Real life, reel spins

Ronjita Kulkarni

Somehow, real life incidents have rarely featured in Hindi films.

In fact, these days, most ideas are derived from Hollywood, South Indian films or previous hits.

Basing films on real people and incidents are common in Hollywood. But once in a while, though, comes that stray film in Hindi. Like Suniel Shetty's character in Madhur Bhandarkar's next film, Aan, which seems to be inspired from the life of Daya Nayak, the cop who was nicknamed 'encounter specialist'. The Amitabh Dayal-Nandita Das starrer Kagaar was also based on the life of this policeman.

In Insaaf, Sanjay Suri plays an IAS officer whose wife is raped by a minister's son. This is based on a real-life incident in Bihar. Earlier, Shyam Benegal's Zubeidaa was based on the life and times of film critic-turned-director Khalid Mohamed's mother.

Some upcoming films will also be based on historical figures. Manisha Koirala will play Indira Gandhi in Nitin Keni's production. Sachin Khedekar will be seen as freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose in Shyam Benegal's Netaji. And Aamir Khan will play Mangal Pandey the brave sepoy who revolted against the British in Ketan Mehta's The Rising.

Rediff.com takes a look at some films based on real life incidents and people.

Four films were made simultaneously on this martyr who fought the British rule and was hanged at the young age of 23.

While the other three were quite dramatic, Rajkumar Santoshi's version won much praise for Ajay Devgan's performance. The actor even won the Filmfare Award that year.

J P Dutta's war epic, LoC-Kargil, was based on the Kargil War of 1999. Featuring 26 heroes and 11 heroines, the film was based on the soldiers who fought during this Indo-Pak war. The war claimed 449 soldiers from the Indian army.

Some of the actors in the film were Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Abhishek Bachchan, Manoj Bajpai, Ashutosh Rana, Raveena Tandon, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor and Esha Deol.

One of the soldiers who died in the Kargil war was Anuj Nayyar.

Dhoop was about the young martyr's parents and fiancée (played by Gul Panag) who were forced to come to terms with his untimely death.

Not only did they have to fight their emotions, they also had to fight bureaucracy and corruption to get a petrol pump as compensation for their son's death.

While Saif Ali Khan played his character in LoC-Kargil, Sanjay Suri played him in Dhoop.

Sushmita Banerjee went through hell after her marriage to Jaanbaz Khan led her to Taleban-occupied Afghanistan.

Fed up with the injustices done to her, she resolved to escape to India. After her first failed attempt, the Taleban even issued a fatwa (death sentence) against her. But the iron-willed lady tried again and succeeded.

Manisha Koirala played Banerjee in the film. Reportedly, Banerjee had hoped for Rekha or Dimple Kapadia to play her character.

Mumbai police inspector Daya Nayak is a veteran of 83 encounters.

Nayak, who started his career cleaning tables at Mumbai restaurants, hails from Karnataka.

The policeman is the inspiration of such films like Kagaar, Madhur Bhandarkar's Aan and Ram Gopal Varma's Ab Tak Chhappan.

Salim Shamsher Shaikh stunned Mumbai when he raped a 12-year-old girl in a local train in front of six commuters. More shocking, the passengers did not even intervene and stop him.

The girl was mentally challenged and was reported missing from her home for nine months before the incident.

While the accused has been convicted with a 12-year jail sentence, Mehul Kumar now portrays the tragic incident on screen.

In Jaago, Raveena Tandon plays the victim's mother and Manoj Bajpai plays the policeman investigating the case. The film will release on February 6.