While the songs have zoomed straight to the top of charts, Shaad Ali’s Jhoom Barabar Jhoom which hits screens today is arriving with loads of expectations. With Abhishek, Preity, Lara and Bobby leading the cast and a seemingly fun-filled theme, one only hopes that the film will jhoom it’s way to the bank.
Shaad Ali is directing the film and the final script was penned by Habib Faisal, though many have contributed to the development of the story. However the foundation of the story is actually based on something that happed to Ali.
One day at the Delhi airport while waiting for the delayed flight of his girlfriend, he saw a beautiful woman standing there. He could not decide whether to approach her or not. Going back and forth in his mind he then started to imagine that the girl might also have a boyfriend.
He never did get up the nerve to talk to her but always remembered that incident. It stuck so in his mind that later he wrote a story about it with the help of Tigmanshu and Anurag Kashyap.
Ali expanded it into a love story between two couples, originally set in India. But, when developing the film for the screen Ali and producer Aditya Chopra decided to set the story abroad and brought in Faisal for the screenplay and dialogues.
So in short the story is, Ricky Thukral from Bhatinda (Abhishek Bachchan) bumps into British Pakistani Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta) at a London railway station. Alvira’s fiance Steve (Bobby Deol) and Ricky’s fiancee Anaida (Lara Data) are both coming in from Birmingham but the train is delayed by two hours. After an initial hostility, the two begin talking and exchange their love stories. They each tell all about how they became engaged to Steve and Anaida. But then the twist comes when the two realize they would rather be engaged to each other.
There were many funny moments while shooting the film and especially when they were filming the dance sequences.
Choreographer Vaibhavi Merchant said that it was quite eventful because the actors kept tripping over each other. Apparently the choreography required perfect timing and if one got off even a little bit there was someone saying ‘owww’!
One of those saying ‘owww’ was Preity Zinta when Lara Dutta accidentally stepped on her foot with her stiletto heel and gashed Zinta’s foot. After some treatment, both actresses had a good laugh.
Dutta had another embarrassing but funny experience while shooting a song with the Junior Bachchan. They were dancing in front of the Eiffel Tower when unfortunately her wig flew off! That must have been a sight to see!
Poor Preity said ‘owww’ again when Bobby Deol’s big hand hit Preity’s pretty cheek as the result of a mistiming. According to Preity she actually “saw stars in daylight”.
Merchant said that on many of the days something happened, but or maybe, because of that the shooting of the film’s songs ended up to be very fun.
The film is a comedy and Preity Zinta in a recent interview talked about how funny the script of the movie was, “It’s been a long time since I had so many funny lines to mouth,” she said. Adding that they cracked up many times filming the scenes and had to have many takes, “The lines were so funny, we had to work hard on getting it right.”
Besides the comedy aspects, the picture is a love story at heart with an optimistic look at an Indian meeting a Pakistani girl. Faisal said, “In the film, Abhishek plays a Punjabi from India and Bobby plays a Punjabi from Pakistan. They wanted to show the Indo-Pak relationship but they did not want tragedy or melodrama. Plus, they didn’t want to show a doomed love story. People have moved on, So we thought of making a film where people can laugh at themselves and each other without being politically correct — where emotions matter and not India and Pakistan’s issues. Therefore, when this Indian meets a Pakistani girl, they are fascinated by each other and not their countries.”
The film also touches on the Diaspora subject and about this Faisal thinks that when people travel or shift to living abroad, yes it is an adjustment but for it is also cause for celebration. “Yes, there are identity conflicts but we have that here too. We have Hindu and Muslim conflicts and then we have the conflict between upper caste and the dalits. We have many conflicts so the question is if we want to dwell only on the tragedies. Thus, Jhoom celebrates a positive attitude. They may not be from that country but they have integrated themselves and have gone one step further. If this film makes you forget your boundaries, then it has achieved its goal,” Habib concluded.
We look forward to a rocking good time watching this movie and even more importantly hope that it does achieve its goal!
