How Ramesh Sippy's classics changed India forever

Very few filmmakers get to make cinema that stands the test of time, fewer still end up making classics but rare are those who are destined to be judged by their own greatness and fall short - Ramesh Sippy is one of the select few who has achieved all three and then some. What makes Sippy further exceptional is that unlike anyone else in the history of Indian cinema, he, along with changing the yardstick for a "great" film with Sholay (1975), the film he is best known for, also managed to define the benchmark for "great" television with his opus Buniyaad (1986). Born in the year of Indian independence to Gopaldas Paramanand Sipahimalani, who'd later go on to become the legendary filmmaker-producer, GP Sippy, cinema was an integral part of Ramesh Sippy's growing up years.

His father had started off in the construction business in Bombay and was perhaps the earliest person to start the cooperative housing society trend in the city but a chance meeting with one of the biggest film stars of the era, Nargis, got the senior Sippy interested in filmmaking. Ramesh Sippy even acted in a few films as a child artist and among the handful of roles that he did the one that stood out was Bewaqoof (1959) where he played a young Pran and the film also featured a young Vinod Mehra portraying the younger version of Kishore Kumar.

In the late 1960s, Ramesh was attending the London School of Economics when his father called him back to help run their production house, Sippy Films. A major disagreement between G.P. Sippy and Bhappi Sonie, who was directing Brahmachari (1968) for Sippy, almost persuaded the former to leave the trade. An astute businessperson, GP Sippy had invested well and had nearly made up his mind to shift base to London to run the hotel that he owned in the city at the time. One major reason for the disillusionment was also the fact that the tension from Brahmachari had begun to have an impact on Bandhan (1969), the other film that Sippy was producing at the same time. Ramesh gave up his studies midway and returned to become an in-house director for his father.

In all likelihood, Ramesh Sippy would also be the first amongst the second-generation filmmakers in Hindi cinema. At the age of 24 he joined the ranks of Raj Kapoor was the same age when he directed Aag (1948) and Vijay Anand, who at 23 directed Nau Do Gyarah (1957), and with an unlikely subject of a mature romance between a middle-aged widower, Shammi Kapoor, and a younger widow, Hema Malini, displayed great promise. Sippy's demonstrated deftness in handling the film's so-called deglamorised set-up with the heroine dressed in white and the hero physically looking out of form (this was Shammi Kapoor's last film as the "romantic" hero) besides the innovative manner in which the narrative made use of a phenomenon called Rajesh Khanna in a cameo. Besides the discovery of Ramesh Sippy, the other thing that Andaz brought out was the finesse of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, the then relatively unknown screenwriters who at the time were employed by Sippy Film as a part of the story department. Their contribution would often be devoured by the collective credit - "Story - Sippy Films Story Department" - but their involvement was more than noticed and both went independent when Rajesh Khanna offered them a writing gig on Haathi Mere Saathi (1971).

By the time Sippy's second feature released, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar had transformed into the writer duo Salim-Javed and it was again their writing that helped the young filmmaker truly announce his arrival. Sippy's Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) featured the heroine, Hema Malini, as the "hero" and topped it off with not only her in a double-role but also featured one of the biggest stars of the day, Dharmendra, in a supporting role of sorts. Like Andaz, Seeta Aur Geeta could also be seen as a deviation from the filmmaking norms of the 1970s that were about to introduced to writers Salim-Javed's Angry Young Man character. If Sippy's first two films changed certain things like using a star in a cameo or imaging the woman-centric film without the trappings of the sub-genre, his next ended up reconstructing almost everything associated with a typical popular Hindi film.

To call Sholay a mere film or a blockbuster would be undermining the hallowed space it continues to occupy even after forty years of its release. The film that went on define the terms "blockbuster" and "legendary" in the context of Indian cinema, Sholay for Ramesh Sippy has been both a sense of everlasting glory and a kind of millstone around the neck. Sippy has often mused had Sholay not happened to him would his subsequent films been better received by not only the audiences but also the critics. While one could entertain certain romanticism in that notion the fact still remains that Sholay would have been impossible to top and Sippy couldn't have been unaware about the magnanimity of his greatest achievement. This writer believes that had the filmmaker not tried to literally outdo Sholay with a Shaan (1980) immediately after the former the story might have played out differently. The burden on Sholay is more than evident on Shaan as everything about it in terms of canvas or cast suggests tries to be same same but different and bigger and who knows Dharmendra and Hema Malini not walked out of the film, it would have even ended up looking like the same film as well.

The two films that followed Shaan - Shakti (1982) and Saagar (1985) both reveal a side of Ramesh Sippy that were suppressed by big top cinematic experiences that he became associated with it. A far more personal film when compared to not just Shaan but also Sholay, Shakti is the one film that makes Sippy's oeuvre transcend Sholay and had the filmmaker opted to make this one before Shaan the course of his career would have been far more interesting. Even Saagar by a similar token falls in the same category and even though it wasn't a success at the box-office, it was a throwback on his debut, Andaz, and suggested that he had much more to offer as a storyteller beyond the big budget extravaganzas that he was willy-nilly associated with.

At a time when television was far from how we know it today, Ramesh Sippy was one of the first to venture into the medium. His opus Buniyaad infused a new energy into the format and made relatively unknown actors such as Alok Nath, Anita Kanwar, and Dalip Tahil into household names. Initially shot on 16 mm film before budgetary constraints forced the production to shoot on video, Buniyaad added gravitas to still nascent television industry in India and changed the milieu forever.

Post-Buniyaad Sippy started working on yet another magnum opus of sorts called Zameen (1987) and with a cast that included Vinod Khanna, Rajnikanth and Sanjay Dutt along with Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit, which would have been the first time the two divas would feature in the same film, everything about the film was befitting the filmmaker's stature. It is said that Sippy had finished almost 70% of the film before he discarded it due to some trouble with the script. He tried to get two projects with Bachchan off the ground but both Ram Ki Seeta Shyam Ki Geeta that was to feature Sridevi and Amitabh Bachchan in double roles and the other supposedly called Laadla with Amitabh Bachchan never came to fruition.

Sippy went on to make Bhrashtachar (1989) that explored the malaise of corruption in society and Akayla (1991), a Dirty Harry-esque urban crime thriller with Amitabh Bachchan but the playing field has changed. Their own inability to comprehend the winds of change notwithstanding, the 1990s were unkind to almost every major filmmaker from the 1970s. Sippy with Zamaana Deewana (1995), too, fell in the same category along with Prakash Mehra with Zindagi Ek Jua (1995), Bal Brahmachari (1996), Hrishikesh Mukherjee with Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate (1998), Feroz Khan with Yalgaar (1992) and Prem Agan (1998). The attempted comedy that ended up being the last film Sippy directed, Zamaana Deewana featured Shah Rukh Khan and Raveena Tandon along with Jeetendra and Shatrughan Sinha and was both a commercial as well as critical washout.

- Ramesh Sippy turned sixty-nine on January 23.