19 Years Of The Legend Of Bhagat Singh, Unknown Facts

 Bhagat Singh  got  a  slew of bio-pics  in  the year 2002.  Ajay Devgan , Sonu Sood  and Bobby Deol  all played Bhagat Singh during the same years and within weeks of one another. Devgan’s  Bhagat act  got the  best reviews, though it was a boxoffice failure.Some  interesting facts  on the film.

1.     Director Raj Kumar Santoshi’s  first choice for  Bhagat Singh was Sunny Deol. But Sunny Paji claimed  he had date issues. Actually his  brother  Bobby  was  already playing Bhagat Singh,so  he opted out. Santoshi then  approached Devgan who was  more than  happy to step into the part. It got him  the National award  for best actor.

2.     This  was Santoshi’s  9^th  film as a director and his first  historical/bio-pic. The  film’s failure disappointed Santoshi. “It could’ve done   much better.But nobody lost  money.I am very happy with  it, ” Santoshi  told me. Be as it may, he eventually dropped plans to direct  another historical entitled  Jis Lahore Nahin Dekhia Woh Jamia Hi Nahin with Sanjay Dutt in  the lead.  Come to think of it, Santoshi has  not directed  anything since 2013.

3.     The Legend  Of Bhagat Singh was a title that  didn’t go down well with the audience. Many thought the film was in the English language. In those days  titles in the English language  didn’t work. Nonetheless  the film worked  better at  the  boxoffice than   23rd March 1931: Shaheed released  on the same  day as  The  Legend Of Bhagat Singh.

4.     The music  by A  R  Rahman played a big hand  in  the impact(limited  as  it was)   of the film. A  R Rahman  , however was not pleased with the way his  songs were used  in  the  film. In an  interview with me  in  2005, he said, “I’m done with period films now. I think Mangal Pandey would be last film of that ilk.I’ve worked hard on each of the themes but the end result hasn’t been worth it. The songs were either pushed into the background or not used at all. Or worse still, used badly. I feel very frustrated by this. But what can I do? Composing tunes is my job. How they are used is not up to me.”

5.     18 years after The Legend  Of Bhagat Singh, Ajay Devgan played another  historical character  Tanaji Malusre  in  Tanhaji. This  was far  more  successful.