Ye desh hai superheroes ka
Two Bachchans are better than one
Desai justifiably jumped at the chance to direct Amitabh. "I analysed my situation. I was very fortunate to have someone any director would give his arm and leg to work with. And when he asked me to make something for him, it had to be very special. Now, Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra have done so much with Amitabh Bachchan, I decided to get the best of him. I wanted to explore the complete entertainer as well as the angry man - the two great images he developed along the way. So, in Toofan, the double role gave me a chance to have Amitji as a magician, an entertainer, as well as Amitji the bounty hunter, the angry man. I thought it summed up the two iconic images, at least to my mind. Of course, he has also excelled at romance and whatever he does, really, but these two images - the Zanjeer angry man and the Amar Akbar Anthony comic entertainer - were the ones I wanted to capture, together."
Toofan, a lighter film than Shahenshah, did indeed provide laughs as well as action. Bachchan played goofy magician Shyam as well as crossbow-wielding Toofan, and the combination spelt trouble for Goga Kapoor, a villain who escapes from prison in an awesomely comic-book-like elaborate manner. He borrows one matchstick a day from the guards to scratch his ear, and scrapes off the powder, setting it aside. Desai fondly remembers, "That scene with the matchsticks was totally Salimsaab's (veteran scriptwriter Salim Khan) idea. I loved it, the idea of a man borrowing one match a day, and having enough gunpowder for an explosion 20 years later. It was a fabulous idea. And then he had his escape from jail, etc. I also loved the idea of the hooked arm, especially when reversed in the climax."
"Salimsaab wrote the script, story, screenplay and dialogues. It was this wonderful one-man show, and my father and I were involved at every level. We were looking at the comedy side, to explore what we hadn't done. We'd done an Amar Akbar Anthony and a Mard. In those days, there was a lot of interest about magicians PC Sorkar and Gogia Pasha, and we decided to do a magician because it was visually appealing as well. Audiences like it when a magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat. As for the bounty hunter, that was Salim's idea. He said that the opposite of a magician would be a man who hunts down criminals -- a modern day Robin Hood. That is how Toofan was born."
Was it difficult convincing Amitji to come aboard such an outlandish project? "He is so humble that I always tell him he is like a tiger who doesn't know his own strength. He liked the script, and asked me if he would be 'able' to do this. When he knew I was convinced, he came aboard. He goes with the director's conviction. He may not agree with a shot, but if the director is sure, he'll go with it. It's amazing, especially for an actor of his stature. That is the greatness of that man. I was nobody when I did Toofan. He could have told me to step aside, but he gave me full respect as a director."
"Toofan was made in 1987 when we didn't have computer graphics. If made today, it would be mind-blowing. We had 15-20 storm fans, so that when Toofan would come, the sands would move and his cape would fly. We had 150 workers who stood behind trees and pulled them with ropes to make them shake. We had a helicopter really close to the shot but just out of reach of the camera's frame so it would generate enough wind to create further havoc right around Toofan and his horse. It took a lot of hard work, and making it today with CGI would have helped us a lot."
He thinks fantasy cinema has arrived in India. "Today, I think Krrish has hit the bull's-eye. Rakesh Roshan is a filmmaker who has understood, like Manmohan Desai, that if you attract the children, they are the ones who are spellbound by cinema. They are the true believers. And once a child likes a film, believe me, there's no stopping that film."