Kundan Shah: An everyday genius

A picture of Kundan Shah, the director whose small-budget productions told stories with a big heart

Never in the history of the Mahabharata’s retelling has dusht Duryodhana ever fought to prevent Draupadi’s cheer-haran (disrobing), except for in Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. But then, before Shah’s debut film, neither had audiences seen a dead man rolling about onscreen on skates, ‘hitching’ a car ride, or standing on a stage disguised as Draupadi.

Nine films and four television shows later, Shah, who died last week, will be best remembered for managing to pull off Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, a film neither the makers nor its actors had much faith in. Though the film’s initial reception in theatres wasn't remarkable, it went on to become a cultural phenomenon with its atypical brand of mixed humour. 

“Kundan had a brilliant, crazy mind,” says Sudhir Mishra, who assisted Shah in the film's making and also co-wrote the script. “Just like one Mughal-e-Azam shows us K Asif's place in history, one Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro shows us Kundan's.” 

Sai Paranjpye, the director of the classic romantic-comedy Chashme Buddoor (1981), couldn’t agree more. Chashme Buddoor, she says, is the second best comedy ever made. “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is the best. It’s so childlike in its references and straight from the heart, it’s so spot on.”

Funded by the National Film Development Corporation of India and made on a budget of less than Rs 7 lakh, the film in a way set the tone for many of Shah’s future projects: stories with a soul and a spark, but all made on shoestring budgets. 

“It was lauki, lauki and only lauki; I don’t remember (eating) any other vegetable in those 35 days (of shooting),” said Om Puri, who passed away earlier this year, in an interview recalling the making of the cult film. Actors like Naseeruddin Shah had to bring their own props (a Nikon camera that was snitched during the shoot and later replaced by Shah), all because the movie’s budget was low even by the standards back then.

It was the same with his immensely successful television shows, too. While Hum Log was Doordarshan’s, and by extension India’s, first soap opera in a time ruled by typewriters, safari suits, Gold Spot and Maruti 800, Shah’s Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi was the country’s first sitcom. Though both aired in the same year (1984) and detailed the everyday life and struggles of the common man, the treatment was remarkably different, and not just in the tone. 

Hum Log’s was a multi-camera setup inspired by an education-with-entertainment approach on the lines of the Mexican television series, Ven Conmigo (1975). Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, the situational comedy of which ushered in a new generation of later-day sitcoms such as Dekh Bhai Dekh, Hum Paanch and Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai, was shot on a single camera. 

“Most of my ideas are actually ideas that work better with small budgets,” Shah had once told Shekhar Hattangadi, who worked with him on Teen Behenein, a film that often travels the competition circuit but hasn’t been commercially released in India. “They'd sink with the weight of Rs 30-40 crore if I had to use that much money, and more money doesn’t necessarily mean better work. More money means I'll be tempted to compromise and make box-office hit films,” Hattangadi recalls Shah saying. 

Teen Behenein, for instance, is a two-hour film made under Rs 60 lakh. “Someone told me that to shoot a shampoo commercial in Mauritius would cost double that amount, and here Shah had made a whole film,” says Hattangadi. “Every time there was a shortfall in the finances, he would take it out from the money assigned to him as a director to put into the film. It really was a labour of love.” 

A still from the film 'Teen Behenein'

And it showed. The generation that grew up watching Doordarshan still affectionately recalls the snippets of everyday life Shah so beautifully captured, whether in Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Nukkad (1986) or Wagle ki Duniya (1988).

Shah Rukh Khan with Aanjjan Srivastav in 'Wagle ki Duniya'

It’s been almost three decades since Aanjjan Srivastav came onscreen as Srinivas Wagle, the common man inked by R K Laxman, but people still sometimes refer to him as Wagle from Wagle ki Duniya. 

Even before an entire generation identified with the ups and downs of life with Wagle, they already knew Shah’s stories were like still water: they appeared innocuous on the surface, but ran deep. Nukkad was a glowing testament. Both bitter and sweet, it showcased the struggles of those from lower income classes living in big cities. It also reaffirmed Pavan Malhotra’s seemingly effortless acting skills as Hari, the hardworking young man who fixed bicycles for a living.

Circus (1989), directed by Aziz Mirza and Shah and which followed the lives of a carnival troupe, went on to become another cult favourite. It also cemented the ground beneath Shah Rukh Khan and Ashutosh Gowariker’s feet (before the latter turned director).

Those who knew him say Shah was a loving man, but as a director, he was unyielding, pushing his actors till he got what he wanted from them, recalls Suchitra Krishnamoorthi. Krishnamoorthi made her debut with Shah’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na (1994), a film that makes the audience fall for a loser-hero, a flawed but lovable character played by Shah Rukh Khan.  

“During the shooting of Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, there was a scene where I had to look directly into the camera and tear apart a letter given to me by Shah Rukh,” recalls Krishnamoorthi. “He yelled at me during each retake till I was reduced to tears. He was relentless and unbiased when it came to taking his actors to task.”

At his prayer meeting, Khan recounted how Shah was unhappy with his work in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa. “Many a time he shouted at me... He came to hit me… He's made me take at least 100 retakes... He never worked with me again,” Khan said.

Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani in a still from 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'

Be it Nukkad’s Hari, or the two out-of-work photographers from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, or the hero-villain of Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, “Kundan was always championing the cause of the underdog,” says Hattangadi. 

In Teen Behenein, too, where Shah shows the last six hours in the lives of three sisters, he campaigns for the underdog. “The sad point is that he himself became, so to speak, the ‘champion’ underdog of the film industry,” remarks Hattangadi. 

Shah was always trying something new, and it wasn’t always understood, says Mishra. “He took risks, he took chances, that's who he was.” 

“He had enormous amount of cinematic wisdom and was voracious with books and films,” adds Hattangadi. This openness manifested in the making of Kya Kehna (2000). Honey Irani had penned the script, but Shah reportedly couldn’t get a handle on why Preity Zinta’s character would want to keep the baby after Saif Ali Khan’s character had left her. 

Then Shah received a copy of Letters to a Child Never Born by Oriana Fallaci. “After he read the book, he went forward with Zinta’s monologue towards the end,” says Hattangadi, adding how Shah had dozens of scripts waiting to be made. Shah would wake up every morning and start writing again, says Mishra.  

Still from Wagle ki Duniya

Still from Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa

Several years ago, Hattangadi and Shah were sent to Lonavala by a producer to ideate for Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’s sequel. But when Ravi Baswani, one of the two photographers from his first film passed away in 2010, Shah’s interest in the project waned.

   

Then one afternoon, Shah invited a few people to his Mumbai office, ordered biryani for everyone, and read the whole script from beginning to the end. “He then put away the script away in a drawer and never discussed it again,” recalls Hattangadi.   

“In some ways he really was unlucky. Like some have already said, Kundan didn’t die of a heart attack, he died of a heartbreak,” he says. But “we must not mourn his death; we should celebrate his life, instead,” says Krishnamoorthi

Immortalised by the madcap satire that is Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Shah has left behind endearing stories, friends who’ve gone to become stars of Indian cinema, and a cupboard overflowing with scripts that were never made – including the sequel to Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, the one film that overshadowed his life. 

Veer Arjun Singh contributed to this article