A lacklustre promotion tour by the leads in Delhi certainly did not go with the spirit of the film, says Unnati Joshi
Riteish Deshmukh entered the hall asking for a strong black coffee while Nargis Fakhri said she was in meditation zone. Three days prior to the release of their film, the actors were neck deep in promotions and while one looked dead tired, the returnee import happily caught 40 winks.
Still Riteish did the talking while Nargis remained mum. Was it a PR strategy to avoid questions about her rumoured break-up, US trip and the recent dress controversy where in a reality show she was asked to pin up her dress or was she actually sleep deprivedIJ Only she could tell.
“Banjo has a different energy and I feel the instrument is lost somewhere.” Explaining his quote, Riteish said, “Not only in India but this art form has lost its name world over and it’s because of technology. There were banjo players till the mid 90s but later keyboards came. They started playing drums, banjo and everything else on that board. And now everything has been reduced to a console with a DJ mixing songs and people dancing to a mashup. But let me tell you, I have heard DJs play and have heard live sound, the vibration that a live song gives cannot be achieved by synthetic players."
About the film, he said “Banjo is a film that represents street artistes and their issues, which are common to original artistes everywhere. The artist needs the right platform. People from small villages come to shows like Dance India Dance or Sa Re Ga Ma Pa and their talent gets recognised. You need a stage to get that amount of recognition”.
What made producer Krishika lulla give a nod for the filmIJ “I wanted to make something very different, real and very rooted and which could connect to people. All the street musicians are well-known in Hollywood but not here. The movie is a good thought put together and the content was strong. For me, content is very important to produce any film.”
“Riteish did a lot of hardwork for the project. We waited for four months for his hair to grow. He has given his heart and soul,” she added.
At this point, Nargis was taking deep breaths with her eye shut when she was disturbed by a question, “Are you talking to meIJ I am in the meditation zone,” she said and everyone laughed.
Did she know what a banjo wasIJ “I had never heard of banjo before, had seen people play it but was clueless about its name,” she said and went back to sleeping. Certainly not the body language of one who seemingly intends a long innings in Bollywood.
Riteish who is a non-smoker, had to smoke herbal cigarettes for the film. When asked about the challenges in enacting a demanding role, Riteish told us, “There were many challenges, starting from the long hair. Surviving with long hair for too long is a challenge; it takes a lot of time to dry. It was a struggle every morning. When you do a song like this (Bappa), Riteish said pointing to the poster, the colour keeps coming out for the next five days. These were the physical difficulties. Now about playing the banjo and trying to understand the instrument. Either you play it like banjo players do, put it on the lap and play or you have to adapt to the character and play according to him. like I said, he is arrogant and aggressive, he believes he is a rockstar of his slum and he doesn’t care for anything. He is perpetually drunk. So, you have to play like him. And so I played it while standing and it was like playing a tabla while standing. I kept Zakir Hussain sahab in mind, never tried to copy him. He is too great to be copied”.
Minutes after the trailer was out people started comparingBanjo with Rockstar when we asked about it, Riteish said, “Not people, one journalist wrote so and people followed him. People will compare Banjo to Rockstar, Rock On because all these are musicals. A boy falls in love with a girl and eventually gets the girl. It could be Dilwale, Jab We Met, Tanu Weds Manu or Tanu Weds Manu Returns. What I am trying to say is that format can be same but the flavour and the journey is different”.
Banjo is a musical with Riteish Deshmukh heading as a banjo player and Nargis Fakhri as a US based DJ. If Riteish’s experimentation will work along with Nargis, she might get back in the race.