too long to fit into an opening paragraph.
So let's do that instead, as we go along. Spelunking back in history we said, and we'll do exactly that.
For those not keen on grabbing the dictionary, the word doesn't mean anything fancy. It's simply exploring caves. For now though we could settle with the darkness of a movie theatre than a cave, really. Taking you back in time to the early 1900s, a little after the first talkie film was rejoiced, the trend of inter-lingual cinema was already trickling in. Bengali films were remade into Hindi even in the silent era. Another inspiration for Hindi cinema came from Marathi films and filmmakers.
Their concepts were borrowed heavily and remade for the Hindi audience.
V Shantaram's Kunku in Marathi was remade into Duniya Na Mane in Hindi as back as 1937.
After the mid 1940s, Hindi cinema started looking southwards perhaps for the first time. The south Indian influence on Bollywood was rather slow to begin but for the seven decades that followed, it was etched for posterity.
S S Vasan's Chandralekha first made in Tamil and later in Hindi by the same name was a sensation back then in the 40s. It's the story of a beautiful dancer named Chandralekha, played by T R Rajkumari. A prince falls in love with her but his brother desires her too and wants to marry her forcibly. Chandralekha agrees but on the condition that an elaborate drum dance event be organised first.
During the dance, the good prince's men appear from the drums and attack the palace. The sword fighting sequence that follows is said to be the longest ever in film history. The evil prince and his army are defeated and Chandralekha is rescued. The film was a rage those days and is recognised as the first Indian film to get nationwide distribution. And Vasan was among the first of south Indian filmmakers to foray into Hindi cinema. Later came Bahut Din Huye, which was the remake of the very successful Balanagamma, which was also produced by him. Over the next two decades he produced and directed several Hindi movies, two out of which became prominent hits of Bollywood Insaniyat and Zindagi both remakes of Tamil and Telugu.
Through the 1950s and 60s, many Tamil and Telugu film producers explored the idea of repeating the success stories of hit south Indian films with Hindi. The motive: to reach a wider audience. The result: A bunch of films stamped with south Indian style drama and mass entertainment. The impact: A different kind of sensibility infused into Hindi cinema.
Veteran producer-director L V Prasad's debut Hindi film, Sharda, the remake of the Tamil movie Etibirparadathu was a three hanky tear jerker and based on a rather futuristic subject for the mainstream Hindi audience. Sharda is about a man who falls in love with a girl named Sharda. They are separated after an accident he survives. But the real trouble in paradise is that he later discovers Sharda is married to an old rich man, who happens to be his father! Other hits like Miss Mary and Choti Behen again are Prasad's remakes of southern films.
Another filmmaker who successfully remade Tamil films into Hindi was A Bhimsingh. His Adini was remade from the Tamil hit Alayamani and was a huge success. The classic Bhai Behen was also remade from Pasamalar by Bhimsingh.
In the meanwhile, Prasad continued to remake southern films in Hindi during the 70s and 80s. The most remembered one from that period is perhaps the K Balachander directed Maro Charitra that Prasad remade into Ek Duje Ke Liye.
Around the same time, noted southern producer-director T Rama Rao was working in overdrive on Hindi films primarily funded by southern capital.
He dished out hits like Judai (remade from Telugu Aalu Magalu), Maang Bharo Sajna (remade from the Telugu Karthika Deepam), Andha Kanoon and Inquilab.
Many of T Rama Rao's southern inspired films featured Jeetendra in the lead, who was struggling to establish himself as a popular actor. In jest it is said that Jeetendra would be paid a fixed amount for a year and flown down to Chennai or Hyderabad to complete four southern remakes! All through the 80s, southern remakes in Hindi continued while the high drama gave way to psychological adventures and romances with a new twist. Tamil director Bharthiraja remade Sigappu Rojakkal into Red Rose starring Rajesh Khanna in 1980. Another filmmaker, Bhagyaraja made a spate of Hindi films inspired by southern cinema.
Popular ones include Woh Saat Din and Mohabbat. But what became a bigger sensation was the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Akhri Raasta that Bhagyaraj remade from Oru Kaithiya Diary.
David Dhawan by then was already adapting several movies of the south into his famous Bollywood comedies with Govinda. Especially Telugu films starring veteran comedy star Rajendra Prasad.
Biwi No 1 was inspired from the killer comedy Sathi Leelavathi in Telugu.
Enter the late 90s and Mani Ratnam began to create new standards of filmmaking, particularly in the technical aspects with his films Roja, Bombay, Dil Se and later Yuva and Guru, which were all inspired by his Tamil films.
Not too far behind was Priyadarshan, perhaps the most prominent Malayalam filmmaker who did Hindi cinema and churned out several popular hits. The Anil Kapoor, Tabu starrer Virasat was remade by him from Kamal Haasan's Thevar Magan. Before that came Gardish, which was inspired by a Malayalam film. Priyadarshan successfully remade several Malayalam and Tamil comedy films into Hindi like Hulchul, Bhool Bhulaiya, HungamaandGaram Masala. Kyun Ki based on his 1986 film, Thalavottam was also reasonably successful.
Over the last two decades, several Hindi films have also been remade into the south Indian languages, but this is more of a reverse trend.
More recently, with the Khan troika doing it too, southern remakes have become a cool thing to do. Aamir Khan's Ghajini remade from the Tamil version of the same name, Shahrukh Khan's Billu Barber adapted from the Malayalam Kadha Parayumbol and the recently released Wanted with Salman Khan is remade from the Telugu superhit Pokiri. What next? We wonder.
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