Sippy will direct his Basanti in ‘Shimla Mirchi’.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: Bollywood filmmaker Ramesh Sippy of Sholay fame, will direct his Basanti, Hema Malini, once again after 39 years.
Sippy had earlier directed Hema Malini in the-prince-and-the-pauper themed Seeta Aur Geeta in 1972. The film was a big hit with Malini earning her only Filmfare award. Three years later when Malini starred in Sholay, which had a big cast with Dharmendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan (then Bhaduri) and debutant Amjad Khan. The film went on to become the biggest cult hit in the history of Bollywood with each one its characters turning into icons. Malini’s Basanti came to be known as one of the most humorous heroines to ever grace the silver screen.
Sippy is to direct Malini again for the third time after a 39 year gap, in a film called Shimla Mirchi.
Sippy has directed only 10 films in his more than 40 year-long career. Mostly he is into producing now along with his son Ramesh Sippy under the banner R.S. Entertainment which was founded in 2000. The last film to be directed by the Sholay director was Zamaana Deewana starring Shah Rukh Khan and Raveena Tandon. The film was declared a flop at the box office in spite of starring two of the most popular actors of the era.
According to a PTI report a release said, “Ramesh Sippy is going to work with Hema Malini after ‘Sholay’ in ‘Shimla Mirchi’ and like his other films, the first letter of his next film is also with the letter ‘S’.”
‘S’ is a reference to Sippy’s commonly having films start with the letter S, like Seeta Aur Geeta, Sholay, Shaan, and Shakti, which remains to this day the only film starring both Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan.
Not much is known about Shimla Mirchi except that it also stars CityLights actor Rajkummar Rao. The actress opposite him is still to be finalized. Shimla Mirchi is reportedly a sweet, romantic story with its quirky twists.
The film goes on the theater floors this August.