Clearing it in the beginning, this is not any ‘obituary article’ praising an exceptionally gifted person after he is gone, when we didn’t care to write and talk about him when he was alive. Moreover I personally find writing obituaries a kind of disrespect towards a person as a mere obligation that needs to be fulfilled being in the media writing about films. It’s like getting a call saying, “He is dead…… please write something on him quick in a few hours to feed the readers”.
So this is not one of those articles…… as it is has been written with a purpose of questioning our process of praising and mentioning a credit that deserves to be given to Kundan Shah no one has talked about..
Known for his cult political satire JAANE BHI DO YAARON, interestingly his last film was also a political satire with a title P SE PM TAK where P meant Prostitute giving you a clear idea. Unfortunately neither the film was any well-made product nor did it work at the box office as expected.
But what really surprised me was the fact that I had to watch this comeback film of Kundan Shah on its first day far off in Noida (out of Delhi) in its only show at an odd timing with just 5-6 more people in the theater and that too all middle aged ones. Meaning that even when there were uncountable number of youngsters praising his two films in particular JAANE BHI DO YAARON and KABHI HAAN KABHI NAA, proudly calling them as their personal favourites in all social networks……. none of them actually cared to go for the same director’s comeback film giving it a fair chance and no one was even interested in talking about it in their posts or tweets as a fan.
Yes, the film wasn’t any great project with some big stars deserving praises, but it certainly didn’t deserve this kind of treatment from both the exhibitors as well as the people (fans) loudly praising the director as one of the most renowned and respected names of our Hindi Cinema. In other words, we were all okay with calling Kundan Shah a great director but not willing to watch his new film in the theaters made after a gap of more than a decade, which in my opinion was hypocrisy at its best and simply nothing else.
Anyway coming to the other more important part of the write-up, what everyone is missing mentioning in their ‘obligatory obituaries’ is the fact that Kundan Shah was actually the first person to come up with a film talking about your inner passions and what you should essentially go for in life following your heart’s voice (focusing on a conflict between a father and son). Personally I had heard that thought only in OSHO discourses before and it was Shah who came up with this idea in his film in 1994 that later resulted in a novel by Chetan Bhagat and then became the most celebrated film of our present times 3 IDIOTS directed by RajKumar Hirani.
If you have seen Shah’s KABHI HAAN KABHI NAA featuring Shah Rukh Khan in the lead then you already know that. But if you haven’t seen it, then go for it at the earliest and give the credit to the man who definitely deserved it in all these years but was never given the same.
That’s how I would like to remember the genius we know as KUNDAN SHAH.
HIS BLESSINGS
(Note: The article also got featured at UC-News Mobile App in October 2017)
