Do you remember Pinchoo Kapoor? He was big (literally) in the 70s and 80s. He was in such master-entertainers as Agent Vinod, which was during the heyday (if there ever was one) of Mahendra Sandhu's Hindi film career. Mahendra Sandhu was a Punjabi actor and I have seen him in a couple of Punjabi films (don't ask, you end up with this stuff when you're surfing channels at PD block, late at night) - and he had made his Hindi film comeback in the mid-80s, out of the blue, when he starred in what was, for some reason, a very widely advertized movie - Kaun Kitney Paani Mein, the poster for which movie showed him with a gun in one hand, and a kid (his son, it turns out if you watch the film, which I did!) wrapped around one of his shins. The telltale dialogue which lets you know what the title of the movie was, just in case you forgot during the past hour and half, is: ``Yeh to waqt hi bataayega, ke kaun kitne paani mein hain!'' By the way, here's another link to Agent Vinod, this one at IMDB. You can look up all the interesting character names for this movie on this site.

Anyway. Pinchoo Kapoor played the same role (as do many Hindi film actors/actresses) in many movies. If you haven't already clicked on the link highlighted with his name, you are really lazy. If you have clicked on it, you will see that he really was in a lot of movies, and did play almost the same character in each movie (a few exceptions, which I will mentioned at the bottom of this page)...

Instead of telling you what his role was, I will just tell you the whole scene so that you will know exactly what type of guy he played.

Typical movie: poor hero, rich (and usually haughty) heroine, who eventually gets her shrew tamed by the hero when they fall in love. Rich girl has rich industrialist dad (who might be connected with the underworld, or just might be one of those people who piss rosewater), so that when she informs him of her love interest, he does one of two things:

1) He acts happy, invites the guy to the house, she happily asks her boyfriend to show up at some appointed time, he shows up, seedha saadha insaan, with his ordinary grey-coloured safari suit (Yes, I AM talking of the beginning of the movie Avtaar starring Kaka Cola and Shabana Azmi, and Pinchoo was definitely her dad in this flick. Does that explain the safari suit?). Dad waits till daughter leaves to bring boyfriend water or something, and immediately jarring violin music announces dad's intentions. He tells hero: I know what you're after. She's an only child of one of this sheher's richest industrialists, and you're just in it for the money, so you are playing this game with her. But: I can understand, we all want to be rich, so why don't you just take this chequebook and fill in any amount you want? At this point, the hero either sings ``Le jaayenge, le jaayenge, dilwale dulhaniya le jaayenge'' like Shashi Kapoor in Chor Machaaye Shor, or takes a knife and draws some of his blood and writes the heroine's name (Radha) on the cheque.

2) Dad gets mad. This dad is once again the rich industrialist, and *might* have connections to the underworld, once again. Dad delivers the typical dad dialogue: ``Aaj se tumhara college-vollege jaana band!'' and heroine sobs that she will try and go meet the hero, and dad says, over my dead body and asks a couple of his bodyguards, maybe Sukhia and Victor, to make sure she doesn't get out of her room.

You know the dad I'm talking about? Well Pinchoo Kapoor has played both these dads! And many more!

Exceptions to the rule: He was the REAL (oops did I ruin it for anyone?) Interpol Inspector in Don 1.

Hmm... Interesting!!!!

Don?!?!
Don!!
Don 1???

Now why, you are asking, would I refer to the famous Amitabh angry-young-man (AYM) movie as Don 1 instead of just Don, because we all know, don't we, that there WAS only one Don???

Think again.

If you don't already know which movie I am talking about, you are sad and pathetic. And if you lived in Bombay during the mid- and late-80s, you are also a blind, worthless piece of shit (I'm bitter, so shoot me).

