Screen play Graph :
Set up:
1. Shahida aka Munni is soul
of this movie. When mother is pregnant with Shahida aka Munni, she happens to
watch a cricket match and Pakistan wins that match. Pains start and that leads
to delivery of a baby girl, shahida named after a famous cricketer.
Six years later…..
2. Next scene is a train
scene in which Shahida is introduced. When an old lady asks her name, her
mother answers and that leads to a flash back.
3. Flash back 1: There is a scene
establishment that Shahida likes little lambs and likes to play with them.
Incident: While playing, Shahida accidentally falls from a hill and loses her
voice due to fear and many other reasons. Her parents are worried. One Maulvi
suggests them that they should visit a dargah in Delhi. Mother decides to take
that duty and embarks on the spiritual journey. Between scenes, they establish
a subplot that Shahida likes bangles a lot.
4. While returning to
Pakistan, Munni gets down to save a lamb and thereby misses the train.
5. Munni cries a lot but catches
the next train that goes in the same direction but when she gets on the goods
train, it changes its direction and reaches kurukshetra in India. Shahida’s
mother realizes that Shahida is lost but cannot go back as she already reaches
Pakistan. There she complains at a police station.
6. Shahida gets down from the
train and finds Pawan Kumar Chaturvedi(Salman Khan).
7. Chaturvedi finds Shahida,
feed her with parathas and leave her at the hotel. But shahida follows
chaturvedi everywhere, so Chaturvedi leaves her at Hanuman Mandir But he
changes his heart and takes her along with him.
8. They go to police station
and complain. Shahida plays with handcuffs.
9. In the bus, all the people
in the bus try to guess the place that shahida ( at this point, chaturvedi
names her Munni) belongs. When guessing game reach Delhi, he starts narrating
his flash back.
10. Flash back 2: Chaturvedi explains his childhood, his failures in
studies and wrestling He keeps failing his degree and once he passes, his
father dies of shock.
11. His father asks him to meet Dayanand. So he rides on a bus to
reach Dayanand. In the bus, he meets Rasika (Kareena Kapoor).
12. He reaches his destination and it is a wrestling place. He
helps a guy win in a wrestling match and that guy is Rasika’s father (Sarath
Saxena). He gets to know about the
muslims that stay in the neighboring house. Small scenes that leads to love
story between the pair. Song follows…
When a marriage alliance come to see Rasika, she tells her
dad that she loves Chaturvedi. At this point, Rasika’s father lays a condition
that he should build a house in six months, so he can give his daughter’s hand
in marriage to chaturvedi.
13. Present: Bus reaches Delhi and Chaturvedi takes Munni home.
There is an argument between Rasika’s father and chaturvedi regarding Munni but
chaturvedi decides to help the little girl. Munni’s liking for Non-vegetarian
dishes, her prayer in mosque tell the couple about the likes and religion of
the girl.
14. During an India and Pakistan cricket match, it comes as a
shock to everyone when Munni rejoices when Pakistan wins a match thereby
conforming that she is a Pakistani girl who is lost in India.
15. Rasika’s father orders to visit Pakistani embassy and see
that the girl is dispatched to Pakistan. Due to agitation in the embassy, it is
declared that it is closed for a month. As he had no choice, he visits an agent
and pays him the money to take Munni to Pakistan.
16.Once he drops Munni,
Chaturvedi realizes he misses the little girl and wants to buy her bangles. He
purchases bangles and reaches agent’s place. To his shock and horror, he finds
out that Munni is being sold as a slave. He thrashes the goons and decided that
he, himself will embark on the journey and see that Munni is safe at her home.
Interval
17. Chaturvedi and Munni start their journey. They reach Pakistan
with the help of an agent. Though he can start going towards Pakistan, he
refuses and insists that he takes permission of Pakistan army. He remains
adamant and takes the permission, finally and starts his journey towards Pakistan.
18. Munni and chaturvedi eat in a hotel while police stroll.
Munni steals handcuffs and they are taken to police station. Munni identifies
her place from a calendar.
19. Chaturvedi meets chand Nawab(Nawazuddin Siddique), a small
time journalist in a local news channel. While he is covering the news at the
police station, Rasika in India remembers Chaturvedi and calls him. The head
honcho of the news channel rejects the news. The police makes Munni
uncomfortable, chaturvedi hits police and runs away from there and board a bus.
20. Chand Nawab also boards the same bus but when he hears
Chaturvedi’s story when he tells the conductor, Chand Nawab decides to help
him. When Police stops the bus, people in the bus help the trio by hiding them.
