Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro
Film poster
Directed by	Kundan Shah
Produced by	NFDC
Written by	Ranjit Kapoor Satish Kaushik
Screenplay by	Sudhir Mishra Kundan Shah
Story by	Sudhir Mishra Kundan Shah
Starring	Naseeruddin Shah Ravi Baswani Bhakti Barve Satish Shah Om Puri Pankaj Kapur Satish Kaushik Neena Gupta Ashok Banthia
Music by	Vanraj Bhatia
Cinematography	Binod Pradhan
Edited by	Renu Saluja
Production company	NFDC
Distributed by	Ultra Media & Entertainment
Release date	12 August 1983[1] 2 November 2012[2]
Running time	132 min
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹ 8-9 lakh[3]

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (Devnagari: जाने भी दो यारों, English: Just Let It Go, Friends) is a 1983 Hindi comedy film directed by Kundan Shah and produced by NFDC. It is a dark satire on the rampant corruption in Indian politics, bureaucracy, news media and business, and stars an ensemble cast including Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Shah, Satish Kaushik, Bhakti Barve and Neena Gupta.^[4][5]

Antonioni's film Blowup of 1966 inspired director Kundan Shah,^[6][7] in which two photographers inadvertently capture the murder of a Bombay Municipal Commissioner with their cameras and later discover this when the images are enlarged. The park in which the murder occurs is named "Antonioni Park".

Kundan Shah won the 1984 Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director for his work. The film was part of the NFDC Retrospective at India International Film Festival in 2006.^[8]

Plot

Professional photographers Vinod Chopra (Naseeruddin Shah) and Sudhir Mishra (Ravi Baswani) open a photo studio in the prestigious Haji Ali area in Mumbai, and hope to make enough money to keep it running. After a disastrous start, they are given some work by the editor of "Khabardar", a publication that exposes the scandalous lives of the rich and the famous. They accept it and start working with the editor, Shobha Sen (Bhakti Barve), on a story exposing the dealings between an unscrupulous builder, Tarneja (Pankaj Kapoor), and corrupt Municipal Commissioner D'Mello (Satish Shah). During their investigation, they find out that another builder Ahuja (Om Puri) who is Tarneja's business rival is also involved in this dealing to get a contract for building 4 flyovers from D'Mello.

While working on their story, Sudhir and Vinod decide to enter a photography contest that carries a prize money of Rs. 5000/-, and take a number of photographs all over the city. On developing their pictures, in one of the photographs they see a man shooting someone. Upon enlarging it, they realize that the killer is none other than Tarneja. They immediately return to the park where they had shot that picture and realize that the body is lying behind the bushes. Before the duo get to the body, it disappears, but they manage to retrieve one of a pair of gold cuff links. Sometime later, they attend the inauguration of a bridge dedicated to the memory of late Municipal Commissioner D'Mello who is supposed to have died of a terminal disease. It is there that they discover the other cuff link. They return at night and dig up that area and unearth a coffin containing the dead body of D'Mello.

The Mahabharata scene is considered to be one of the major highlights of the film, and has been praised for its humour.^[9]

The duo take a number of photographs of the corpse, and wheel it with them with the hopes of exposing Tarneja. Suddenly the body disappears. So they lied to Shobha saying that the body is hidden safely with them, who Shobha in turn starts blackmailing Tarneja. He invites her, Vinod and Sudhir for dinner to crack a deal, and plants a time bomb to kill them. Unfortunately, the bomb explodes right in the face of Tarneja and his henchmen, when the trio escape from the scene. Later the duo realize that there is no difference between Shobha and Tarneja, and the duo have been cheated so they leave her. Later they find out that the body is with Tarneja's rival, Ahuja who had, in an inebriated condition, carried the coffin tied to his car to his farm house, so they take the corpse, and wheel it with them, but not before Tarneja, Ahuja, the new Municipal Commissioner Srivastav (Deepak Qazir), Shobha and others also get involved, resulting in a series of comic mix-ups including one with some burkha-clad women.

The climax is set upon a stage dramatization of the Mahabharata, particularly the enactment of the Draupadi Cheer-Haran episode, which is turned on its head with the duo and the group following them inserting themselves into the scene. The corpse plays Draupadi and the vile Duryodhana, who orders the disrobing in the original version, ends up pledging to save Draupadi's honour at any cost. To make things even more hilarious, a new act - that of the ill-fated romance of Salim and Anarkali - is introduced, with the corpse playing Anarkali.

In the end, the police arrives and Vinod and Sudhir present their evidence to the police officer, and it seems as though Tarneja will be arrested. Srivastava, being the Assistant Municipal Commissioner tells the officer to wait a few minutes before arresting Tarneja. Tarneja tells Ahuja and Shobha that if he goes to jail, he would make sure that their malpractices are also exposed. In a twist ending, they all come to an agreement and Srivastava manages to pin the murder of Commissioner D'Mello and the collapse of the bridge on Vinod and Sudhir. In the final scene, Vinod and Sudhir are shown several months/years later released from prison, still in their prison clothes. They turn to the camera and make a cut-throat gesture, signifying the death of justice and truth in an age of corruption.

