Dr. Arindam Chaudhuri has been positing on social media regularly on 20 years of his directorial debut, Rok Sako To Rok Lo. Despite the 5 National Awards for the 8 films he has produced till now (including three that he won personally), his only directorial venture didn’t really set the box office on fire. Made on a budget of ₹4cr, as per boxofficeindia.com it did a total business of ₹1.49cr. Many however believe it didn’t get the credit it deserved. For one, Arindam has never had a great relationship with the journalistic community and that has haunted him throughout his career. He has been highly critical of them and even started a media house that took out ‘The Sunday Indian’, the world’s only weekly magazine to come out in 14 languages to “show them what journalism is about” —as he stated to us when we got in touch with him to talk about RSTRL’s 20 years.
Arindam who is the Honorary Director of IIPM Think Tank, however has always been very proud of not just the films he produced aside of academics, but also about donning the director’s hat, as is evident from his numerous posts this week. He mentions in one of his posts, “Crazy experience it was. The director who was to originally direct backed out exactly 3 weeks before the shoot was to commence—based on the oldest issue of tinsel town. He was sure that with a huge set ready, and a multi crore advance paid out to the main lead, there was no way I would not bend to his whims. I didn’t. And decided to direct the film myself”.
So RSTRL —starring Sunny Deol, Namrata Shirodkar, Yash Pandit, Manjari Fadnnis, Archana Puran Singh, Rajit Kapur, Tinnu Anand, Tiku Talsania, Aanjjan Srivastav, Rakesh Bedi & Deepti Bhatnagar along with a host of new kids— was never supposed to be directed by Arindam at the first place. Not until three weeks before the shoot! That’s a huge deal to get into as someone with intense passion for cinema but zero experience. That too with such a big star cast. “I had produced only one film before RSTRL and as with most films that I even produced later, I had visited the sets only for a day. Which basically means I had seen just one days film shoot in my entire life before my first day on RSTRL sets “, says Arindam who was perhaps the first ever Director in Bollywood to be seen shooting an entire film in formal suits!
Arindam’s direction incidentally was praised by most. While Bollywood Hungama critic, Taran Adarsh white calling the film as one with “tremendous youth appeal”, wrote, “Arindam Chaudhuri makes a confident debut. An efficient storyteller, the debutante exhibits his grasp over the medium in dramatic as well as comic situations with elan”; TOI critic while praising his direction wrote, “As a debutante director, Arindam Chaudhuri does a good job” and went on to declare RSTRL as, “All in all, a fun-filled package of school pranks and youthful masti with liberal doses of good advice”.
RSTRL way back in 2004, was the first ever film in India to be released simultaneously on the mobile phones. Despite a high voltage much talked about marketing campaign from start to finish with the Mahurat Shot given by the legendary Yash Chopra (to whom the film was dedicated) in the presence of Raj Kumar Barjatya, Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini and the Music being launched by Farhan Akhtar to the youthful and sparkling creatives, a criticism was however that as a Management Guru, Arindam had claimed he was full proof with detailed Market Research. So what went wrong? Arindam is candid, “Market research can only say what will work. But if I fail to deliver what the market expects, I fail. I ignored a huge warning given to me by the pre-release research. It was clear that 2 hrs 40 min with mostly new actors was a huge risk. As a director the biggest mistake is to fall in love with your scenes and I fell into that trap. I was even told by Mukta Arts who had the central India distribution rights that they would increase the prints by a hundred more if I edited the film by about 40 min more. Not doing that was my biggest mistake.”
Topping the charts and praised by one and all, the music of RSTRL by Jatin-Lalit created a huge buzz. “Yes, apart from the music directors, Prasoon Joshi created magic with the lyrics. Rarely do you have a film with 4 variations of the title track —with two of them with an entirely different music! We even had for the first time an acronym version of the title track. Those days K3G and KKHH were in fashion so we had a title track version where we used RSTRL instead of Rok Sako To Rok Lo! We had the entire industry singing — from Shaan, Shreya, Alka Yagnik, Sonu Nigam, Babul Supriyo, Sunidhi to Abhijeet”, says Arindam.
Talking about the film, today many believe the message that RSTRL tried to convey is more relevant than ever before. Sunny Deol actually gave a standout inspirational performance as the anti education face of the film. Arindam reads out a message from the former Dean of FMS Delhi, Dr. J. K. Mitra which says, “RSTRL was an Iconic energy-booster movie of the new millennium. May be present time is comparatively unsuitable. May have to wait for another 5 years! But such a theme shall always have a longer reissue shelf-life with some tweeks. Then RSTRL 2 may follow”.
The sentiments echo what Subhash K Jha wrote in his review in 2004, “What redeems the film…are the bright patches of interactive dialogues. When the protagonist-students altercate with the snobs from another school, they bring with them an energetic social comment on the class distinctions that decide an individual’s future from his or birth, and how owning posh cars or dating pricey girls don’t translate into a successful life.”
Talking about the shelf life, RSTRL indeed got a huge boost when UTV launched its movie channel and took over the rights of the film and played it almost on a daily basis on their channel. “Yes, that’s the time I started getting more messages about how people loved the film and its message, than I got at the beginning”, says Arindam.
So is there an RSTRL 2 indeed coming up! No. “If my philosophy on education had to be made into a film, it has been made scene no scene into one. It’s called 3 IDIOTS. It’s almost as if Rajkumar Hirani had videos of my lecture in front of him as he directed the scenes. A student of mine in fact made a video after the film released comparing my lectures with the film (https://youtu.be/5oevC_hjYXc?feature=shared)! So I do not see another film being made on Indian education system when such a great director has already made such an iconic film” is Arindam’s clear answer. “However I do hope that both my films, RSTRL and Do Dooni Chaar are watched more and more by the coming generations as both of them deal with our school education system with very pertinent messages”, Arindam concludes.
Here are three links that Arindam shared on the RSTRL’s message that he wants everyone to see.
Part 1: The Elitist Education System— Through the Fight
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDsIOSkTO_s/?igsh=YWRiMW1rYWJuZXRj
Part 2: Humanity & Friendships vs Formal Degrees — Through Humour
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDsIqgTTRKp/?igsh=MWlqYWp2NGk3MWlyaw==
Part 3: Importance of Chasing your Passion over Bookish Classroom Education— Through a Song
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDsJGs3zbQz/?igsh=MXV4dzI4NnRtYmo0cw==
( Director of RSTRL, Dr. Arindam Chaudhuri looks back 20 years later)