21. They spend their night in the mosque. Ompuri helps them from
police in the morning. Police take hold
of Chand Nawab’s assistant.
22. The trio take the lift of a guy unknowingly and reaches
police station again. They again manage to escape by cheating on the guy who
gave them lift.
23. Song and the escape shots.
24. Media finally takes notice of the news through chand Nawab.
They reach a dargah and mother of Munni is also praying in the same dargah but
they won't meet. Chand Nawab takes video of the whole situation of Munni. Munni
recognizes her mother who is a passerby in the video. They take help of a bus driver to know the
bus route of her mother and start their journey.
25. Meanwhile, Police also gets to know about their journey and
catches their bus. Here, Chaturvedi sacrifices and asks chand Nawab to take
munni to her parents and he misguides the police. Chand Nawab shoots the whole
situation of Munni running to her mother and upload the video in the internet.
26. Police catches Chaturvedi and consider him as a spy. They
start treating him badly. But due to the video of Chand Nawab, Chaturvedi gains
immense popularity.
27. That video is also watched by Rasika and prompts many Indians
and Pakistanis to reach Narowal border where Chaturvedi is going to be released
after declared innocent by the officials.
28. Hundreds of Pakistanis break the wall at the border and
hundreds of Indians welcome Chaturvedi. Munni and her family also visit the
same place. Munni finds her voice and
calls Chaturvedi as Mamu as she promised him. Finally Chaturvedi meets Munni.
The End
Main Characters:
1. Pawan Chaturvedi (Salman
Khan)
2. Rasika (Kareena Kapoor)
3. Sarath Saxena
4. Shahida/Munni (Harshali
Malhotra)
5. Chand Nawab (Nawazuddin
Siddique)
Script Analysis:
A hero in the story of a movie needs
1. Wants
2. Desires
In
the movie Bhajrangi Bhaijaan, the
character of Chaturvedi gets these two gradually.
Chaturvedi
meets Rasika and that leads to love between the pair. That is the normal thing
that happens in a personal life of any person.
This happens in every movie that release every Friday.
But,
after chaturvedi meets Munni, he WANTS to take Munni to Pakistan and see that
she reaches her parents after the agent double crosses chaturvedi and tries to
sell Munni as a slave. An irresponsible guy as chaturvedi and the above scene
makes him feel responsible for the girl and circumstances make him a dutiful
responsible man. For any story, that
part is important. So we empathise with the hero and travel with his
story. Because of the above scene,
Chaturvedi has a target and as audience we travel with the hero. In order to
achieve his target, his adventures interest the audience. Hero clears all his
obstacles and reaches his target. Bhajrangi Bhaijaan succeeds there and
audience lapped up the movie.
Hero Characterization:
In
the movie, Pawan Kumar chaturvedi character played by Salman khan is an
innocent and stubborn guy. He is strong. He is as strong as Hanuman in
Ramayana. That’s why he is named Pawan in the movie. Hero is introduced in the
movie through a song on Hanuman.
As
chaturvedi is an innocent and stubborn guy who refuses to utter a lie faces
many problems due to his nature. He does not even lie for the sake of
compromise. As the characterization of Hero is such, we sympathise with the
character of hero and lap him up.
Audience
should either sympathise with hero or empathise with hero.
Sympathy-> Audience are on hero’s side
Empathy-> Audience feel they are Hero
In
the movie, we sometimes empathise with hero and some time sympathise with the
hero. We sympathise so much with hero
that when chaturvedi and Munni meet in the climax scene, there are very less
people who don’t have wet eyes. In the pre-climax scene too, we cry our hearts
out when munni meets her parents as that is the main target of the hero of the
movie.
Audience
gets involved in the movie so much that they travel with the hero from India to
Pakistan. That is the main reason that
the story and movie are blockbusters.
Plantings and pay offs:
In
order to make the movie a visual treat, there are some narrative technics to be
followed. Those are plantings. Those plantings are used in the story as per the
need to get the pay offs.
There
are three plantings that are used in Bhajrangi Bhaijaan
1. Lamb
2. Bangles
3. Handcuffs
Audience
are let known about Munni’s love for Lamb in the first 10 minutes of the story.
That planting is used in the story when Munni gets down the train for a lamb
and misses the train. This is the starting point of the story.
Munni
plays with the handcuffs in India and there by another planting is laid. The
same technique is used when Munni does the same thing with the handcuffs in Pakistan,
there they go to police station and see the calendar. This is one of the major
turning points of the story.
