Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani and actor-director Boman Irani have given us several memorable Bollywood moments. But their off-screen rapport is no less entertaining. Ladies Study Group’s finale event for the session 2023-2024, ‘All Izz Well’, held last month at ITC Royal Bengal, gave us a glimpse of the Hirani-Irani friendship off-screen through a humour-filled hour-long talk session. Excerpts.
Finding Life’s Calling:
Boman Irani: I always wanted to be a director. But then when I met him (Rajkumar Hirani), he wanted to be a director. I told him to go first. (Everyone laughs) At 64, I made my debut as a director. I am slow but I made it.
Rajkumar Hirani: I think sometimes setbacks in life open doors to somewhere else. Like every child in that era, I wanted to be an engineer or doctor. I did science and couldn’t get into engineering. An uncle told me the next big thing to do is CA. I couldn’t understand what debit and credit were. There is a scene in 3 Idiots where R. Madhavan’s character goes up to his father and says that he doesn’t want to pursue engineering. It is actually taken from my life. I prepared for one week to talk to my father. But he said: ‘No worries, come and start working with me tomorrow!’ And I can’t tell you the joy and relief.
I joined a theatre in Nagpur and started doing plays. My father saw that I enjoyed that. It was very unusual for my father to say it but he asked me to leave work and go to Bombay to study films. And then I went to film school and became a director many years later.
Boman: The same with my mother. A widow at 32 or 33, she saw me on stage in the choir and smiled away. And I asked her why she was smiling, she said it was the first time she saw me happy. I was a nervous kid but I was not scared on stage. She then sent me to the theatre to watch a movie every night. She even sent me once with my father’s friend, who was blind, to narrate a film to him in the hall. I can’t tell you how empowered she made me feel that day.
Making of 3 Idiots:
Rajkumar: You actually don’t think so much when you are writing a script. It is one image, one anecdote that inspires it. A lot of people ask me whether I think of the message first or the story. I didn’t think of a message for 3 Idiots. I stayed in a hostel myself and wanted to make a film about people staying in a hostel. Then in the journey of the film whatever you believe in sips into the film. Somewhere my belief was that education should not put pressure on the kid and make them spend one-third of their lives studying in a particular way. So it sipped into the film. Let kids do what gives them joy. Let them find their passion and obsession. You should be obsessed with what you want to do and then pursue that.
Decoding the Iconic Character of Virus:
Rajkumar: Boman refused the role of Virus when I offered him first. He said he couldn’t do it because he had already played a dean like this in Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. So, I had to pursue him.
Boman: It was just the money. (Everyone laughs) Before I go there, I want to tell you how I met Raju. I did an arthouse film called Let’s Talk. There was an editor who was editing his blockbuster on one monitor and Let’s Talk was being edited on another monitor and he looked at the monitor and asked who is this actor. Can he speak Hindi? He then asked me to visit his house. I went to his (Vidhu Vinod Chopra) house and he gave me a cheque for two lakhs. He said it was for his next film. I asked what is your next picture? He said he didn’t have a story but gave me the cheque so that I wouldn’t refuse him when his script was ready. For eight months he disappeared and then he called and said he got the story. I asked what the film was and he said it was Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. I hated the name. I asked what is the story. He said there is a goon who wants to become a doctor. I thought what a stupid story this was. I asked about my role. He told me I was a doctor and I had to laugh throughout the film. And then he asked me to meet his assistant. I met this affable gentleman, sweet as a rock of sugar. He (Rajkumar) came and said thank you for doing the film. I said I am not doing the film! I had no work then but still didn’t want to do it. He gave me the narration. He was crying while narrating it and bringing peels of laughter. I said this is the best movie that will ever be made and if I am a part of it, I will be a very lucky man. The passion with which he narrated the film…and we became friends on day one. Unfortunately, the friendship lasted too long. (Laughs) But when he said 3 Idiots...Virus. I said ‘no’. It was only about money but he took me to some hill and fed me biryani. He knew my weaknesses. And then we sat and discussed Virus for days. Each character demands different things from an actor. You could be a professor in 10 movies but those are 10 different human beings and our job was to make sure to make it an original character. He designed the character. Every single thing that Virus came up with, Raju had his hand in it.
His films are all very personal. It comes from a belief system. There has to be a part of you in your story. You must write the story that you are afraid to tell, I read somewhere. If you are afraid to tell that story it will be the most honest story and that is what this guy does.
