Chashme Buddoor (, also known as Chashme Baddoor) is a 1981 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film written and directed by Sai Paranjpye, adapted from Paranjpye's teleplay Dhuan Dhuan. The film stars Farooq Sheikh, Deepti Naval, Saeed Jaffrey, Rakesh Bedi, Leela Mishra and Ravi Baswani. The story revolves around three close friends, two of whom (Bedi and Baswani) fall in love at first sight with their neighbour (Naval), but after failing to woo her, and discovering that the third friend (Sheikh) is dating the girl, they vow to end their burgeoning relationship.
After watching Sparsh at a film festival in early 1980, producer Gul Anand, asked its writer/director Paranjpye for an escapist film, who then came up with an idea, based on her Doordarshan teleplay Dhuan Dhuan, which after some input from Anand would form the screenplay. Principal photography took place in Delhi during October–November of 1980. The music was composed by Raj Kamal.
Chashme Buddoor was released on 8 May 1981 to critical and commercial success. The film also received five Filmfare Award nominations. Retrospectively, the film has been analysed for its themes of nostalgia, bachelorhood, romance and parody of Hindi film clichés. The film is considered a classic now, and has since gained a cult following. Two remakes, Malayalam-language Odaruthammava Aalariyam directed by Priyadarshan and Hindi-language Chashme Baddoor directed by David Dhawan, were released in 1984 and 2013, respectively.
Plot
Siddharth Parashar, Omi Sharma and Jai "Jomo" Lakhanpal are close friends and roommates enrolled at Delhi University. While Siddharth is a dedicated student focused on securing a stable future, Omi and Jomo lead a boisterous lifestyle. One day, Omi and Jomo spot their neighbour, Neha Rajan, from their balcony. Enamored, they both try to win her affection, but eventually give up after their efforts fail to impress her.
A few days later, Neha visits their apartment as a door-to-door salesgirl for a washing powder company. Spotting her through the peep hole, Omi and Jomo hide, forcing Siddharth to answer the door. Siddharth, who barely speaks to women, reluctantly lets her give him a demonstration. After sharing a conversation, they begin to date each other, unbeknownst to Omi and Jomo. Meanwhile, Siddharth also gets a job in a company, whose manager happens to be Neha's father, a fact that Siddharth is not aware of. Siddharth and Neha's talks soon turn to marriage.
One day, however, Omi and Jomo accidentally discover Siddharth and Neha together. In a fit of jealousy, they vow to end their relationship, which would also enable them to avenge their humiliations inflicted by her. They character assassinate her in the eyes of Siddharth, leading him to break up with her. Depressed, Siddharth starts ignoring his work, and even offers to resign from the job.
One day, Omi and Jomo discover poison in their flat, which prompts them to mistakenly conclude that Siddharth is considering suicide. Frightened for Siddharth's life, they confess everything to him. Siddharth pays a visit to Neha, who is unresponsive towards the abrupt change in his behaviour.
Seeing Neha's predicament, her grandmother decides to take matters in her own hands and visit Siddharth's flat. Though he happens to be out, Omi and Jomo are there. Together, the trio orchestrate a plan to reunite the couple. As a spate of kidnapping, especially of young girls, is taking place in Delhi, they plot a staged kidnapping of Neha outside a temple. Siddharth is vaguely instructed by Omi and Jomo to be outside the temple, so that he can witness the 'kidnapping,' and save her, which should lead them to reconcile. However, she is kidnapped by the real gang. Siddharth gives chase, and fights them, eventually rescuing her. Siddharth and Neha profess their love for each other and gets married.
Cast
Farooq Sheikh as Siddharth Parashar: A shy, studious and guileless Delhi University student, aspiring to be an economist, and a close friend of Omi and Jomo, who are also his roommates Deepti Naval as Neha Rajan: Siddharth, Omi and Jomo's pretty neighbour Saeed Jaffrey as Lallan Miyan: The local paan and cigarette stall owner with a heart of gold Rakesh Bedi as Omi Sharma: A boisterous Delhi University student, and a close friend of Siddharth and Jomo, who are also his roommates Leela Mishra as Dadi Amma: Neha's loveable grandmother Ravi Baswani as Jai "Jomo" Lakhanpal: A boisterous Delhi University student, and a close friend of Siddharth and Omi, who are also his roommates Vinod Doshi as Neha's father Ranjan Grewal as Neha's brother Amitabh Bachchan as himself Rekha as herself Kimti Anand as the waiter (uncredited) Chaman Bagga as the lead kidnapper (uncredited) Vinod Nagpal as the music teacher (uncredited) Sai Paranjpye as a customer to Lallan Miyan (uncredited) the radio announcer (uncredited)
Alka Nupur and Winnie Joglekar (Paranjpye's daughter) also appeared, though went uncredited for their roles.
