Remembering Kundan Shah’s classic Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron: It was a film well ahead of its time

Kundan Shah, the acclaimed director of films like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, has died of a heart attack. He was 69 years old.

Kundan Shah, the acclaimed director of films like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, has died of a heart attack. He was 69 years old.

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron was released in 1983 and went on to become a cult classic.

One of the finest dark comedies in the history of Indian cinema, Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is totally a director’s film. On the outset, it looks like a film made with mostly a zealous heart, but a second look ensures the audiences get the intended satires and black comedy without much effort.

Be it Om Puri’s drunk contractor or Pankaj Kapur’s shrewd businessman, it totally reflected the ‘80s marred by the license raj and government’s inability to curb corruption. It showed a nexus between the important pillars of democracy and how it wants to maintain the status quo in order to keep a rotten system in place for as long as possible.

Later, when the film become one of the iconic Hindi productions ever, everybody started to get the hidden metaphors and how smartly it was all planned.

Be it the name of the park where two rookie photographers click pictures or the names of the characters, everything signified something. In fact, the last Ram Leela scene has so many layers to it.

From making a comment on our religious fragility to using symbols for our personal benefits, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro talked about phenomenon that took over India in the ‘90s. That way it was much ahead of its time.

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