Cast

• Naseeruddin Shah as Vinod Chopra
• Ravi Baswani as Sudhir Mishra
• Om Puri as Ahuja
• Pankaj Kapur as Tarneja
• Satish Shah as D'Mello (Municipal Commissioner)
• Bhakti Barve as Shobha Sen (Editor)
• Satish Kaushik as Ashok Namboodirippad (the assistant/secretary of Tarneja)
• Neena Gupta as Priya
• Deepak Qazir as Srivastav (Assistant Municipal Commissioner)
• Rajesh Puri as Kamdar (Assistant Editor)
• Zafar Sanjari
• Ashok Banthia
• Vidhu Vinod Chopra as theater actor playing Dushasana
• Anupam Kher - voiceover for Architect Tulyaani at construction site

Reception

The film was not immediately successful at the box office when released, but was eventually regarded as a cult classic, which is reflected in a recent comment by Indian Express that film's high recall value even after 27 years, is due to "it(s) superb satirical depiction of the essential, timeless, human condition: supreme self-interest versus some moral/ethical anchor. What made the depiction particularly powerful was its setting: India of the early '80s".^[10]

Re-release

A digitally restored print of the film was released on 2 November 2012 at selected theaters.^[11] The film opened to an enthusiastic welcome from the media^[12][13] and discerning filmgoers.

Awards

• 1984 : Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director: Kundan Shah^[14]
• 1984: Filmfare Best Comedian Award: Ravi Baswani

Trivia

• Blow-Up, a 1966 English-language film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni in which a photographer believes he may have witnessed a murder and unwittingly takes photographs of the killing, was an inspiration for Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. The filmmakers paid homage by naming the park in which the murder occurs as "Antonioni Park".
• The names of the lead characters – Vinod Chopra and Sudhir Mishra – came from film directors Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Sudhir Mishra, who were assisting Kundan Shah in the movie.^[15] Sudhir Mishra co-wrote the script and assisted in directing the movie, while Vidhu Vinod Chopra was the production controller of the film.
• Vidhu Vinod Chopra played Dushasana in the Mahabharata play in the climax of the movie. He also played a photographer in the first half of the film, where a group of journalists interviews Tarneja, played by Pankaj Kapoor.

Further reading

• Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro: Seriously Funny Since 1983, by Jai Arjun Singh. 2010. Harpercollins India. ISBN 978-93-5029-022-4.

See also

• Assassinations in fiction

References

On the 35th anniversary of the classic Indian film “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro”, it would be an understatement to say that this film is classic, timeless and relevant across national, geopolitical, economic, social and cultural landscapes. This movie was just as much an irreverent kick in the face of corruption as Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” was in the face of Hitler. Today, after 35 years, the movie is just as relevant to the current situation in any part of the world, as it was to the state of affairs in India in the 80s. If you have seen the film in the past, I will request you to see it again before reading further; and if you have never watched it, go to the nearest temple, mosque or church and confess- you may be forgiven for the sin and make reparations by watching it immediately. There is no better example than USA today to illustrate the relevance of this movie. Almost every scene and aspect of the movie can be directly related to and projected on the tragi-comic situation of the current state of affairs in USA. Vinod (Truth) and Sudhir (Justice) are looking for a way to survive in a milieu of rampant societal corruption where the Tarnejas (plutocrats) and Ahujas (corporate interests) have the corrupt D’Mello (Government) in their pockets. D’Mello makes a statement in the movie “America mein peene ka paani alag, gutter ka paani alag”, which was a biting satire on the fact that more than 50% of Mumbai’s population at that time was drinking polluted water. The horrific truth of Flint’s water crisis in today’s America is a much worse contemporary version of the same situation and gives new meaning to D’Mello’s statement. When the bridge constructed by Tarneja collapses in the movie, Ahuja’s wise crack “ Shobhaji, hum cement mein raet milate hain, wo to raet mein cement milata hai, pul to tootega hi” reminds us of the current aphorism “All politicians mix some lies in their statements but today’s politicians mix some statements in their lies”. It therefore is no surprise that the edifice of democracy is crumbling. Shobha Sen, the editor of Khabardaar magazine in the movie personifies the fake news and yellow journalism of today. The collaboration nay collusion and nexus between Shobha (the Press), the Ahujas & Tarnejas (corporate greed) and Srivastavas (corrupt politicians) is actively undermining the very institutions which build a nation. There is a corpus of evidence of malfeasance, like the corpse of D’Mello in a coffin, hiding in plain sight. However, like Ahuja, we are led to believe the coffin is a sports car and instead of finding the corpse, we are being diverted to check for the carburetor and radiator. Finally, the movie’s climax is a riotous farce of a scene from the epic Mahabharata and drawing a parallel to it today, the shenanigans and buffoonery of current politicians is a travesty of the long standing traditions of this country. Bringing porn stars and playmates into the governance of a country is just as out of place as bringing Akbar and Anarkali into Mahabharata. Ultimately, just like the movie, when we see Vinod (Truth) and Sudhir (Justice) being sacrificed on the altar of corruption and avarice, can we afford to say Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro?

rampasupuleti@yahoo.com

External links

• What makes a perfect comedy?
• Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro on IMDb
• Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro at Rotten Tomatoes
• crizic.com 20-greatest-bollywood-movies-of-all-time