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Vivek Agnihotri may be making political dramas, that often turn controversial, like The Tashkent Files (2019), The Kashmir Files (2022), The Vaccine War (2023), and the upcoming The Bengal Files now, but he’s had a history of helming more conventionally mainstream Bollywood movies like Chocolate (2005), Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal (2007), Hate Story (2014), and Zid (2014).
In fact, those films also boasted of some memorable songs, like “Halka Halka Sa Yeh Sama” from Chocolate and “Billo Rani” from Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal. Agnihotri recently recalled that he had to convince the latter’s lyricist, Javed Akhtar, to retain the term “Billo Rani” in the track composed by Pritam, and sung by Anand Raj Anand and Richa Sharma. It was filmed on Bipasha Basu, John Abraham, and Arshad Warsi.
“I insisted on keeping the term “Billo Rani” in the song. But Javed sahab wasn’t convinced. Finally, we kept the term ‘Billo Rani’, and he wrote great lyrics for the rest of the song,” Agnihotri said in an interview with Mashable. He agreed that today, while Akhtar and him aren’t on the same page as far as their political ideologies are concerned, they get along really well otherwise.
“When it’s between two philosophical minds, there can’t be a debate, only a discussion. I get along really well with Javed sahab. We respect each other deeply. He’s one of the best thinkers we have today in India. Yes, our political ideologies don’t match too much, but otherwise I have deep respect for him in terms of life ideology,” added Agnihotri.
Back in 2022, speaking on The Cārvāka Podcast, Agnihotri was all praise for Akhtar as well. He lauded the songs, especially the bhajan “Radha Kaise Na Jale”, from Ashutosh Gowariker’s 2001 seminal period sports drama Lagaan, in which Akhtar served as the lyricist. “Even a man like Javed Akhtar, the bhajans he wrote for Lagaan were pure Hindi. “Madhuban mein Radha.” there is not a single Urdu word in it. Because these were well-read, intelligent people who were tied to the roots of India. He may be a Communist, he may fight against the right-wing, it doesn’t matter,” Agnihotri had said.
He also praised Akhtar’s tenure as a screenwriter, as part of Salim-Javed, back in the 1970s and the 1980s, when they popularized Amitabh Bachchan as the Angry Young Man. “All of Javed Akhtar’s heroes, all of them were either a labourer’s son, a teacher’s son and he would fight a dacoit or a mill owner or a zamindar. He would fight a corrupt police inspector or corrupt MLA. In which movie of recent times would you find MLAs, MPs, Police inspectors, IAS officers as the villains? It’s as if India has no issues at all. The only issues are whether you are sleeping with this person or that person. That’s where they have brought Bollywood,” argued Agnihotri.
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