Adventures of a Writer

  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 d...

  By Jaideep Sen        On 7th July, 2021, Dilip Kumar Saab was finally relieved from his suffering due to poor health of many years and gave lesser mortals like me to relive and rewind to the greatness of Dilip Saab.  Dignity is precisely what Dilip Saab brought not only to his performances but to the overall realm of Hindi Cinema.  A scene from Shakti My generation was brought up more on Salim Saab-Javed Saab’s Angry Young Man portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan Ji and uncannily it took the same haloed trio to introduce me to the greatness of Dilip Saab in Shakti . What a film, what crackling writing, what performances by both Dilip Saab and Amit Ji!  Dilip Saab was hitting the ball out of the park in every scene. Like a chameleon on top of its game -- because the character of Ashwini Kumar had such vast changing colours to cover. From a tough cop to loving husband to helpless father to ultimately shooting his only child dead.  Dilip Saab scored ...

 By Jaideep Sen After writing 16 articles on the Magician with the Pen, Salim Khan Saab, I chose to do this piece on his mega-star son. The reason for that is undoubtedly the most landmark film—which I call a cinematic movement in the life of not Salman Khan, the Star but Salman Khan, the Actor— Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Every time I see the film, and I see it quite often since it’s a prized possession in my set top box, I am amazed that a mega-star like Salman Bhai, at the peak of his mega stardom, stripped himself completely off all the trappings of his success by playing Pavan Kumar Chaturvedi, alias Bajrangi Bhaijaan, with such simplicity, innocence and purity.   At that level of stardom it’s extremely challenging to detach yourself completely from the gigantic star that you are and become a common man to bring this character to life. Great cinema, as a leading international director has said, is nothing short of a miracle. It is an amalgam of great writing...

By Jaideep Sen For a while I wasn’t being able to identify what to base my next piece of SALAAM SALIM SAAB on till the Legend himself cleared my dilemma.   During a recent conversation he mentioned that when they had narrated the biggest game changer film in contemporary Indian Cinema, Zanjeer , to a renowned film director of that era, he had told Salim Saab that they had wasted two and a half hours of his precious time.  Now that was a statement that grabbed my immediate attention for two reasons. One, the audience has proved time and again that it is far sharper and smarter than filmmakers while it is difficult for good content to get made into films due to the lack of understanding of filmmakers. Two, don’t get affected and shaken by   ‘rejection’.  When I brought this up with Salim Saab, the humble cinematic giant took the onus on himself for the initial rejections by saying that it was the nature of the story and not the lack of understanding ...