Jagdeep (1939-2020): Soorma and lovely curse of Sholay!

Few years after Ramesh Sippys Sholay 1975 mdash around the time the underworld held fair foothold in Bombay film industry mdash Im told actor Jagdeep was mortally scared noticing a stalker of sorts confronting him inside a studio As he aimed to swiftly disappear or gently disengage the man simply said Youve played me and now youre running awayThe gentleman was a forest officer from Madhya Pradesh called Soorma Bhopali Surely Jagdeep owed a lifetime of fame to his name Who in turn wished to take him to court for demoting him on screen from a governmentforest official to a shady secondrate woodtraderThat Jagdeep hadnt met Soorma before means he couldnt have modelled his iconic character on this particular Bhopali Sholays cowriter Javed Akhtar had grown up in Bhopal which perhaps explains one of the last setpieces added to the blockbusters castingscriptEither way Jagdeeps Soorma Bhopali was Jagdeep first and an adorable Bhopali only much later Which is how audiences liked to see him eyes wide open face gesticulating in mockshock and awe looking slightly dunderheaded seeming drunk Film after filmIm guessing Jagdeep in his own inimitable style followed the tradition of comedians Johnny Walker perhaps even Keshto Mukherjee before and a baton that Johnny Lever carried along Much like Mehmood reasoned about his profession people basically expected them to make everyone laugh mdash even if they were returning from their fathers funeralHow did that instantly help with Bollywood screenwriting filmmaking and viewing as it were The comic track like the item number had its purpose so welldefined that the very presence of Jagdeep on screen meant you neednt waste time explaining his character Hell speak a certain way and deliver a punchline that the film has conveniently segued into There is comfort in the predictable You laugh because youre supposed to Responding to cues is life itself Why should cinema be any differentThis is what came to be known as the masala film as template entertainer or labelled Bollywood decades later Who sort of set this template of the smashing hero in colourful clothes dancing lipsyncing along with the heroine as the comedian on occasion walks into the space between fun songs fine locations and fullon drama Strictly speaking I suspect Shammi Kapoor in the 60sUnsurprisingly Jagdeep properly forayed into the Bollywood comedyslot in a Shammi Kapoor film Brahmachari 1968 And remained onscreen comedian practically for the rest of his life His films characters may have been different only within their sameness mdash his own journey that was getting scripted alongside appears to me a solid documentary of its ownIn fact the first time Jagdeep played a comic role was as the bootpolish boy in Bimal Roys Do Bigha Zameen 1953 Roy had seen rushes of Jagdeep as the child version of Kishore Kumar in Phani Majumdars Dhobi Doctor 1952 Jagdeep asked Roy what had he noticed in a sombre role in that film to cast him for a funny part in Do Bigha Zameen Roy said Jo accha rula sakta hai woh accha hasaa sakta hai He who can make you cry can make you laughAssuming both emotions come from the same space Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Jafri screennamed Jagdeep came from a hut near JJ Hospital And to Bombay with his mother after his family had lost everything during Partition He was literally picked off the street for his first role in BR Chopras Afsana 1951 He was expected to be in a crowd of kids mdash watching a play This got turned into a speaking part in that play within the filmFrom that moment onwards you could observe Jagdeeps screenplay as a little Forrest Gump simply finding himself in the midst of the alltime greats of Bombay films and joining them as any other actor at work mdash with Guru Dutt Aar Paar 1954 Khwaja Ahmad Abbas Munna 1954 besides Roy for whom he played a shoeshine boy again in Naukri 1954Jagdeep played Salman Khans father in Andaz Apna ApnaReportedly for a role in the film Hum Panchi Ek Dal Ke 1957 he was personally felicitated by Prime Minister Nehru Who was the assistant director who got him from the audience on to the stage in Afsana mdash his break so to say Yash Chopra Over a sixdecade career he went from little Dilip Kumar in an unreleased film Shikwa to playing Salman Khans father in the iconic Andaz Apna Apna 1994More significantly for him for his arts sake Jagdeep graduated from a hut to a kholi in Mahim and a bungalow in Bandra after a big house in Madras The latter because the Southbased AVM arguably the longest surviving Indian studio eventually cast him in his first majorlead role in Bhabhi 1957 and a few other films followed Residential address is the story dreams in Bombay are made ofDoes it matter then than Jagdeep was largely stereotyped as a comedian Whos not been typecast in Bollywood Or as Jagdeeps almost namesake the supertalented Saeed Jaffrey used to say reduced to rich daddy and naughty uncle as in his case for the cheese If Jagdeeps genes are anything to go by frankly theres nothing that his son Javed Jaffrey cant do like a dream either mdash dance act with phenomenal range adlib on stageshows writehellipJagdeep himself was a closeted Urdu poet And with his death as is the tragedy with posthumous tributes you keep readinghearing about some of his underratedunderseen performances Whether in Priyadarshans Muskurahat 1992Or as cultmaterial in a grindhouse sort of way mdashwith the Ramsay Brothers Purana Mandir 1984 Or going deeper still him reprising Michael Jackons Thriller video with the song Bacha le in 3D Saamri 1985 My favourite clip scrolling so far is an old one film unknown where they ask Jagdeep youre so educated Itni vidya kahan se seekhi Chinchpokli Dadar Lower Parel University seAnd thats also the thing with treating comedy portions in films as item tracks You can slice them out completely without any context and enjoy the scenes for their own worth Thats my earliest memory of Jagdeep He featured regularly in the Chitrahaar of mostly funny film scenes mdash a popular show called Wah Kya Scene Hai that Archana Puran Singh used to host in the mid 90sThats also how Jagdeeps career of around 400 films boiled down to around four minutes 35 seconds of screentime as Soorma Bhopali in Sholay mdasharguably the most rewatched film in history And therefore an adorable curse of sorts mdashfor actors with minor roles in it Because those scenes have been rewatched as separate films Hence totalrecall for everyone from Kaalia Viju Khote Jailor Asrani Sambha Mac Mohan Imam Sahab AK Hangal Ramlal Satyen KappuhellipFor one Jagdeep gave Bhopal its most popular public figure although the fellow is a complete feku teller of tall tales Unsure if Ive met someone like Soorma in Bhopal that twang does faintly still exist in the citys oldtownIts how the nation knew Jagdeep for 45 years until his death at 81 He directed a fullfledged feature called Soorma Bhopali 1988 Even his character in Andaz Apna Apna that has multiple Sholay tributes was called Bankelal Bhopali Clearly he didnt mind this lifelong association Saying it one last time on behalf of everyone goodbye Soorma Bhopali And we agree mdash aapka naam aise hi nahin huaHe imbibed character beautifully Ramesh SippyJagdeeprsquos character as Soorma Bhopali remains unforgettable Bhopal has a culture of its own In the early rsquo70s yoursquod see these charming characters especially in the hinterlands of India Jagdeep witnessed that imbibed the character and blended it beautifully into our script Jagdeeprsquos sense of timing was immaculate A film like Sholay is made by many people including writers SalimJaved One discusses many possibilities and finally arrives at characters befitting sequences Who other than Jagdeep could have played this part betterUsed character previously too Salim KhanWe come across characters like Soorma Bhopali in real life and remember them when writing stories Javed Akhtar cowriter had studied in Bhopal I have lived there too We had used the character of Bhopali in Adhikar 1971 too where Pran saab Shikari Banne Khan Bhopali played it successfully In Sholay though it was crafted differentlyAs told to Upala KBRCatch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news