Life After Debt

For Ghai,Karz remains the foundation on which he built his empire. Having established himself as a director of repute with Kalicharan (1976) and Vishwanath (1978),he was ready to turn producer with his banner Mukta Arts and assume overall responsibility. Karz was to have Ghai’s stamp of dramatic storytelling,but this time he wanted to prove the naysayers wrong. “A Delhi-based distributor told me at a party that while I had got the dramatic pulse of my audience,my films lacked in the music department. I was driven to make a musical entertainer that would prove him wrong,” says Ghai.

Enter Monty,the pop star. The career choice of his protagonist allowed Ghai to explore western orchestra and pop,albeit with an Indian soul. So fired was he to make a musical hit that he went full throttle in the way he shot the songs. The image of Rishi Kapoor dancing on the rolling HMV discs in the song Om shanti Om is iconic. But more on the music later.

The appeal of Karz is in its title,which means debt. It’s a man’s debt from his past life that he carries forward to avenge his murder. The story was inspired by the 1975 Hollywood film,The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Ghai saw the film when he was a student at FTII and one scene stayed on with him. “There was a scene in which an old woman says Peter has come. The thought that a mother can recognise her child’s soul haunted me and I wanted to explore that in Karz,” he says. In the film,Durga Khote instinctively knows that Kapoor (Monty) is the reincarnation of her son.

As Monty,Rishi Kapoor gave a stellar performance. Ghai cast him for his reputation as a good dancer. “I wanted someone who could do justice to the songs that I was planning,and could connect with the youth,” says Ghai. Kapoor remembers the director’s showmanship. On the day the song Dard-e-dil was being shot,Kapoor looked around for a choreographer to guide him with his steps. Ghai informed him that’s it’s not his style to have a choreographer on the sets. “It’s an actor’s insecurity that makes him wonder if he has to raise the left hand or the right. He needs to be told. Credit goes to Subhashji that the song turned out so well,” says Kapoor.

The film’s female leads were cast according to their real-life persona. Ghai met Tina Munim at a party and was charmed by her effervescence. Tina’s black scarf became quite a rage with young girls. In contrast,Simi Garewal as Kamini Verma was the sophisticated ice maiden. She was also the vamp who orchestrates Ravi’s death at the behest of Sir Juda (Prem Nath). Garewal was Ghai’s first choice,and getting her to sign on the dotted line took a lot of effort. “Maine kam se kam 10 chakkar kaate Simi ke ghar ke until I convinced her. She was apprehensive that she would get the vamp label,” he says. Instead,this turned out to be the role of a lifetime for Garewal who also earned an award for her histrionics. “She wrote me a letter of appreciation after she won the award,” says Ghai.

Ghai,who reserves his best creative quirks for the villain’s part (think back to Kalicharan’s Loin and Karma’s Dr Dang),decided to give Prem Nath the ability to converse in Morse code. “Prem Nath had the reputation of being a very loud actor. So,I decided to overhaul his image and gave him a mute role,” says Ghai.

Laxmikant-Pyarelal outdid themselves with the music. Ghai was clear he wanted a western influence in the music,so he rejected the first few tunes,which included a ghazal-tabla version of Dard-e-dil. For Ek hasina thi,the original idea was to have the tune play out on guitar in the climax but during the course of the shoot,everybody started humming the tune. So Ghai decided to give words to it. Anand Bakshi was called in and,on the spot,he came up with the words: Ek hasina thi,ek deewana tha,kya umar,kya samaa,kya zamaana tha. “The words provided the right impetus for the climax and I decided to wrap up the story within the song. We had to be innovative so that the recap of the story didn’t bore the audience,” says Ghai. They loved it.

harneet.singh@expressindia.com