Vishal Bhardwaj is known for his Shakespeare trilogy in the form of Maqbool (2004), Omkara (2006) and Haider (2014), adapted from Macbeth, Othello and Hamlet. Out of these, Omkara completes 20 years today. The film starred Ajay Devgn, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Vivek Oberoi who reprised the characters of Othello, Iago, Desdemona and Michael Cassio respectively from the original Shakespearean play. It is still remembered for its bold storytelling and trying something hugely different at that time with mainstream Hindi film stars.
Omkara is also special for filmmaker Abhishek Chaubey as he was an associate director and co-writer on the project. In an exclusive and candid interview with Bollywood Hungama, he looked back at the enjoyable process of making Omkara.
Personal milestone
Chaubey calls Omkara a “milestone” for his career. “This was just the second film which I had written,” he said. “This was also the biggest film I had done in my life. It just fell into my lap because we were not expecting Vishal to make a thriller at that point of time. He was making something else. This happened all of a sudden. I had a fantastic time being a part of this film. It was Kumar ji’s (Kumar Mangat Pathak) first production and he didn’t leave any stone unturned. So, we were never in want of anything. There was very little stress on set. We enjoyed making the film.”
Script written in a jiffy
Chaubey had said in an interview that they had written the script of Omkara in 18 days. He elaborated on how it happened. “In 18 days we did the adaptation formally,” he said. “But when we were working on the post-production of Maqbool, Vishal and I were just generally talking that if he were to do another Shakespeare, what would it be. And he wanted to do Othello. There were no plans of making anything but just for fun we used to talk about adapting Othello. So, there were certain ideas about the film we had through our discussion about Othello early on; a year or two before we made the film,” he said.
Hence, when the opportunity came to adapt Othello, they were better prepared because they had a good vision about the film. “There was some amount of clarity with which we started,” said Chaubey. “It was not completely blind start in that sense. We had to write the film in a short period of time because Kumar Mangat had come as producer and got Ajay Devgn on board. Ajay was very keen to do a Shakespeare with Vishal but the condition was that his dates were open in January and we were already in September. So, we had to write the film in double quick time, otherwise we would lose out on his dates. Although there was pressure, it was a good pressure.”
Meeting real gangsters and politicians
Sharing the interesting research process, Chaubey revealed, “Robin (Bhatt) da joined us. Then Vishal, me and Robin da went on a general trip of western UP, particularly Meerut. We spent about a week there and met various kinds of people – gangsters, people behind bars, etc. Just a political and crime landscape of Meerut. Plus, Vishal is from Meerut, so he knew a lot of people we could meet and talk to. That energized us and also gave us a feel of the film, like how the characters are, how they talk, behave, etc. Directly from Meerut we went to Mussoorie to write the film.”
Due to their research and familiarity with Othello, which Chaubey had even studied in college, they were well-prepared when they sat down to write. “We would have discussions about the adaptation during the day – the story, characters and all of that. During lunch time, I would polish the notes Vishal ji and Robin da had discussed. Then post-lunch during tea time we would revise it and Vishal would that evening only try and do the dialogues of those scenes. It was almost like we were working double time. We wrote it very rapidly. It was a very long time ago. I was very young, so I had a lot of energy. I remember enjoying the process tremendously,” recalled Chaubey.
Only Vishal Bhardwaj was convinced about Saif Ali Khan’s casting as Langda Tyagi
Recalling the casting of Saif, Chaubey said, “I was of the view that for the role of Langda Tyagi we would be going for a different, more serious kind of an actor or an arthouse actor because we were coming from Maqbool and all of that. But Vishal said that he is going for Saif. And I was like, ‘Are you sure?’ Saif hadn’t done anything like this before, right? He played romantic characters in urban films. The only film where he had negative shades was Ek Hasina Thi. He was very good in it but he was playing a very urbane character. This was a very different and rugged sort of a character.”
Chaubey added, “I wasn’t sure if it would work but Vishal was supremely confident that he would make him do it. I have to give credit to him because not just me but everybody around him was not very sure about his choice. But Vishal being a director could see something which we, obviously, couldn’t. And when Saif got to know that he is getting to play Iago, he quickly jumped at it. I think his mother Sharmila ji had something to do with it. She, sort of, encouraged him to play this part because, knowing Shakespeare, she told him that Iago is the most memorable character of this play. But his dates were not clear. I think he was doing Race. But then Race got pushed and he came on board.”
Chaubey recalled that Kareena came on board fairly quickly because Desdemona was a great character for her. She also wanted to be in a Vishal Bhardwaj film specially with Ajay Devgn leading it. He said that the rest of the casting also happened very quickly.
Saif didn’t hesitate to use cuss words
Omkara was one of the earliest mainstream films to have a lot of cuss words, especially uttered by Langda Tyagi’s character. When asked whether Saif had any hesitation in uttering cuss words, Chaubey said, “Saif jumped at the opportunity (laughs). He said, ‘I am never going to get a chance to do something like this again’. There were some apprehensions how it will be acceptable to the Indian audience or how the censor board will pass it. But our intention behind it was very clear. Shakespeare has great poetry. So, there has to be something in the dialogue that gives it a rhythm and feel that sets it apart from what you normally see in a Hindi film. The way Vishal ji used the dialogue and even the abusive language worked – and I mean this seriously – in a very poetic way. It was not like how cuss words are used now without a thought carelessly.”
“20 years ago, the CBFC was more enlightened”
The reaction of how the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to the cuss words was an obvious question to Chaubey. “CBFC of that era was very different from CBFC of present,” he said. “My first film (Ishqiya) came in 2010. It had a bold theme and colourful language. But at that time, people would give you Adult certificate and as long as anything was not demeaning to a gender or a community, they would let it be. In Omkara, there were some dialogue cuts but very minimal, which the committee felt were abusive towards a gender or anything of that sort. But otherwise, they let it pass. I think we had a very enlightened Censor Board 20 years ago. I think we have gone 20 years behind today.”
The craze behind “Langda Tyagi Baahubali”
Post the film’s release, the dialogue uttered by Deepak Dobriyal’s character, “Langda Tyagi Baahubali, Baahubali Langda Tyagi” became a rage and it continues to be popular. “When I saw it on set while shooting, I knew this is going to be a hit,” said Chaubey. “We had written it and we wanted it to be iconic. But when Deepak and Saif played that scene and then Deepak started jumping and saying this dialogue, we knew instantly that this is going to catch.”
Chaubey was speaking from Jharkhand where he was for a recce to scout locations for his upcoming web series.
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