Director – Mani Ratnam
Screenplay – Mani Ratnam, Suhasni Ratnam and Anurag Kashyap
History
One of Post-Independence India’s Greatest Business Icon, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, like most Gujrati Businessmen, had a moderate start. Its hard to imagine that someone who was in chare of a company which had an annual turnover of over $12 billion and a workforce of more then 85000 people, had a very simple start. He started his career working in A. Besse and Company in Aden, Yemen who were distributors for the erstwhile Burma Shell oil company.
When he came back to India, he started trading in Muljhi-Jetha Textil Market (Which incidentally is the world’s oldest and biggest cloth market). He rose in life by taking over a defunct mill- Vimal and making it in to a high production unit selling Cloth at a rate which a common man could afford. Soon he set his own polyester company and started making chemicals for the company and slowly and steadily made Reliance Industries as the biggest company in India which manufactured a variety of products ranging from Petro-Chemicals, Cloth and even Telecom Products. He had to cut through lots of red tape and had contacts with all the big wigs in Indian Political Scene and even the the Media Baron – Ramnath Goenka. Guru, although Mani Ratnam will not admit, is an autobiographical movie based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani.
Plot
Gurukant Desai(Abhishekh Bachchan) has a fall out with his father(RAjendra Singh) after failing his matriculation exam and goes to Turkey to work with his cousin (Manoj Joshi). He works with the Burma Shell Company for almost 10 years and comes back to India to start his own business. He even marries his friend, Jignesh’s(Arya Babbar) sister Sujata(Aishwarya Rai) so that he can get dowry to start his business. When he comes to Bombay, he sees that he has to cut through lots of red tape and even beat the affluent Contractor and starts his own small company and then starts to maufacter Polyester. In the event he befriends many political bigwigs and earns the ire of his erstwhile mentor Manik Dasgupta(Mithun Chakraborty) who is the publisher of the newspaper, Swatantra. Along with MAnik, he has to face his editor Shyam(Madhavan) opposing all his moves while his company keeps growing. This is the story of the rise, decline and then the rise of a simple villager, Gurukant Desai as one of India’s biggest business tycoon.
Critic’s Comments
Any work of fiction which will depict the life of Dhirubhai Ambani is bound to raise curiosity. With Matnam as the director and the popular pair of Abhishekh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, this movie had to be nothing short of a classic. In more ways than one, it succeeds. Abhishekh Bachchan exceeds all expectations and gives a bravura performance as Gurukant Desai and is a sure shot nominee as the Best Actor. Aishwarya Rai is good as the lead actress. Vidya Balan and Madhavan are wasted in their cameos. But in my book, the best performance in the movie is that of Mithun Chakraborty. It will take someone with a great role to beat him for the award of Best Supporting Actor. Its sad to see that a 3 time national award nominee had to waste a majority of his life starring in B grade movies. The direction and script by Mani Ratnam and the Score by A R Rehman is near flawless. Although it could have had done without songs. The cinematography of Ravi Chandran beautifully captures the era of post independence Bombay. A must watch movie.
Psst -
1) The Movie, as you can see in the review, is very much inspired from Dhirubhai Amabani’s life story. Like in the movie, Dhirubhai Ambani started his life in Aden and moved from being a small time trader to a multi billion corporation company owner. Like the protagonist, Guru, Dhirubhai had to cut through lots of red tape and face rivalry from another big businessman, Nusli Wadia. Dhirubhai Ambani, like Guru, held his annual general meeting of share holders in Big Grounds and for a long period of time, he held the AGM in Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium. More then 25000 people used to come for the meetings. The final scene which showed a taxi driver telling Guru that the company shares were used to marry his 3 daughters is based on a real life situation. Like, in the movie, Dhirubhai Ambani had suffered a paralytic stroke and was even criticized in the media by Ramnath Goenka, the publisher of The Indian Express.
2) A day after the film was premiered in Toronto, Canada, Abhishekh Bachchan, proposed marriage to Aishwarya Rai who accepted it and were engaged when they came to Bombay, the following night.
3) Like in the movie, Dhirubhai Ambani had bought a Mercedes when his company yielded profits.
4) John Abraham was offered the role of Shyam Szxena but had to decline due to date problems.
5) Mani Ratnam had planned a movie called Guru many years back and wanted Mithun to play the role of a villain but Mithun declined the role as it required him to shave off his hair.
6) In a scene where Aishwarya Rai was cycling, she had suffered an accident during shooting in which she had smashed in to a no parking board.
7) The scene where Gurukant Desai speaks to a political bigwig in New Delhi is based on the real life Meeting between the late Rajov Gandhi and Dhirubhai Ambani. Rajiv Gandhi wouldn’t give any time for a meeting to Dhirubhai Ambani and when he finally gave time, Dhirubhai AMbani made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
8) Anurag Kashyap and Mani Ratnam had a fallout during filming as Mani REatnam had altered the original script.
Quotes
1) "Tumharey Paas Samaan bhi nahi hai; To kyat um 4 saari nahi kharid saktey ?”
2) “Mere Gaon main ek khavat hai, jub log tumharey baarey main kuch bura kehtey hai, to tum zaroor kuch achcha karety hogey.”
3) “Main banya hoon. Apney Shabd sambhal kar bolunga.”
4) “Mera naam Tha nahi, hai.”
5) “Banana chahtey ho Hindustam ki sabsey badi company ?”
6) “Shakti parivaar waaley ko Gurukant Desai ka namaskar.”
7) “Mujhe chalna nahi hai, bhaagna hai.”
8) “Apni patni ko bhik maangney mut bhejna.”
Oops-
1) There were no trams running near the cloth market as shown, in Mumbai. The trams only ran till Crawford market and the cloth market is a good 10 minutes walking distance.