Skip to main content

Mere Paas Baap Hain!


  By Jaideep Sen

Mere Pass Baap Hain! ....Now that’s  something Salman Khan can say with pride in real life because of amongst multiple reasons the one great talent that he’s inherited from his father, Salim Khan Saab, is the Eye to spot special talent like father and son themselves are.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Salman Khan
 

As I watched Gangubai Kathiwadi which personally I feel is Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Best Film to date, and was swept by its brilliance I instinctively thought of doffing my hat to Salman Khan, through this piece, for giving us this gem of a filmmaker.

Salim Khan and Amitabh Bachchan
Having been around in the film Industry for three decades I know what a fight it is to convince an A Lister to do your first film and when unfortunately it fails commercially--as it happened with Khamoshi-The Musical-- it’s unheard of for the star to do the same filmmaker’s second film. 

But in this case Salman did not flinch, stood by Sanjay Bhansali and how! Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam happened and the rest is history. This rock solid support has been acknowledged and thanked by Sanjay Bhansali himself in a latest on camera interview, a sign of a humble genius.

This eye for spotting special talent is a talent Salman Khan has inherited  from his father, an institution of writing, Salim Khan Saab.

 

Salim and Salman Khan
Five decades back Salim Saab along with his erstwhile partner, Javed Akhtar Saab -- with their and Hindi cinema’s most game changing script ever Zanjeer -- backed an actor with a string of failed films behind him to play Vijay Khanna. The actor was Amitabh Bachchan and the rest is again history.

Can you imagine this industry without special talents like Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali? It’s Unimaginable.

So for making it happen, I from the bottom of my heart thank this special father-son duo, Salim Saab and Salman Bhai who had volunteered to back unseen, unheard and unsuccessful names and turn them into the mammoth successes

And just for this inheritance itself, Salman Khan can proudly say “Mere Pass Baap Hain!”



Jaideep Sen is a filmmaker and a connoisseur of the art of storytelling.  

Read his earlier posts in the Salam Salim Saab series: 

#1 Salaam, Salim Saab 

 #2 Silence that Speaks 

#3 The Invaluable Value of the Pen

 #4 The Guru of Screenwriting

 #5 The Forever Burning Flame of Sholay

 #6 The Strength of Characterisation 

 #7 Bond of Brotherhood

 #8 The Sangam of a Genius and his Admirer 

 #9 First Link in the Zanjeer 

#10 Vijay – The Eternal Winner 

 #11 Let's Celebrate Salim Khan! 

 #12 The Memorable Women Behind the Angry Young Man

 #13 The Definition of a Love Story 

#14 Relevance Etched in Stone 

 #15 Fuelled by Rejection 

#16 Dialogue - the Spoken Word 

 #17 When Salman Khan Chose to Strip Off his Stardom

 #18 The Most Memorable Line of Indian Cinema

#19 The Doomed Characters

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree - Review of the International Booker Prize Winner

Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree My rating: 5 of 5 stars Geetanjali Shree's original book in Hindi is called Ret Samadhi and the translated version by Daisy Rockwell is Tomb of Sand. The writer's style is lyrical and captures the essence of an Indian family completely and evocatively. In fact the amazing thing about the author's style is that it goes above and beyond the cast of characters, roping in inanimate objects (like the door, for instance), the natural elements, crows and invisible things like borders. The story lies not so much in the plotline of an old woman and her journey to find the house and man she has left behind as in highlighting the nuances of families, countries, borders, neighbourhoods, galis and mohallas , the environment, the smells, sounds and landscape, the past and present and everything in between (including a delightful treatise on the silk sari as narrated from the point of view of a crow!) that makes up the heart and soul of India. The writi

Basu Chatterji's "Balcony Class" Films

Basu Chatterji's Rajnigandha was like a breath of fresh air in the 1970s film universe of Bombay. At a time when the Angry Young Man was beginning to dominate celluloid screens, Amol Palekar was as un-hero-like as you could get. He was the Common Man who traveled in buses, did not have hero-like mannerisms and did not breathe fire and brimstone at his opponents. Basu Chatterji's Middle of the Road Cinema burst on to the scene and surprised the movie-going audience with its everyday situations and storylines that had an undercurrent of humour. Chatterji catered to an audience that he liked to call the "Balcony Class".  Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author of Basu Chatterji and Middle-of-the-Road Cinema writes an entertaining and heartwarming account of the life and work of Basu Chatterji, one of the most under-rated directors of Indian cinema. Recall of Chatterji's brand of feel-good, slice-of-life movies is perhaps highest for his Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Baaton Baa

Book Review of Where Did You Go? by P.L. Jonas

  The popularity of novels like Gone Girl and T he Girl on the Train with an intriguing premise, unreliable narrators and plot twists, has put the spotlight on psychological suspense stories. Such stories have a thriller like urgency about them and yet are rooted in familiar, real life situations. A well crafted, edgy psychological suspense can keep the reader hooked till the very last page.  The novella Where Did You Go ? by debut author P.L. Jonas begins with an intriguing set up. Sammy, a successful but reclusive ghostwriter, is offered a chance of a life time. The project involves completing a half-finished manuscript by her favourite writer, Margaret Mitchell, the celebrated author of  the all-time classic Gone with the Wind . Her brief is simple: she needs to follow the outline that the author has left behind and submit a draft within a tight deadline.  Her publisher, James, is confident that Sammy has what it takes to finish the novel. The chance of having her name on the book