Why do you think I was writing this article? Yes, Pinchoo Kapoor was involved, but there was (of course) an ulterior motive. Just as the makers of Don II had an ulterior motive. They just wanted a stupid Hiba Video Film with almost no original script so that they could play some songs that they thought would (or maybe they were already beginning to) bring all India to their feet and get their feet tapping.This movie sound obscure to you? Well, apparently its so fucking obscure that even IMDB doesn't have a link to it!!!

Anyways. Here I go.

The year was 1987. Suddenly, Indian music directors heard some sounds from across the border. It was none other than Pakistani ``sensation'', Hassan Jahangir.

Ah!!!!! Now, you are saying, I know what you are talking about...

Once they knew that there was someone called Hassan Jahangir, and he was driving Pakistan crazy with his cool music, they decided they ought to capitalize off of it. At the same time, for some reason they decided NOT TO RIPOFF his music, but instead to bring him across the border and ask him to perform all the songs so that they could re-record it and sell it in India. At the same time, the good people at Hiba Video (Video films were hugely popular - though not very successful - during the late 80s... the only person who I can safely say made a considerable amount of money from them was Gulshan Kumar. Playback singing careers that were made from video films: playback singers Kumar Sanu. Anuradha Paudwal made her career lift off in the 90s with GK, so did Udit Narayan, even though he was already famous for Papa kehte hain) decided they need to get hold of a few of Jahangir's song and put them into a movie so that they could make some money off it.

Hence, Don II.

Actors/actresses who made minor careers out of video movies:  Are you kidding? They didn't even have minor careers! Remember Sahil and Veverly introduced in Phir Lehraaya Lal Dupatta?! But: Avinash Vadhwan made some movies in Bollywood after Hiba died out. And, then there was Jeet Upendra.

As I write this down, as soon as I wrote the name Jeet Upendra down, I could hear the intro to Hawa Hawa start playing in my head.

Do you? Dammit, don't you?

The idea behind Don II was simple: get a script from somewhere, somehow, and then just add Hassan Jahangir tunes into the mix wherever possible. The result was weird. It was widely advertized on both Doordarshan and our local ishtyle cable TV.  They always showed the clips of Hawa Hawa with Jeet Upendra holding up the girls picture and Aa Jaana with the other dude and his cronies bothering some girls on the street, until the cop shows up. While both clips made you want to watch the movie, when you actually watch the movie and realize ten years or so later that it was a ripoff of West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet rolled into one, what do you do? You take advantage of the movie's obscurity, and rip if off again!!!! The result of this second ripoff was, of course, the famous Shah Rukh and Aishwarya Rai starrer, Josh. It had neither the charm nor the raw talent that was present in Don II! So raw, it made sushi look like well-done steak!

Don II kya magaaaaaan picture tha. The whole movie was about an hour and a half long, because they used less than half of the songs from the Hassan Jahangir cassette (``Beat Music: Disco Leader 1987 Hassan Jahangir''), and with good reason. Although I LOVE the songs Hawa Hawa and Aa Jaana, it is easy to see (in retrospect) that Hassan Jahangir can't sing if someone held a gun to his head (if he were in this movie, someone definitely would have!)... I recently got hold of this cassette (thanks to Raghu!!!) - I have been waiting soooo long!!! Whoever wrote the music and the lyrics - thanks.

Alright, so my little nostalgia-fit is over.

Where does our friend Pinchoo feature in all of this?

He was the babe's dad, of course! He was in dad-mode #2, in which he says "aaj se tumhara college jaana band" etc, but wasn't part of the underworld. The word Don had nothing to do with this movie at all, except as (maybe) a hidden reference to the fact that Pinchoo was part of the original cast for Don. I refuse to believe that the people who made this movie were so deeply cryptic or even had an ounce of respect for Pinchoo.

But:

Pinchoo died right after this movie was ready, so at the beginning of this movie, they dedicate the whole movie to his memory!!!!

THIS IS HOW YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DIE.

Poor Pinchoo!

Moral of the story: Make sure before you die that your last project didn't involve the words: Don and Hiba, and the phrase ``Straight to video'' or ``Video release''.