That 80s show

From his first role,as the chain-smoking wastrel in Chashme Buddoor,Ravi Baswani has been a familiar face in India,in many,many movies,TV serials,plays and adverts. But he was best remembered for his role in the 1983 cult classic,Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.

In the depressing cinematic wasteland of the mid-80s,Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro was a standalone. It was caustic social commentary with morally ambiguous characters,but 27 years later,what sticks in the mind is how much roaring good fun it was. As Baswanis comrade in the caper,Naseeruddin Shah wrote later,the script of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro seemed to have been revealed to Kundan Shah in an inspired moment of transcendental,if not downright hallucinogenic,lunacy. Made on a tiny Rs 8-9 lakh budget,the movie had an improvised,home-made quality to it. It has a distinctly film-school sensibility,with its in-jokes a scene in Antonioni Park pays direct homage to Blow Up and internal references Baswani and Shah are called Sudhir and Vinod,the names of the films assistant directors Sudhir Mishra and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It took on the collusion between builders,bureaucrats and the press but held off from any earnest messaging and the social comment seemed almost incidental. It stung,but remained a nutty situational comedy to the end. Has there been a bigger belly-laugh of a finish than its Mahabharata climax?

Baswani once wistfully told an interviewer,Had I died soon after Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro had released,I would have become a legend,like James Dean. Perhaps. But then again,to have inspired such affection,and been an indispensable part of some of Indias best loved movies is not a bad fate.