Production
Development Shortly after getting impressed by her debut film Sparsh at the Tashkent Film Festival that took place during early 1980, producer/distributor Gul Anand asked Sai Paranjpye one evening to meet him to discuss an important matter. They decided to do so at the park in front of her hotel. While having ice-cream with her, and doing rounds of the park, he asked her for a "pure fun, feel-good film with no social message." Paranjpye then proposed a film based on her popular one-hour Doordarshan teleplay, Dhuan Dhuan (), which she wrote in the 1970s, inspired by her disillusionment towards chain-smoking girl-chasing youths, about three chain-smoking college-going friends/roommates, who one by one, try to befriend a girl, whom they saw from their terrace, and all of whose efforts go up in smoke (dhuan), but not before each spin yarns to others. In the end, however, they decide to 'let the girl go' so as not to cause animosity among them. Anand liked the idea, but wanted one of the three slackers to be a hero material, "sensible, studious, helpful, hard-working," whose love story should "blossom, not go up in smoke." They agreed upon a month for her to come up with a new outline. Upon returning to India, however, she dismissed the whole episode as typical Hindi film producer fancy, only to later realise that he was being earnest when he called her on the day he said he would call. She apologised, requested for a grace period, and began to work on the idea.
The name of the female lead, Neha, was suggested by the film's lyricist Indu Jain, and Omi was named after Om Prakash Makkad, the film's editor. A well-received one-act comedy, The Soap Fairy, that Paranjpye presented at the Gokhale Hall about a college student who becomes a door-to-door soap salesgirl, in reality itself a popular activity among girls at that time, was the basis for the Chamko scene. Ever since she was a child, Paranjpye had been bothered by actors breaking into a song and running around trees, with no one to question their conduct. That is what prompted her to include the scene where people make fun of Siddharth and Neha when they start to sing. The kidnapping idea could have been inspired by actual kidnapping–murder of two young siblings that took place in the late 1970s Delhi. In the vein of her plays Let's Play House, about three women as paying guests, and Albel, about three murder convicts sharing a prison cell, the film is also about three people of different temperaments living under the same roof. It took ten to fourteen days for her to finish the first draft. Older characters were subsequently added as Anand wanted the film to appeal to a wider demographic, not just younger audiences. Anand's sister, Jayshree Anand-Makhija of PLA Entertainment, joined him as an uncredited producer of the film.
Pre-production Farooq Sheikh wanted to work under a respected banner, when Anand signed him. It was his first comedy film. Coincidentally, he attended a college named Siddharth College of Law once. Poonam Dhillon was originally considered for the role of Neha. Paranjpye wanted Deepti Naval, who was also eager to work with a respected banner, "an actor who did not look larger than life, rather someone who the youth of the country would relate to," who was then eventually cast. Naval saw her real self as far more stronger than her character. The washing powder Chamko, which Naval's character sells, was actually a brand available in the market at that time. Amid photos of writers, philosophers and world leaders, Siddharth's wall also features a black-and-white candid shot of Naval.
Saeed Jaffrey, a London-based BBC and West End play actor, was looking for a suitable break in Hindi film industry, when Anand offered him a role in the film. He spent time with 50-something paan-kiosk owners of Old Delhi (particularly the Jama Masjid area) in honing his character, "to observe the body language, mannerisms, language and its nuances," Paranjpye wrote. He was also very particular about his character's name. Names such as Lachhan, Fumman, Gulshan, Jumman, Dadoo and Babban were rejected, until one day the name Lallan came to him. He was actually taken for a real paanwala (paan vendor), as someone tried buying paan from him. The paan stall was erected by a tobacco company. That is why cigarettes and tobacco of the company's brand was displayed across its walls.
When then-recent FTII-graduate Rakesh Bedi was told by his batchmate Virendra Saini, the film's cinematographer, about the role, he went and heard the character. Anand recommended Bedi to Paranjpye; she saw some footage of his class exercises and selected him. Bedi contributed "a little bit of sher o shayri" to the script, given that he was interested in Urdu poetry. Like his character, he also used to have a bachelor pad. The coconut ashtray was his idea, as he used to carve ashtrays out of coconut shells for the smokers in his bachelor pad. Paranjpye was adamant on casting Leela Mishra. Strict about her payment, she ended up being the only actor in the film who was paid her usual fees, that of per day.
Naseeruddin Shah, who had known Ravi Baswani from the latter's theatre days, was visiting Delhi when Baswani happened to read Paranjpye's script for Sparsh. Impressed, Baswani begged Shah to recruit him as his spot boy, eventually getting hired for props. Baswani liked to joke that Paranjpye offered him Chashme Buddoor as a "bonus" for his backstage work in Sparsh. In reality, when Baswani's name came up during casting, Paranjpye wrote him a letter asking for his immediate reply, so she could stop her scouting. It was his acting debut. He was only paid for his one month work. Vinod Doshi, Paranjpye's friend, was the chairman of a company, while Kimti Anand and Vinod Nagpal had a background in theatre and Doordarshan serials. Chaman Bagga, an old Doordarshan colleague of Paranjpye, agreed to play the lead kidnapper when she asked him, on the promise that she'd make him the lead in her next film.
When Paranjpye explained the song situations to Indu Jain, she came up with the lyrics, but since Jain was in Japan, she had to dictate the lyrics through the telephone, and Paranjpye had to write them down. Paranjpye was initially skeptical regarding Raj Kamal's music, who was Anand's discovery, but ended up pleased with his work on the film.