25 years of Satya: Film was declared ‘disaster’ upon release, RGV was told not to make a movie ‘glorifying underworld’ after Gulshan Kumar’s murder

JD Chakravarthy says ‘Satya can’t be made again’

Actor JD Chakravarthy, who played the titular role in the film, opened up to indianexpress.com about Satya. Over the years the actor has spoken about several anecdotes related to the film, including Shah Rukh Khan making a prank call to him, he now he feels that a lot has happened since the film’s release and he doesn’t want to give any diplomatic answers about fond memories.

“Don’t expect me to say ‘Wow! 25 years, it looks like yesterday’. No, 25 years look like 25 years! I will tell you why – So much has happened between Satya and now. It’s a great memory and whenever someone asked me about Satya or from Satya, trust me that you will have contradicting versions on the same topic. Not that I am lying or somebody else is lying but it’s just a memory for us . We would have formed our on stories. So, if you ask me about ‘a’ memory, it’s very difficult. I have not forgotten anything to remember anything else,” says the actor, who was recently seen in the web series Taaza Khabar.

JD Chakravarthy was already a decade old in the Indian film industry when his Hindi film Satya released in theatres and won him accolades. While many blockbusters have been remade and brought back to the silver screen, Chakravarthy feels remake of a film like Satya should not be attempted.

“Many people have come up with ideas of prequel and sequel and bounced it off. Satya is made once and it cannot be made again. There cannot be a prequel but may be a sequel? It’s not a bad idea but I never thought about it.”

As the actor ponders over the thought further, when asked if there is anyone else he feels can be cast as Satya if a remake was to be made, Chakravarthy is quick to answer, “Why would I want anyone else to do it? It’s Satya. I am not that great human being to say that Satya should be done by somebody else.”

‘Satya changed depiction of underworld’

Chakravarthy remembers an incident, which left him worried back then when the film’s shooting had started. He recalls, “The only one thing that I would have been really worried was that on the third day of the shoot, Gulshan Kumar was shot and it was a really bad news. For two reason – firstly anyone killing anyone was a bad news and secondly there was a pressure on us not to make a film on underworld. From the industry we heard that we should not do the film. It is a horrifying memory for me.”

However, Varma was determined to make this film see the light of the day. “Mr Ram Gopal Varma will do what he wants to do, what he thinks is right and not what is right or not. So, lucky us at that point Ramu sir said that yes what has happened is wrong, I am not glorifying underworld. That was his point of view on how underworld works and that is the first time the world would have seen the emotional side of underworld.”

The actor elaborates that before Satya’s release in 1998, dons were shown in a caricaturish manner with overcoats, imported Impala and always surrounded by girls dressed in a funny way. “I don’t know why dons would wear long coat always. It’s not what underworld was. So Satya was a very meaningful film,” feels the actor.

‘The violence we showed in Satya was happening 1km away from us’: Apurva Asrani

At 19, Satya’s editor Apurva Asrani was the youngest head of department on the film. Asrani tells indianexpress.com how the RGV set was “democratic”, where everyone was equal, and all the ideas were welcomed for discussion.

“I’ll never forget the atmosphere in Mumbai City though. It was literally under siege from the underworld. The violence that we were filming, was happening in reality less than a kilometer from us. But the adrenaline was high and the team was tuned into each other. Little did we know that the film was going to become a cult hit that would find relevance quarter of a century later.

“But Satya won the public, the critics and the awards alike. It’s style set a trend for so many other films, be it the kind of dialogues or the editing/narrative style. If I have been able to sustain this long in the industry to do a Shahid, an Aligarh or a Criminal Justice, it is because of the benchmark of telling real stories that Satya set in me.”

The editor said the footage of Satya was so good, that “we wasted very little of it”. Asrani recalls how even when some scenes were cut out, the team used them in montages, in songs and even in the climax when Satya is shot and walking up wounded towards Vidya.

“We used intercuts of a bright Vidya from another, calling Satya up. This juxtaposition added to the emotional drama of the moment. Also the opening sequence of the film where we give a context of the disparity in Mumbai and how it was under siege, was entirely imagined, written and recorded in the editing room.”

Asrani said the climax, where the corrupt politician Bhau Thakurdas Jhawle is killed during a Ganpati visarjan, was not part of the script. “It was when looking at the terrific B roll footage in the edit, of Mumbai’s grand visarjans, that RGV toyed with the idea of constructing a dummy idol to match the real footage, and having Satya stab Bhau there!”

In an earlier interview with PTI, Manoj Bajpayee had revealed how he was supposed to play the title role, but Varma changed his plan, wanting someone who has a “great presence” to play Satya.

“I was very sad that he doesn’t think I have presence. I now thank God, he gave me the right role to work on… Everybody used to feel so excited about my performance but I wasn’t sure if we are doing it right. That feeling of unsureness was always looming large because no one of the film industry was making this kind of a film,” he adds.

‘Satya was flop on arrival’

Once on board, Bajpayee tried getting into the character of Bhiku Mhatre, taking his accent from his cook, who was from Kolhapur while the inspiration for the printed shirts came from the local goons he saw in his hometown. When Satya finally hit the screens, it struggled theatrically. For almost a week, Bajpayee had said, barely 15-20 people turned up. But then, some cinema halls began screening the film again after it was taken down, and the rest, is history.

“I was asked to visit a theatre in Dadar. I knew people were dancing inside the theatre and were leaving after Bhiku’s death. In interval, people got to know that ‘Bhiku Mhatre’ is outside, so they gathered to see me. They (owners) had to stop the film screening. The theatre staff was there who came for my rescue otherwise I would have died of suffocation,” Bajpayee had said in an interview.