Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham turns 20: Karan Johar spells out 10 lesser known facts about the 'mother of multi-starrers'

Karan Johar's family drama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham completed 20 years on Tuesday, 14 December, 2021. Here are some interesting facts dug up by Subhash K Jha about the 'mother of multi-starrers' with inputs from Johar himself:

1. Johar was very nervous about his transition from his directorial debut Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to the mammoth multi-starrer that was K3G. He confided in me, “I put on weight when I started K3G. In fact, on the first day of Amit ji’s (Amitabh Bachchan) shooting with me, I fainted on the sets. Must have been the nervous excitement of shooting with THE Amitabh Bachchan. I kept tossing and turning all night. The next morning, I promptly fainted in my choreographer’s Farah Khan’s arms. When I came round, I heard Amitji saying, "Please don’t faint. I promise I’ll dance well." Can you believe, my first day of shooting with the legend of Indian cinema. And I had to direct from a bed in my makeup room. I felt like Francis Coppola directing from a bed. It’s so strange, but there was just one moment in the film when all my main characters come together for a song ('Bole Chudiyan'). And I wasn’t on the set. I was looking at the scene from my monitor in the makeup room. The doctor told me to go home. But there was no way I could be dragged away. If I had to die, I’d rather watch that moment and then do so. Farah joked, “Karan, I hope you faint in every song sequence. That way, you’ll okay my dance movements far less fussily.”
2. Johar got the idea for this film a month before the release of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. “I was working on the background music of the earlier film when the idea for K3G came to me. Of course, the film is quite different from how I had visualised it back then. Initially, it was the story of how two daughters-in-law bring a family together. Then I threw the idea around with my friend Adi (Aditya Chopra, filmmaker). He thought the story of two daughters-in-law would make the male characters very weak. So we decided to make it the story of two brothers, played by Shah Rukh (Khan) and Hrithik (Roshan). Earlier, the protagonists were the father Amitji, and the elder son Shah Rukh. Eventually, the younger son, Hrithik, also became a protagonist. After Kuch Kuch... released, I left the story to enjoy the euphoria of my released film. But four months later, I decided to go back to the script. I must thank Adi for giving shape to my idea."

 

1. The least problematic factor was the actors. Said Johar, “Finding the right actors for the characters, and getting them to agree was easy. Shooting with them was easy. When it finished, I couldn’t believe I had  pulled it off. I didn’t really have to work too hard on the actors. Everyone had a fully bound script. So every actor was familiar with the atmosphere, attitude, and tone of every scene. Hrithik knew he was Shah Rukh’s younger brother. I wanted his body language to be that of a 20-year-old. I wanted him to be the baby of the family. Shah Rukh is the elder adopted son. I wanted him to be constantly one step behind his screen father all the time. In only one sequence, I wanted Shah Rukh to look Amitji into the eye. Shah Rukh’s body  language had to be more relaxed with Kajol and Jayaji (Jaya Bachchan). Jayaji had to be quiet and submissive, strong from inside but prompted into speaking her mind only at the end. Kareena (Kapoor Khan) and Kajol too knew exactly what to do before coming on the sets. Initially, it took the actors a little time to get into character. But they got into character much faster than I expected. Because their  preparations were tremendous. Jayaji, Shah Rukh, Hrithik, Kareena, Kajol, they all heard the script twice. Everyone got their dialogues before every schedule, and they got their lines right before shooting. I couldn’t really get them together for rehearsals except for one crucial sequence between Amitji and Hrithik. But everyone was completely comfortable in one another’s company. No matter what the media had to say about the Shah Rukh-Hrithik war, Hrithik was like the respectful student and Shah Rukh was like the professor in Mohabbatein. I remember we all went to see the Nicolas Cage-starrer Captain Correlli’s Mandolin in London. Kajol kept laughing and crying the loudest. Amitji said he wanted to keep going to movies with her because there’re two movies going on at the same time with Kajol around. Amitji was quite intrigued by her.”
2. "Shooting with six superstars all in one frame couldn’t be easy. But you must understand, Hrithik and Kareena were not stars when I began my film. My whole endeavour was to get Shah Rukh and Kajol together again. Kajol and Jayaji were the ones I was most apprehensive about getting them to agree. When they agreed to do the film, I was over the mountain. Hrithik knew exactly what he was going to do. The role has been shot exactly the way it was narrated to him. In fact, if you read my screenplay there’s more of him on screen than paper. My film focuses on the entire family. When there are six main characters, there are bound to be fluctuations in their presence on screen. To have all of them in every frame would be totally improper. For one, the audience wouldn’t know where to look. They would be completely distracted. My characters unfold on screen by and by. Hrithik is introduced at the beginning. After that, he becomes a powerful protagonist in the second half. Amitji, Jayaji, Shah Rukh, and Kajol are prominent in the first half when a flashback occurs. Then Hrithik and Kareena take over. Kajol and Kareena provide the comedy tracks in my film.  Kajol is the comedienne in the first half, and Kareena in the second half.”
3. Kareena’s Poo was  always special. Johar had prophesied, “She’ll be remembered as the girl who’s called ‘Poo’ by her friends because she’s Pooja.  She’s a girl from Chandni Chowk in Delhi who changes completely when she moves to London. She’s completely adorable. She’s been given a theme music for herself, 'Poo, That’s The  Way To Go.' Everyone will be calling her Poo by the end of the film. Kareena has made the role  memorable. You’ll be surprised by her comic timing. I was quite worried about that initially. You know how it’s with heroines. But Kareena was completely in awe of Kajol. I saw how Kareena stared at Kajol performing. Usually, she’s completely her own person. But in this film, she was always absorbing what Kajol was doing.
   

