The UNTOLD story of how Bharat Shah cut the Hindi version of the Kamal Haasan-Shah Rukh Khan starrer by 30 minutes with Rajkumar Santoshi’s help and WITHOUT Haasan’s knowledge
Since Baahubali, the Pan-India phenomenon has grown. However, Kamal Haasan was also experimenting with the trend before that. He converted Avvai Shanmughi (1996) into Hindi as Chachi 420 (1999) and published Indian (1996) in Hindi as Hindustani. He took things a step further with Hey Ram, shooting the movie in both Tamil and Hindi. In addition to Kamal Haasan in the lead, Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukerji played important parts. On February 18, the ambitious project celebrated its 25th anniversary, and Bollywood Hungama discovered a fascinating secret about the movie.
Bollywood Hungama was informed by a source that Hey Ram lasted about 210 minutes. After showing the movie in Hindi, Bharat Shah saw that the duration was a little too long for viewers who could only understand Hindi. Therefore, he asked Kamal Haasan to shorten the movie. However, Kamal opposed the notion. He believed that there was a reason the movie was so long and that cutting any scene would undermine both the movie and his artistic vision.
The source went on to say, “Bharat Shah recognized the importance of taking a pragmatic approach, but he also recognized where Kamal Haasan was coming from. Director Rajkumar Santoshi was very close to Bharat bhai. As a result, he instructed the latter to view the movie and cut its duration by half. No one told Kamal Haasan about it.
According to the source, Bharat Shah’s plea was granted by Rajkumar Santoshi. After watching Hey Ram, he carefully edited the movie such that its main ideas were preserved. The Hindi-speaking market thereafter saw this revised version in theaters.
How Dil Se’s edited version treated audiences to ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ twice
This was not the first South movie to be edited in a particular way to appeal to Hindi viewers. The 1998 film Dil Se, which also starred Shah Rukh Khan, was similarly altered without Mani Ratnam’s knowledge or consent.
In August 2022, Bollywood Hungama revealed that people used to attend movies just to hear the famous song “Chaiyya Chaiyya,” which played for the first fifteen minutes before leaving. This had an impact on theater popcorn and samosa sales. Thus, exhibitors also came up with the creative concept of putting “Chaiyya Chaiyya” at the end.
Once more, Bharat Shah was the presenter, and he approved of this concept. “Bharat Shah told me that ‘Bahut gadbad ho gaya hai,'” the Dil Se producer Ram Gopal Varma acknowledged to Bollywood Hungama. The problem can be saved in one way. He claims that the scene where the bomb detonates will be cut the instant Shah Rukh and Manisha Koirala embrace. We will also include the song “Chaiyya Chaiyya”! He reasoned that since it is the movie’s most popular song, viewers would be pleased after seeing it twice. The suggestion made Mani Ratnam furious. “How can Shah Rukh Khan imagine Malaika Arora while hugging Manisha Koirala?” was a legitimate question he posed to me.”! I said
