Patna, March 1: What Sholay and Silsila could not do, Gangadevi has done — allow Amitabh Bachchan and wife Jaya to play Holi on the silver screen.
Though Big B shared the screen with Jaya in Sholay and Silsila that had sequences of Holi, the real-life couple did not get the “reel” opportunity to smear each other with colours on screen. Gangadevi, a Bhojpuri film to be released in May, has a sequence of Amitabh and Jaya celebrating the festival of colours.
Amitabh gave his Holi shots for Gangadevi at Film City in Mumbai on February 10, a day before he was hospitalised for an abdominal surgery.
“The mood on the set was that of celebration. Amitji enjoyed the sequence. He was overjoyed as Jayaji, too, had joined the celebration. I know Amitji for 40 years. I do not think that he ever got any opportunity to play Holi with Jayaji in any film,” the producer of Gangadevi, Deepak Sawant, told The Telegraph.
He added that Amitabh has lent his voice to the song for the Holi sequence in Gangadevi. “Everybody talks about Rang Barse of Silsila as the most popular Holi song. But Maan Hoke Patang, Jhume Aang Aang, Barse La Rang Phagua Me, the four-minute song in Gangadevi, will evoke a similar response,” Sawant said, adding that the credit for the lyrics also goes to Amitabh. “Another attraction of the film is Jayaji singing a line of the song,” the producer said.
During the shooting of Holi, all the actors and junior artistes were excited to see Big B on the set. “Everybody was mesmerised to see Amitji dancing to the Holi number. The set was that of a north Indian village where Holi is being celebrated in the traditional way,” said director Abhishek Chadha.
He added: “If you take my view, I would say that the best scene in the film was that of Amitji smearing Jayaji’s face with colour. Once the scene was shot, I felt that was the best shot I have ever captured in my career.”
“We have seen Amitji playing Holi in films such as Silsila and in Baghban, but never with Jayaji. In Gangadevi, the audience will get to see them splashing colours on each other.”