   In fact, we had two students Kareena and Hrithik looking up to Kajol and Shah Rukh while  Amitji and Jayaji were in a league of their own. It was like having three different classrooms.

4. Initially, Johar wanted Rani Mukerji to play Kajol’s sister. “I'd have loved to have Rani play one of the leads. But the Kareena character is supposed to be 10 years younger than Kajol. I couldn’t have given her the younger sister’s role after the two played friends in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Similarly, I couldn’t get Rani to play Kajol’s role. Then who would’ve played her sister? Baby Guddu? I explained my problem to Rani. I also told her how much I wanted her to be part of my film. I think she did the film for emotional reasons.”
5. When Lata Mangeshkar sang the title song, Johar said, “I never thought I’d go weak in my knees. But I did when I recorded that song. When she arrived, I had to sit down. I just couldn’t take it. Lataji had arrived to sing for my film! It was an out-of-body experience. I just couldn’t believe it was happening to me! Even now, I can’t get over it. Of course, she must have sung for hundreds of other filmmakers. But I feel my experience was extra-special. I feel if I’ve worked with the two legends of our cinema, Lata Mangeshkar and Amitabh Bachchan, then maybe yes, I’ve arrived.”
6. About the three-hour-30-minute runtime, Johar had said to me, “Looking back, maybe I could’ve reluctantly cut a few minutes more here and there. I cut about half an hour of what I shot. I’d have cut more if I felt the need. I’m not self-indulgent but I didn’t. I was doubtful about a few sequences. One was the pre-climax sequence between Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan, where she tells him they should go back home. But that scene was important because when Shah Rukh says, “Woh bade hain, buzurg hain, lekin unhe dil todne ka koi haq nahin hai,” he’s making a point that children aren’t always wrong vis-à-vis parents. Anyway, I’ve no complaints. Overseas, the audience went super-ballistic over the film. In both the UK and US, in just three days, it did as well as Lagaan. My first film was a craze overseas. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is a cult film. So there was a certain amount of expectation from me as well. The middle-class audience of mother, father, and child likes K3G much more than Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. As for me, Kuch Kuch… will always be special for me. But I feel I’ve grown as a director. There’s certainly more commerce involved here than in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.”
7. How did Johar make sure that the responsibilities of making a bigger film than Kuch Kuch Hota Hai did not weigh on K3G? “I've done the same things in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. But since I was new back then, nobody spoke about sequences such as when Rani Mukerji sang 'Om Jai Jagdish' in the middle of a college, when a namaaz intercut into a Hindu wedding, which got a lots reaction in UP (Uttar Pradesh). Even when the child sings 'Jana Gana Mana' at his annual day function, it was to make Shah Rukh Khan’s character realise that Hrithik is his brother. I used commercial devices to move the story forward. I never forced them into the story. Even when Hrithik arrives in London, I used a crowd-wooing device. Normally, foreign shores are announced with a Western tune. I played 'Vande Mataram.' But even there, the commerce doesn’t bring the business of the storytelling to a standstill. While the song plays in the background, Hrithik goes about the business of looking for his brother. I’d like to tell you, there are two performances in the film I’ve no hand in. One is Mr Bachchan, the other is Shah Rukh Khan. They worked out everything completely. Mr Bachchan etched out every gesture and nuance in his performance. So did Shah Rukh Khan. He told me he’d be a baby in his father’s house. But he would leave as a man, and when then he reunites with his father again, as a child after 10 years. I left the men to do their own thing. I dealt much better with the women. I could tell Hrithik what to do. Strangely, I can’t tell Shah Rukh what to do. There’s too much awe and admiration. Though he isn’t much older than me, Shah Rukh is like a father figure. With Hrithik, we worked within a comfort zone. Perhaps I helped him with his performance. There was this little touch where he enters the house and sees his brother for the first time in London. I wanted the bag to fall from his hand, and I wanted him to bend down to wipe his tears. Though he has worked out the performance on his own, I helped Hrithik with little gestures. With the women, I went all-out. I loved working with Kajol, Bebo, and Jaya.
8. Johar consulted his mentor Aditya Chopra to ensure the confrontation sequences between Amitabh  Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan in K3G did not resemble Chopra’s Mohabbatein. “I sat down with Adi before making Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham to discuss what people will have to say about the film, and that the scenes between Mr Bachchan and Shah Rukh would be compared with .Mohabbatein. But there were many things in this story that I wanted to film. Adi told me to go ahead, and that’s what I did. I knew all this was coming. But I couldn’t even dream of making the film without Mr Bachchan. That’s why I went to him first. If he had said no, I’d have changed my plot. I would've not made the film the way it is.”

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

source https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/kabhi-khushi-kabhie-gham-turns-20-karan-johar-spells-out-10-lesser-known-facts-about-the-mother-of-multi-starrers-10212671.html