Dinner with Mithun Da!
Entertainment; Film; Bollywood; Disco Dancer;
Been meaning to write this for some time, just never got around to it. Well, this is what happened. So I'm out having dinner at one of the better restaurants in the city. It's an officialish affair with colleagues and an ABCD visitor (he said it, I didn't :)). And then this group of 5-6 people come sit at the table next to us.
Now we're talking about things work related and the visitor is in the middle of an extremely engrossing narrative on events historical/political (read: office gossip) when I realise that I recognise one of the aforementioned people at the adjacent table. I actually interrupted the story-telling to confirm my finding. The dude at the said table was none other than erstwhile Bollywood "super-hero" (anything less and the Bongs wont forgive me), our very own Disco Dancer, Mithun Chakraborty aka Mithun Da....
Needless to say, I was quite excited, being as I am a fan of mass-market, Bollywood masala movies. If you haven't tried them, don't knock them. It's the Rajnikanths and the Mithuns who defined the typical Bollywood with their physics defying stunts. It's too bloody hilarious when Rajnikanth splits a bullet he just fired into two by holding up a knife, so that he can kill two bad guys with the last remaining bullet. Imagination at it's best :)
So, there we are sitting in the presence of a celebrity, he's wearing this black shirt with white patches which nobody else could carry off (actually neither can he, but then it's Mithun Da), is pissed drunk and smoking like there's no tomorrow (or wont be cause of the smoking). And I'm telling my colleagues and the visitor (who by the way, totally knew who Mithun Da was and was as excited about being in celebrated company. To quote him "This'll never happen to you, even in Hollywood. That's what I love about this country") about how in the hostel there were even people who would put on the Disco Dancer soundtrack and perform an arti on Mithun's picture.
In a way, I don't even blame them. The guy's a great businessman. He's carved for himself a niche which most would shirk away from. But this guy moved to Ooty, where he owns a hotel chain, perfect for shooting B/C- grade movies on such a low budget that there's a guaranteed return on the money. The stats are something like this (no reliable source though, just random hearsay):
Actor: Mithun Da himself - Free
Actress: Some random big-bosomed girl who's trying to make it into the movies - Almost free
Some other actors for villains: Dime a dozen
Location cost: Didn't I just tell you about the hotel chain?
Scriptwriter: You must be kidding. They're all the same script (for lack of a better word), Mithun is the good guy. His wife/sister gets raped and killed, then parents get killed. Mithun angry, kills the whole underworld and in the process finds another woman to make out with.
Entire budget: Under 30 Lakhs.
Movie screened: at the lesser movie halls in non-metros (and Calcutta). I can still remember the first time I heard some kinda news on FM, "XYZ movie with Mithun Chakraborty, playing at 1 hall in Delhi, 2 in Mumbai and 32 in Calcutta..."
Everybody happy.... no need for MasterCard... (bad one, I know!)
To top it all, you still hear Mithun songs, as remixes which in themselves are raking in the dough, Disco82, Zubi Zubi Zubi (to the tune of Brother Louis) being cases in example.
Well, I didn't really feel like intruding on his privacy, especially since there's so much being said about the privacy of celebrities, so that was the end of it, but as another friend put it, now I can die happy :p.
More on Mithun Da:
Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry - the dude's acted in 179 movies.
Interesting write up
Another interesting write up
Been meaning to write this for some time, just never got around to it. Well, this is what happened. So I'm out having dinner at one of the better restaurants in the city. It's an officialish affair with colleagues and an ABCD visitor (he said it, I didn't :)). And then this group of 5-6 people come sit at the table next to us.
Now we're talking about things work related and the visitor is in the middle of an extremely engrossing narrative on events historical/political (read: office gossip) when I realise that I recognise one of the aforementioned people at the adjacent table. I actually interrupted the story-telling to confirm my finding. The dude at the said table was none other than erstwhile Bollywood "super-hero" (anything less and the Bongs wont forgive me), our very own Disco Dancer, Mithun Chakraborty aka Mithun Da....
Needless to say, I was quite excited, being as I am a fan of mass-market, Bollywood masala movies. If you haven't tried them, don't knock them. It's the Rajnikanths and the Mithuns who defined the typical Bollywood with their physics defying stunts. It's too bloody hilarious when Rajnikanth splits a bullet he just fired into two by holding up a knife, so that he can kill two bad guys with the last remaining bullet. Imagination at it's best :)
So, there we are sitting in the presence of a celebrity, he's wearing this black shirt with white patches which nobody else could carry off (actually neither can he, but then it's Mithun Da), is pissed drunk and smoking like there's no tomorrow (or wont be cause of the smoking). And I'm telling my colleagues and the visitor (who by the way, totally knew who Mithun Da was and was as excited about being in celebrated company. To quote him "This'll never happen to you, even in Hollywood. That's what I love about this country") about how in the hostel there were even people who would put on the Disco Dancer soundtrack and perform an arti on Mithun's picture.
In a way, I don't even blame them. The guy's a great businessman. He's carved for himself a niche which most would shirk away from. But this guy moved to Ooty, where he owns a hotel chain, perfect for shooting B/C- grade movies on such a low budget that there's a guaranteed return on the money. The stats are something like this (no reliable source though, just random hearsay):
Actor: Mithun Da himself - Free
Actress: Some random big-bosomed girl who's trying to make it into the movies - Almost free
Some other actors for villains: Dime a dozen
Location cost: Didn't I just tell you about the hotel chain?
Scriptwriter: You must be kidding. They're all the same script (for lack of a better word), Mithun is the good guy. His wife/sister gets raped and killed, then parents get killed. Mithun angry, kills the whole underworld and in the process finds another woman to make out with.
Entire budget: Under 30 Lakhs.
Movie screened: at the lesser movie halls in non-metros (and Calcutta). I can still remember the first time I heard some kinda news on FM, "XYZ movie with Mithun Chakraborty, playing at 1 hall in Delhi, 2 in Mumbai and 32 in Calcutta..."
Everybody happy.... no need for MasterCard... (bad one, I know!)
To top it all, you still hear Mithun songs, as remixes which in themselves are raking in the dough, Disco82, Zubi Zubi Zubi (to the tune of Brother Louis) being cases in example.
Well, I didn't really feel like intruding on his privacy, especially since there's so much being said about the privacy of celebrities, so that was the end of it, but as another friend put it, now I can die happy :p.
More on Mithun Da:
Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry - the dude's acted in 179 movies.
Interesting write up
Another interesting write up
posted by Amateur Blogger at 2:19 AM
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