Creating Characters:
Rajkumar: Each character is a culmination of probably 20 people I have watched in life and picked up the best attributes from them and made it into the protagonist of my film. It is a complex process actually. But it is a fun process. Like PK, I have obviously not met an alien but I have put that innocence in him. Rancho’s character was a legendary story in our film institute about a Punjabi guy who did the same.
Working Chemistry:
Boman: It is not funny working with this guy. He is the sweetest and most affable human being that you will ever meet but on the sets, he is a tyrant. He is hopeless to deal with. Almost obnoxious. I say this with a lot of love otherwise the seventh film won’t happen! I think he gets possessed on set. On the first day of the shoot… my Hindi is very Parsi... in walks Sunil Dutt. We gave him a big welcome… we did the nariyal paani shot. At the end of the day, all actors are very fragile. So, after the first day, I went up to Raju and asked about my performance. He said: ‘Not as expected.’ I gave him back the cheque, put my head on the car bonnet and cried. We all want approval because acting is really about feeling naked in front of the camera.
Rajkumar: Let me continue the story. He came to the office the next day and I understood that something was serious. He shut the door and then he started crying. He didn’t do all of those on the previous day that he just said! He then said: ‘Do you realise how nervous I was? It is my first day in a Hindi film and that too I am shooting with (Sunil) Dutt saab and I am dying and at the end of the day you tell me it was not as good as the rehearsals. A director has to be a mother to an actor. He has to inspire the actor …’ and he started sobbing there. He told me to take Om Puri. I couldn’t afford Om Puri, so I had to make it work. (Everyone laughs) So, I said whatever dialogue you have to say now, you say it in English. So, we went the next day and we started rehearsing there. Boman being a writer keeps improvising his lines and he kept on saying many lines and I kept noting. There is a scene where the students are asked why they want to become doctors and there he added those lines that I don’t love my patients because if you love them you can’t operate on them. I can’t operate on my daughter and I said Boman whatever you said is fine just don’t add the last line as it will make my hero weak. He will ask you whether filling up the form is essential. He said a very important thing to me. He said the hero could be my protagonist, not his. He is the protagonist of his own life. He has a point of view. He said: ‘I am not a villain. You think I am a villain but this is my point of view. This is the way I behave. So, there’s nothing wrong in this.’ And that stayed with me whenever I wrote a script. Even Virus had a point of view. So, now you have to rise above the point of view and let the protagonist crush it but every villain should have a point of view is what I learnt that day.
Boman: Basically he said something nice about me because he couldn’t accept he was a tyrant and hurt my feelings on the first day! Before every film he is nervous and it is a good sign of a creator. Before the release of the film Munna Bhai he wrote everyone an apology letter for letting us down. He is a drama queen. Can you imagine he was doubting whether people would like 3 Idiots or not? It is important to not take anything for granted. Even then I dared to ask him how I did in the film 3 Idiots … he said: ‘Haan itna toh tu kar leta hai’ (everyone laughs). There is a very profound saying in Hindi: Ghar ki murgi dal barabar.
Memories from the sets:
Rajkumar: Aamir is a perfectionist and I don’t agree if he says he is not. I remember in 3 Idiots, there is a scene where he steals the paper from the dean’s office and Boman beats him with an umbrella. So, the whole night we spent shooting that. Next morning, Boman was to leave for Mumbai. He left and then in the afternoon we were again shooting and Aamir said: ‘You know Boman was holding himself back because he was scared to hit me. But if he hits me really well, my reactions will also be like that. Can we do it again?’ And I remember, Boman had just landed at the airport and we asked him if he could come back. And then he took some time to realise that I am not pulling a prank on him. Then he really hammered Aamir left, right and centre and he had bruises all over his body.
Boman: I had to fly all the way back! Giving trouble to others to be a perfectionist is not fine! I swung away, man. But it is really a joy working with him…what inspires me is it would be the easiest thing for him to dish out film after film and people would have lapped it up. But he spends three to four years in just writing the film because he believes what he writes is the Bible. Till today people are asking when Munna Bhai 3 would be made. It would have been the easiest thing for him to do. He would have made money even before the film was released or made. But he believes it is not right..
Rajkumar: That’s one film I want to make actually. I have five unfinished scripts lying with me. Hopefully, I will make it someday.