25 Years of Hey Ram EXCLUSIVE: 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
The Pan-India phenomenon has been on the rise since Baahubali. But even before that, the trend was being experimented with by Kamal Haasan. He released films like Indian (1996) in Hindi as Hindustani and remade Avvai Shanmughi (1996) into Hindi as Chachi 420 (1999). With Hey Ram, he went one step ahead – he shot the film in both Tamil and Hindi. It starred Kamal Haasan in the lead and also featured Shah Rukh Khan as well as Rani Mukerji in pivotal roles. The ambitious venture completed 25 years on February 18 and Bollywood Hungama stumbled upon an interesting fact about the film.
A source told Bollywood Hungama, “Hey Ram was nearly 210 minutes long. Bharat Shah presented the film in Hindi and he realized that its run time was a bit too much for the Hindi-speaking audiences. Hence, he requested Kamal Haasan to bring down the film’s length. Kamal, however, was against the idea. He felt that the film has a long duration for a reason and if any scene was cut, it would hamper the film and also his creative vision.”
The source continued, “Bharat Shah understood where Kamal Haasan came from but he also realized that things need to be looked at practically. Bharat bhai had a great bond with director Rajkumar Santoshi. Hence, he told the latter to watch the film and reduce the film’s run time by 30 minutes. Kamal Haasan was not informed about it.”
The source said, “Rajkumar Santoshi agreed to Bharat Shah’s request. He watched Hey Ram and then edited the film neatly in such a way that the essence of the film was not lost. This edited version was then brought to the cinemas in the Hindi-speaking market.”
How Dil Se’s edited version treated audiences to ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ twice
This was not the first such South film which was edited in a certain manner to please the Hindi audience. Dil Se (1998), which incidentally also starred Shah Rukh Khan, was similarly edited without the knowledge or approval of its maker – Mani Ratnam.
Bollywood Hungama reported in August 2022 that viewers used to come to cinemas to watch the iconic song ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’, which appeared in the first 15 minutes and then left. This affected the samosa and popcorn sales in theatres. Hence, exhibitors hit upon the novel idea of placing ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ in the end as well.
Yet again, it was Bharat Shah who was the presenter and he was okay with this idea. Ram Gopal Varma, one of the producers of Dil Se, confirmed to Bollywood Hungama, “Bharat Shah told me that ‘Bahut gadbad ho gaya hai. There’s one way of saving the situation’. According to him, the moment Shah Rukh and Manisha Koirala hug each other, we’ll cut the part where the bomb goes off. And we’ll add the ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ song! He reasoned that it’s the most liked song of the film and audience would get happy on seeing it twice. Mani Ratnam got very angry with the suggestion. He asked me a valid question, ‘How can Shah Rukh Khan hug Manisha Koirala and imagine Malaika Arora?’! I told Bharat about what Mani said. To which he said, ‘Toh yeh sab pehla sochna chahiye tha na. Aur usko bolo ki audience itna nahi sochenge. Unko do baar gaana dekhne ko mila hai toh woh log khush ho jaayenge!”
Also Read: Hindustani 2 trailer launch: Kamal Haasan talks highly of Shah Rukh Khan: “He worked in Hey Ram for FREE. That can only be done by a fan, a connoisseur of art and a good actor. I am ever thankful to him”
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