Munni’s
love for bangles is shown when she visits dargah in India with her mother. Same
planting is used between Chaturvedi and Munni when she steals bangles from a
store. When chaturvedi drops Munni at an agent to drop her at Pakistan, he
misses her so badly that he buys bangles and returns to the house only to find
how they are mishandling Munni. This is the major scene in which Chaturvedi
takes the responsibility of Munni.
In
order to make the scenes interesting for the audience, some subplots needs to be told consciously
and some subplots subconsciously.
Something leads to something:
Every incident in the story is linked to
another incident in the story. Every incident that occurs leads to another
scene. That happened for the story of Bharangi Bhaijaan.
Incidents:
1. Munni falls from a valley
– This incident is the reason for their travel to Delhi.
2. Lamb Accident- This
incident is reason for Munni to miss her train
3. Goods train- This incident
leads Munni to reach Chaturvedi.
4. There is a lead in
flashback when they want to know about the place where Munni belongs.
5. The scene where everyone
know that Munni is from Pakistan.
6. Incident at Embassy- That
leads to the scene with the Agent.
7. Cheating of Agent- This is
where Chaturvedi takes responsibility of Munni
Interval
8. Chaturvedi ‘s Honesty with
Pakistan Army- The character of hero is elevated
9. Stealing of Handcuffs-
This incident leads to the scene where Munni recognizes her place.
10. Media journalist gives information to Police- after
Chaturvedi talks to conductor, Chand Nawab changes his opinion and decides to
help them
11. Help of Ompuri – Character of Ompuri helps the trio to stay
in the mosque. They made the audience feel that only some people doubt
Chaturvedi, not everyone in Pakistan.
12. Chand Nawab- Munni’s banana play. The way Munni and Chand
Nawab play with banana to get lift from an officer
13. Chand Nawab’s camera- the videos of Munni and Chaturvedi show
the relationship they shared and how sincerely Chaturvedi tried to help Munni
14. Chaturvedi at Police station- there are intense discussions
about chaturvedi in media, India and Pakistan.
15. Officers play- releasing of chaturvedi, Munni speaks and
reconciling of Munni-chaturvedi.
It is very important that there are
incidents that lead the story and just not filling the screen time. A cinema is
considered pure if the audience feel that they had an “ experience”. That is
the main reason that Bhajrangi Bhaijaan laughed all the way to the bank.
Story Narration:
Story is narrated in such a way that
Shahida is born, her childhood, journey, missing the train, going to
chaturvedi, going away from
chaturvedi, her journey with Chaturvedi.
Till here the story goes on through the point of view of Munni and from
Interval the story goes on through the point of view of chaturvedi. Story is
narrated such that Chaturvedi, Munni and Chand Nawab linger in the minds of the
audience long time after the movie is over.
Opposite force:
There should always be an opposite
force for the story to move forward. If there are no plots opposing the journey
of hero, audience get bored with the story. In the movie, Police of Pakistan
act as opposing force to the journey of hero.
Once Chaturvedi enters Pakistan, the
police force of Pakistan is after him. That makes it interesting to watch the
chase scenes between both of them.
Advisor or Mentor: Movies often feature an
advisor who is a special friend who helps the lead character change or become
all they can be. Addition of Nawab Chand’s character in the second half is like
a breath of fresh air. He shines in all the scenes that he is in. An innocent
and stubborn man like chaturvedi is guided by a well wisher and advisor such as
Chand Nawab. As sri Krishna in Bhagavad
gita explained, all tasks doesn’t need brawn, some need brain. This story is
classic close of that.
Us Humans are those breed that are
born innocent. Once we age and get experience, we get smart . If hero does
everything, story can get very heavy and it need many incidents and subplots to
prove that. For that story needs a strong character who shows the way for the
hero and chand Nawab fits the bill. In the beginning of his characterization,
we see him reporting small incidents and by the end of the movie, we observe
how calculatedly he fights to see Munni unite her parents. He almost fights a
war. He is with truth and he acts as a genuine well wisher for both the
countries. In the scene where Chand Nawab shouts about the incident, we feel
like clapping in the theaters. So, Chand Nawab is a very important character
for this movie.
Loopholes:
Parents of Munni complain about
missing of Munni in the police station and we never get to see their point of
view. If we are shown the point of view of the parents, we would never get to
see the heroics of an ordinary man, chaturvedi.
It is shown that Munni reaches her parents after 8 days of missing. As
Munni stays with the hero character, audience feel that Munni is safe with him.
What is cinema?
Cinema is a visual feast, an
excitement, an experience, an emotional feeling. There are no dry pair of eyes in theater when Munni and
chaturvedi meet in the end. It is a sentimental
journey that acts as a bridge between both countries. Bhajrangi Bhaijaan is a
master piece in modern day story telling.