The Cast Of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Reunited At Mumbai Film Festival & Shared Some Hilarious Stories

A couple of mad, crazy and creative friends got together to make a movie, and that’s how Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro happened. Remembering the late filmmaker Kundan Shah and actor Om Puri, the 19th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival held a special screening of his cult classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. 

The audience consisted of people who were have either lost count of the number of times they’ve watched the movie or were watching it for the first time. In both cases, the claps, cheers and laughs were in unison. The magic of this movie was evident when elders and youngsters had the same reaction at every moment in proper sync, which proved yet again that it is a cult classic. 

The movie starred some of the veterans of Indian cinema, including Neena Gupta. Satish Shah, Satish Kaushik. Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Deepak Qazir, and filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra. 

MAMI went one step ahead and tried to bring together the cast and crew of the movie post the screening for a Q&A. JBDY’s co-writer Sudhir Mishra, dialogue writer Ranjit Kapoor, actor Satish Kaushik and actor & production controller Vidhu Vinod Chopra got together to go down memory lane. The team also hummed the tune of a song that was written for Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and told Kundan Shah’s favourite word was ‘No’. In an hour long conversation, they reminisced the smallest and the biggest details of the film and disclosed a lot of unknown facts about the movie, some of which are hilarious.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra did many roles in the movie

He played the role of Dushasan for free and many other cameos to save the cost. The reason I did many roles in the film is that I could not afford actors,” said Vinod. 

Anupam Kher had also shot for his role that later got axed at the editing table

Co-writer Sudhir Mishra told the audience that he and Kundan went to Juhu beach where they told Anupam that his role was removed from the movie. 

Kundan Shah had to cut down the movie from 8 hours to 4 and finally 3.5!

He got so emerged in writing 45 minute long scenes with great passion, that even after a lot of editing, he ended up shooting 8 hours which were finally brought down to about 3.5. 

Om Puri had never read the script of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro! 

He realised that it’s a great story when he was shooting the iconic Mahabharata scene. He only had a vague idea of the story. 

The names of the lead characters are actually taken in a playful way from Sudhir Mishra and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s names. 

The lead characters Ravi Baswani and Naseeruddin Shah were named Sudhir and Vinod Chopra respectively in the movie, which was a playful decision taken by the team during the making. 

If you realise, JBDY is social issue, done through humour

Vidhu explained that the lead characters are fighting corruption and injustice at every level, but with some incredibly intelligently written comic moments throughout the film. 

You cannot recreate a Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro

Both Vinod and Sudhir established that what Kundan made back then, was his work in that era. What Vinod made in Munnbhai in his time was his work at that point of time. There’s no debate on recreating a classic. Satish Kaushik also supported this fact that they all were raw back then, almost empty stomach so what got made into a movie cannot be refilled again. 

A Mercedes banged Vidhu’s Austin (car) during the making 

The Mercedes was in fact more damaged, but Vidhu demanded money from the person who owned the Merc, because his Austin was way more expensive. 

The cast and crew had no idea that they were making something so iconic 

Telling how they never got a slightest hint that this movie will be so big, Vinod Chopra explained, “In 3 Idiots for instance, Abhijaat Joshi called me from Ahmedabad - ‘Sir picture hit ho gayi hai’ Maine kaha, haan hit hogayi hai. Par kitni badi hit hogayi hai? He said ‘Bahot badi hit ho gayi hai.’ He imagined all the big hits and said, ‘Sabse badi hit hogayi hai.’ There was a long pause and then he said, ‘Likhte waqt to pata hi nahi chal raha tha’. To hum ko nahi pata chalta, our chalna bhi nahin chahiye. Jab aapko pata chalne laga na, to aapka cinema corrupt ho jayega.” 

Vidhu also added, that, “The moment you start thinking of putting SRK, Salman Khan and Aamir in 3 Idiots 2, thats the day I’ll die.” as he spoke about calculative investments as a producer in the fraternity. 

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro has been such a huge inspiration for India's comic directors, that time and again they've tried to orchestrate systematic chaos in movies like Kundan Shah, but none of them have been able to come close. 

Watch the entire discussion here: