#100days100scenes : the downmarket dilwala , Govinda aala re.

Another Indian cinema director who created an ecosystem with him was David Dhawan. His partnership with Govinda as the hero, Kadar Khan as his opponent and sometimes a Johnny Lever and a Shakti Kapoor thrown in. Yes David Dhawan stooped to low levels of vulgarity with Raja Babu. Govinda went overboard in many movies. But I cant complete an Indian cinema comedy mini series mentioning this duo.

Govinda's story is a riches to rags to fame. His family moved from Carter Road to Virar due to the financial problems of his father who produced a movie that bankrupted him. The Virar ka Chokra fought hard , copied Mithun and anyone he could lay his hands on and became the dancing star and then somewhat romantic star. After an ordinary run in the late 80s, he struck gold dust when he paired with David Dhawan in the 90s delivering one comedy hit after another starting with Shola aur Shabnam. He was the equivalent of a one-man entertainment package, somewhat reminiscent of a travelling caravan type entertainment with slapstick thrown in.

More importantly he represented the Mumbai Virar ka Chokra with the streetsmartness you see in local trains where in a Virar train they wont let you get down at Andheri. He found a niche when the audience did not have any real stars to look upto before the onslaught of the younger brigade of Aamir, Salman and SRK. His movies were designed to be laugh riots although there were numerous flops when the formula became over used .

The David Dhawan- Govinda combo gave 17 movies. Around 10 of them were super hits with Aankhen breaking all records. Just imagine  this scene where a monkey is driving a car with 2 youth, and one of them criticizes the monkey to 'say Rancho nowadays your driving has become rash'. Even when someone like Amitabh starred with him in Bade Miya Chhote Miya, I daresay Govinda overshadowed him since he owned that genre of movies.


Before the pseudo-secular- intellectual debates started in India, one discussion that polarized college goers was if they claimed their love for Govinda movies openly. It was considered cheap by many girls and I have heard ' Shee, you enjoy Govinda movies'. For people who havent experienced the sweaty scent of Mumbai local trains and had masala soda in the platform, humi downmarket hai to kya hua, dilwale hai.

Enjoy this scene where the trio of Govinda, Kadar Khan and Johnny Lever make merry in Dulheraja - a David Dhawan product. . It has the classic Govinda - Kadar Khan sparring with all the one-upmanship and the streetsmartness that I just described. I also love the 'pyaz ki chilke' type description of people to describe an inconsequential person and so on.  Even the plot of this movie - a guy opens up a dhaba in a 5-star hotel by encroaching the land is so 'Indiagenious'. This scene will also explain if someone says why are you dressed like Govinda when you were a green or orange shirt. Also it has the famous David Dhawan obsession with Misaals ( phrases or idioms).



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