30 Years Of Tezaab & Ek Do Teen; A Trivia Journey

30th anniversary is called pearl anniversary and traditionally it is believed that ladies may get lucky and receive pearls as gifts. Today, 30 years back, Tezaab was released. Hence, it is the 30th anniversary of Tezaab today and we got lucky as the movie gave us a rare pearl – Madhuri Dixit.

On its 30th anniversary, let us go on a journey of nostalgia about this movie, which was marketed as a ‘violent love story’.

Tezaab starred Anil Kapoor who after ‘Mr India’ was a huge star. Opposite him was Madhuri, for whom this was the first big hit and she went on to give one blockbuster after another.

Anil Kapoor won the best actor award and Madhuri won a nomination as well. This was the 3rd consecutive hit in a row for Director N Chandra after ‘Ankush’ and ‘Pratighaat’.

Other nominations included best film, best director, best supporting actor for Chunky Pandey and best music director for Laxmikant Pyarelal. Most of the awards that year, however, went to ‘Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak’.

The song ‘Ek do teen” established Madhuri as a dancing sensation.

When ‘Tezaab’ released, Madhuri had gone for a family vacation to USA. When she returned she was greeted at the airport by thousands of fans, who kept on screaming “Mohini, Mohini”.

She herself said the song will always be a favorite as it gave her an identity.

In an interview to Simi Grewal, Madhuri said that after she returned from USA to greets of ‘Mohini, Mohini’ and she was travelling in her car when street children shouted ‘that’s the Ek Do Teen girl’ and she gave her first autograph.

Madhuri had earlier worked with choreographer Saroj Khan, but for classical dances and this was the first time they did a commercial Bollywood dance and Madhuri carried it off perfectly. This gave Saroj ji her first Filmfare award.

The same song had a male version as well. While Alka Yagnik won the best singer female award, for the female version, Amit Kumar won a nomination and lost out to Udit Narayan for ‘Papa kehtey thhe‘.

Javed Akhtar too was nominated for best lyrics for ‘Ek do teen’ as well. For the legend it was not too difficult and it reportedly took him just an hour to write the lyrics, the idea which he got from the music directors habit of saying ‘Ek do teen’.

Anil Kapoor and Madhuri made a lovely pair. Tezaab had another super song ‘Keh do ke tum‘ , one of the best songs of Amit Kumar’s career and which won a nomination for his co-singer Anuradha Poudwal, which lost out of course to ‘Ek do teen‘.

The popularity of ‘Ek do Teen’ can be gauged from the fact that it had a remix version, sung by Shreya Ghoshal in Baaghi 2 and picturised on Jacqeline Fernandez.

Unfortunately it was not too well received due to comparisons with the original dance by Madhuri.

N Chandra called it crass beyond imagination and said it was like turning Central Park into a botanical garden. Saroj Khan too expressed her dissent. Anil Kapoor, however, said it required guts and conviction in attempting to recreate an iconic number.

One of the huge hit songs of the movie was ‘So Gaya Ye Jahaan‘ and interestingly, it was shot in 3 cities over a period of 17 nights. Chunky Panday is brilliant in the song.

‘Tezaab’ had become a 5-hour film and after editing it was brought down to 3. The Producer wanted to shorten it even further by cutting out ‘So Gaya Ye Jahaan’, but luckily director N Chandra refused as he considered it an integral part of the movie. Once during the shooting of the song, late at night the actors were hungry and went to a hotel to eat. They had forgotten they were in make up, with blood etc. The hotel staff got scared, and then the situation had to be retrieved.

The Odisha Connect

Amit Kumar was known as voice of Kumar Gaurav. His song ‘Keh Do Ke Tum’ was a huge hit and he came to be known as voice of Anil Kapoor as well. He has sung several Odia songs and one of the best Odia songs ever ‘Ae Banara Chaaii’ composed by Bhuban-Hari (Pandit Bhubaneshwar Mishra and Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia) was rendered by Amit Kumar and Suman Kalyanpur. Recently during his tour of Odisha, Amit Kumar sang this song in addition to his other popular numbers and songs of his legendary dad, Kishore Kumar.

‘Ek Do Teen’ will always be fresh in our memory. Thanks N Chandra, Madhuri, Anil and Saroj Khan for the lovely number and also for a super movie

( Pics credit Indian Express, Rediff .com)

(Ritesh is based in Mumbai and writes on sports and cinema. He tweets @riteshmisra and blogs @ thesportsmanwritesaway.wordpress.com)