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Sometimes things just fall into place, like Sridevi walking into a tailor-made character named Shashi Godbole to mark her return to Hindi films. At the end of English Vinglish (EV) Sri’s line to her husband is, “Good choice.” It’s precisely what one would say to the actor for choosing to play Mrs Godbole and to director Gauri Shinde for picking Sridevi for her debut film.
As often mentioned here, you can gauge the confidence level of a producer by looking at when he shows his film to the press. Like UTV and the makers of Barfi! who had a press show two days before release, confident of good reviews which would help bring in the audience, producers Eros and Balki were also so optimistic about the reception to EV that they had their press show on Wednesday morning itself.
While Sri and her refreshing comeback film are being welcomed with enthusiasm, how many people know that it was actually Aishwarya Rai for whom the role was written? God knows if even Gauri and Balki will acknowledge that anymore. But long before they went to Sridevi, given their fantastic equation with the Bachchan family, the makers of English Vinglish had offered the role to bahu Aishwarya. It was only when Ash had misgivings about playing the mom of two, including a teenage daughter, that Gauri went to Sridevi with the film.
Currently, a lot of noise is being made about the great acceptance of heroine-dominated films. Interestingly, two of the recent releases — Heroine starring Kareena Kapoor and English Vinglish with Sridevi — were films that first went to Aishwarya’s doorstep before going elsewhere. Most things are just fated and not doing both these women-oriented subjects has actually worked in Aishwarya’s favour. The hugely disappointing Heroine would have been a waste of effort — she was lucky that baby Aaradhya came along at the right time to save her from committing a career-spoiling blunder. English Vinglish may be a refreshing film but it is a role that’s more up Sridevi’s street than Aishwarya’s because there is much in common between the character and what Sri is in real life.
If one remembers, last year before Sri was to leave for New York for the first schedule of the film, she was a complete bundle of nerves because she was to fly down alone, without Boney Kapoor by her side. Like a true Punjabi male, Boney had taken pride in the fact that Sri couldn’t travel without him. “She’s never done it in all the 18 years that we’ve been together,” he had remarked, chest puffed up. As most people know, Sri does not speak the Queen’s language with much fluency and she has always needed either her mother (“Ask my mummy,” was a favourite line), Boney or even director Gauri to prop her up during any kind of interaction with the world outside her four walls. For someone who is so magically confident in front of the camera, Sridevi is a diffident person who can’t hold a conversation on her own for more than a couple of minutes. All of this is manifest in the character she played in English Vinglish.
On the other hand, Aishwarya is too well spoken and too self-assured to have pulled it off without seeming like a fake. And so, Sri became Gauri’s “good choice”, a fate-driven, the-right-person-at- the-right-place kind of casting.
After Cheeni Kum and Paa, Amitabh Bachchan has become a lucky mascot for all Balki productions and he made a breezy cameo appearance in EV too. However, Balki doffed his hat to AB by also starting the film with, “100 years of Indian Cinema; 70 years of Amitabh Bachchan, Happy Birthday Amitji.” The release, well-timed with Amitabh’s 70th birthday, set off what’s going to be a week of similar adulation and celebration.
For AB’s birthday on October 11, the Bachchans have already sent out vertically long invitations with a large and simple B on the envelope. You can read that as Big B or as the Tall One. Inside is a poem titled Naya Varsh by Harivansh Rai Bachchan in Hindi, followed by the invitation which comes from the whole family, from Jaya to Aaradhya Bachchan, and a card detailing the programme for the evening. The dress code reads black tie/formal and the RSVP has to go to Rosy Singh, the Bachchan family loyalist who has been manning their office for years. Whoever knows any of the Bachchans has to know Rosy Singh.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is editor, The Film Street Journal