Holi is a 2 day festival of colours, sweets, joy, madness, and every synonym of craziness you can imagine. Along with that, it has an interesting and historical folk lore behind it which will make this article way too long so let’s save it for another day.
Holi in Bollywood
The straight forward point is that Holi being a national festival has been a part of popular Bollywood scripts since a long time. Everytime you see Holi being celebrated, it is secretly acting as path way towards a major plot point. Today, we are gonna discuss some of those portrayals of Holi and how they served their respective masterpieces.
1. Sholay
We all remember the whole Ramgarh vibing to Holi ke din Dil khil jaate hai along with Dharmendra and Hema Malini. That is the exact scene when Gabbar Singh enters the village, wanting to show everyone who’s the boss and a few minutes later, Jai and Veeru are introduced to Thakur’s reality that he is handicapped without hands. Earlier in the story, we also see Radha’s (Jaya Bachchan’s) marriage being confirmed while she was playing Holi with the same joy as we do, but a few years later she wasn’t anywhere near the colours of Holi.
2. Silsila
Amitabh Bachchan is the epitome of Holi in India. Nobody celebrates the festival like he does in the reel life. When you see Amitabh Bachchan with colours around him, you know it’s gonna be total madness. This madness started from Sholay and then moved onwards to Silsila in the form of Rang Barse. The song in the film is based upon the situation of 2 lovers, Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha, trying to be with each other while they are married to Jaya Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar respectively. In this song too, Jaya Bachchan isn’t interested in playing Holi whole Amit Ji is way too interested in both Holi and Rekha.
3. Darr
Yash Chopra’s Holiverse continues in Darr with Ang se Ang Lagana. It is picturised as another joyous Holi song with a joyous couple, Sunny Deol and Juhi Chawla celebrating their first Holi together, along with her family. What interferes in this occasion is a jealous Aashiq Shah Rukh Khan, who wants Juhi Chawla to be only with him. As a drummer, he enters the premises to stalk his Kiran from where he later runs away to the land of who knows where.
4. Mohabbatein
Yash Chopra’s Holiverse is continued by his bloodline Aditya Chopra in Mohabbatein, once again starring Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan (not a fan of Holi this time) along with a group of newbies in Soni Soni Akhiyon Wali. This is where he spreads the message of Haso, Jio, muskurao and pyaar karo before Kal Ho Naa Ho, and Holi is just a part of it. Though he doesn’t have the other part of his couple, he is happy that 6 other children do so around him.
5. Baghban
If playing Holi with Dharamendra was not enough, Amit Ji plays Holi with Hema Malini too in Baghban during Hori Khele Raghuveera. This song takes place at an early part of the movie where Amitabh and Hema are happy with their kids, don’t have anything to cry on as of now and Salman Khan is nowhere around them. This song portrays how happy the kids were too with their parents before they had to take the responsibility for their parents and were quickly fed up of them, not for good.
6. Ye Jawaani Hai Deewani
We all know Balam Pichkari from Ye Jawaani Hai Deewani, obviously the peak Holi song for Gen Z. This song takes place when our group of lead characters is done with their vacation on the mountains and while returning back to their regular lives, they stop at a city in early morning where a crowd is co-incidentally celebrating Holi. The lead characters jump in to the crowd with all their craziness and no second thoughts. Along with them, Deepika Padukone realizes that this is best chance where she would learn to enjoy wholeheartedly with her friends and at the very moment, she gets rid of her nerdy specs and gets her mad character development.
7. Toilet: Ek Prem Katha
Now here comes a middle class rural Holi. Though it is as fun as others but it’s also very different. Now what’s the “different” part? The different part are the sticks and the shields, a part of the Lath Maar Holi. The song takes place in a poor household situation where Akshay Kumar wants to go to Bhumi Pednekar’s village and bring her back. During most of the song, he is just convincing her to come back but she won’t spit out her anger so he let’s Bhumi beat him with the stick all she wants, until she is rid of her anger. In addition, Sonu Nigam has not been a part of many Holi songs but he just nailed it in his chance.
8. Padmaavat
Nearing the end, Padmaavat is something special. No, not a different type of Holi but just Holi with an aesthetic portrayal, no Dhoom dhadaka but just a cute little folk song starring Raja Ratan Singh and Rani Padmavati. This scene goes very deep in the heart of the king where he knows the troubles his kingdom is facing due to the approach of Sultan Allauddin Khilji. There is a lack of food for the population, there seems to be a brutal war coming his way but at the same time, he doesn’t wish to ruin the festival so he just let’s the scene unfold in front of his eyes.
9. War
Now the last one is for the boys! Jai Jai Shivshankar, a fast dance number with fast beats and modern take on Holi, where the mentor-mentee finally see eye to eye after a successful mission dance along with their crew and celebrate Holi. The audience came to see two action heroes but both being great dancers as well, the song was a treat to watch on screen. One of our favourite Holi songs, that goes into our playlist for sure.
With so many stories putting this colourful festival as it’s backdrop, we have seen a lot going on during Holi, forgetting our duties and our regular lives, focusing on this one specific day of the year. What is your favourite film in which you feel the perfect essence of Holi? Do tell us in the comments.
Also Read: Janhvi Kapoor – The New Pan-India Sensation
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