Delhi Belly is young, edgy and irreverent, very unlike Aamir Khan’s earlier productions.
Everyone associated with Delhi Belly has a point to prove — from producer Aamir Khan, actor Imran Khan to scriptwriter Akshat Verma. If they can pull off the movie, which has “in-your-face” attitude thrown in, it will be a first for Aamir Khan Productions that has earlier produced “meaningful” films like Lagaan, Taare Zameen Par and Peepli Live.
“Delhi Belly has the potential of, in a single stroke, destroying all the goodwill we have built in the last ten years,” writes Khan in his official blog. He has publicly accepted that Delhi Belly, which releases on July 1, won’t be a “family entertainer”.
Delhi Belly’s script was penned in 1996 by Verma who was then studying at the University of California, Los Angeles. Verma recalls, “While in UCLA, we were required to write film scripts every quarter as part of our class assignments. Delhi Belly was written for one such assignment and then packed away until I finished my course.” From his bag of scripts — and there’s a bagfull at Verma’s house — Delhi Belly was brought out and re-written until the writer was satisfied.
In the meantime, Verma’s UCLA classmate Jim Furgele came to know about his Bollywood project and joined in. “We both flew back to Mumbai, and met 8 or 10 producers and directors. And while everyone praised the script, none came forth to make the movie,” says Verma who then dropped off the script at Aamir Khan’s residence.
“One day, I was busy with some emails and Kiran [Aamir Khan’s wife], while waiting for me to finish, picked up the script lying on top of the pile of unread scripts. Couple of minutes later I heard her giggling, then laughing, then falling off the sofa choking with laughter and rolling on the ground,” writes Aamir Khan in his blog. The actor cancelled all his appointments and began reading Delhi Belly’s script. “Three hours later, I was calling the LA number written on the first page of the script and asking for Jim Furgele and Verma. Forty-eight hours later the two were sitting in front of me.”
Abhinay Deo, the film’s director, was handpicked by Aamir Khan who was impressed by this ad-film-maker’s work. And while Deo’s directorial debut was last year’s release Game, he claims to have completed shooting for Delhi Belly first. Son of actors Ramesh and Seema Deo, he says, “Delhi Belly is an ensemble piece. It’s not a film about Imran Khan. He is only one of the several protagonists. There are others characters just as important. There is Kunal Roy Kapoor, Vir Das and Poorna Jagannathan, an Indian actor from LA. The film has been stuck on the edit table for a long time. Initially, Aamir Khan was to spearhead the editing but he got busy with his own films.”
With script and director in place, Khan signed on music director Ram Sampat who had composed jingles for over 4,000 advertisements including Nike, Sony Ericsson and Reliance Mobile earlier. Today, Sampat is a household name for his composition Bhaag DK Bose…Aandhi aayi hai. Just as every element in Delhi Belly has a history, Sampat too conceived the theme song much before the film came to him. “I had the tune in mind but didn’t have the words. Akshat [Verma] came up with the catch phrase Bose DK and Aamir and the team agreed that it gelled perfectly with the young and irreverent theme of the film,” he says. Within 15 minutes, Amitabh Bhattacharya had written the lyrics and that was how Bose DK became a part of Delhi Belly.
Belying popular perception, Sampat maintains that Aamir Khan did not question his music at all. “He just went with my ideas. So much so that when I crooned the song Bose DK during one meeting, Aamir Khan and Kiran instantly decided that I should sing the song and no one else,” he adds. So impressed was Aamir Khan that he wouldn’t let Sampat mix the song or add an extra beat.