Most Viewers Have No Idea About Bajrangi Bhaijaan

 

It was 2015. Megastar Salman Khan came up with a new movie. The movie had done great business in India and internationally. It’s ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan’. One can categorise it as a film about human love. Ignoring the distinctions of religion, politics, and borders, the movie once again proves the truth of the saying ‘Man is above all, nothing is above him.

The Story Behind Bajrangi Bhaijaan

The film tells the story of Shahida, a speechless Pakistani girl, and Pawan Kumar Chaturvedi’s journey to return her to her home. Even after eight years of its release, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, made with a unique blend of gratitude, compassion, love, joy-laughter-tears and various incidents, still occupies a place in the hearts of countless movie lovers. The film tells the story of Shahida, a speechless Pakistani girl, and Pawan Kumar Chaturvedi’s journey to return her to her home.

Salman Khan wasn’t the first choice for the role of Bajrangi Bhaijaan. The film’s producer, Rockline Venkatesh, said in an interview that he approached various famous actors of the Indian film industry to play the lead role in this film. The script of this film has been going around the doors of various actors for about 4-5 years. The producer narrated the film’s story to Rajinikanth, Allu Arjun, Puneeth Rajkumar, and Aamir Khan before Salman Khan. But everyone rejected it, citing some specific reason. Aamir Khan reportedly suggested Salman Khan’s name to the producer for the film. Since Salman Khan liked the script very much, he gave the green signal to it of his own accord.

The Real-Life Inspiration Behind Bajrangi Bhaijaan

The Times of India published an article in October 2012. The article described an incident almost similar to the story of the movie Bajrangi Bhaijaan. An ethnically Indian mute girl faced this problem. The 21-year-old girl’s name was Geeta. According to the theory, she accidentally crossed the border into Pakistan on a train called the Samjhauta Express. In 1999/2000, the police at the Lahore railway station found her at that station. Ansar Burney, a Pakistani human rights activist, helped bring Geeta back to her family a decade later. According to Barney, the girl knew a little bit of Hindi. All she remembered was that she had seven brothers and three sisters. Her house was on the edge of a vast field across the river.

Everyone will remember Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s dramatic appearance in the movie Bajrangi Bhaijaan. He stood near the footover bridge adjacent to the railway in Karachi, trying to present the news, but people repeatedly passing in front of the camera disrupted his presentation. They based this part on a real story. Interestingly, the Pakistani journalist’s name was also Chand Nawab. His friends uploaded the video on YouTube under the title “Funny Pakistani News Reporter”. Finally, Kabir Khan brought out a living character from that video.

Initially, Bollywood sensation Emraan Hashmi was signed for the role of Pakistani journalist Chand Nawab. Later, he left the role as he felt the screen time was less. Then, it was Salman Khan who gave Kabir Khan the idea to cast Nawazuddin in that role. This journalist was the third important character in the story after Bajrangi and Munni. Salman got an idea about Nawaz’s talent after the movie ‘Kick’ with Nawazuddin. So, he suggested choosing Nawaz. The rest is history. The director had to work very hard to choose a child artist for the role of Munni. About a thousand children were auditioned for this. Not only in India, but a search was conducted in Iran and Afghanistan as well. Finally, Munni was found in Delhi. Harshaali Malhotra has won everyone’s hearts with her brilliant performance in this role.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan Awesome Climax!

The climax of the movie Bajrangi Bhaijaan brought tears to everyone’s eyes. But filming the climax was a bit tricky. The snow-white mountain range of the climax was about 12,000 feet above sea level. And the temperature was -10 degrees Celsius. Most people in our subcontinent find such temperatures quite uncomfortable. Even before the film’s production began, director Kabir Khan faced trouble. Kabir Khan faced seven lawsuits, including a PIL, over the film’s title, “Bajrangi Bhaijaan”.

KK recorded the popular song “Tu Jo Mila” for Bajrangi Bhaijaan in Sydney, Australia. It was through this song that the ‘KK-Pritam duo’ came together again, a name full of nostalgia for an entire generation.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan Was Indeed A Box Office

Bajrangi Bhaijaan has a strong connection with the history-making film Baahubali. The story and screenplay of both films were written by Vijayendra Prasad. He is the father of Baahubali director Rajamouli. Baahubali was released on July 10, 2015, and Bajrangi Bhaijaan was released a week later on July 17. Both films were superhits at the box office. Initially, the role of Bajrangi was to be played by Bollywood’s Greek God Hrithik Roshan, directed by his father Rakesh Roshan. But the film’s scriptwriter, Vijayendra Prasad, wanted Rakesh Roshan to participate in the film as a co-producer. Since Rakesh Roshan has not participated in co-production with anyone so far, he opted out of the film. Later, the role went back and forth between three South Indian stars and Aamir Khan and then to Salman Khan.

Salman Khan’s Unbeatable Hit Streak

Kareena Kapoor’s character ‘Rasika’ in the film does not have much screen time or depth. However, Kareena agreed to work in this film because of her good relationship with Salman Khan. Salman Khan, who became a box office superhit with Bajrangi Bhaijaan, maintained the record of delivering seven consecutive hit films. Dabangg (2010), Ready (2011), Bodyguard (2011), Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Dabangg 2 (2012), Jai Ho (2013), Kick (2014), and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) were the lineup of seven films. His hit streak was not limited to just seven films. Later, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015) and Sultan (2016) also became hits. The nine-film hit streak came to an end due to the average performance of Tubelight (2017) at the box office.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan: Accolades and Box Office Records

So far, Bajrangi Bhaijaan has been nominated in 61 award categories, out of which the film has won 34 awards. Among them, the Filmfare Award for the story of the film, the Zee Cine Award in four categories, and the Screen Award in six categories are notable. In 2015, Bajrangi Bhaijaan was nominated for the Best Foreign Film at the 6th Doban Film Awards in China. The film was a tornado at the box office and won the title of all-time blockbuster. The film, made on a budget of 125 crores, had a worldwide gross collection of 910 crores. Bajrangi Bhaijaan made a good start at the box office with a bumper opening collection of 26.70 crores in India.

Despite giving an out-of-the-box performance in Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Salman Khan was denied the Filmfare Award in the Best Actor category that year. The award went to Ranveer Singh, the hero of Bajirao Mastani. The film became the first Indian film to enter the 100 crore domestic net club on its opening weekend. The film’s domestic gross, net, and share were 422.15 crore, 315.50 crore, and 162.20 crore rupees, respectively. The total number of tickets sold in India (footfalls) was 35.4 crore, which reached 50 million worldwide, including dubbing. It became the ‘highest grosser of the year’ of domestic and worldwide Bollywood in 2015, earning Salman’s first $20 million overseas. This Bajrangi Bhaijaan film is also called the best film of Salman Khan’s film career by many.