After dancing with Katrina Kaif in Morocco for the first song, ‘Ullu Ka Pattha’ from Jagga Jasoos, Ranbir Kapoor was at his best in the second song, ‘Galti Se Mistake’. Playing a schoolboy in the song composed by Pritam, there is a perfect balance of madness and mischief portrayed by him and his fellow students. The choreography in the song was also mesmerizing, adding a fun element to the number.
In an exclusive interview with Cinestaan.com, choreographer Vijay Ganguly, who was one of the main people responsible for putting together ‘Galti Se Mistake’, spoke to us from the sets of his next film, Baadshaho, on how it all came together. Ganguly is also assistant director to Jagga Jasoos director Anurag Basu.
Incidentally, he revealed that he had quit dancing for a while and wanted to concentrate on filmmaking. But he came back to choreography somehow with Jagga Jasoos and it has turned out to be one of the best experiences of his life.
“I approached Mr Basu and he was just starting Jagga Jasoos and he told me, ‘This is a musical and I will always need someone to take it through.’ There are about 27 songs in the film, a lot of things are communicated through song,” he said. [The actors] are talking through song. Every time they needed someone who knew music and dance. That’s when I came in the picture. I started from day one of the film.”
With so many songs and large scale of the film, Jagga Jasoos took a little longer to get made. Basu, the director, encouraged Vijay to begin choreographing again, especially with ‘Galti Se Mistake’. Initially, they had thought to bring in Ganesh Acharya but on a Basu set everything happens spontaneously, Vijay Ganguly explained.
“With Mr Basu, everything is very impromptu. We were on set one day and he said, ‘Let’s try a part of this song.’ He and I started jamming on this song. If you see the first shot where Ranbir is cutting the birthday cake, that was the thought that Dada (Anurag Basu) came up with — that someone will be lying down and the cake is going to be on his bum. Ranbir will come from the back and cut it,” he said.
Then they decided to take the song even further. “We got this boy called Ruel Dausan Varindani, then Mr Basu, Ruel and I jammed. We came up with ideas and dance steps like the cycle, that came out of nowhere at the last minute. The lyrics [by Amitabh Bhattacharya] kept changing, eventually what you see is a big group effort that happened. That’s how it actually happened.”
Besides Kapoor, there are around 75 dancers who play his fellow schoolmates at the hostel. According to Ganguly, they all had a great time on set, especially due to Anurag Basu, who made it a riot. “[‘Galti Se Mistake’] is such a boy song that things were becoming very organic and not just everyone dancing together,” he said.
Vijay Ganguly credits the “down-to-earth” star Kapoor for executing exactly what he wanted to in the song. “When you interact with him, he’s not a star, he’s your friend. He understands you, the way you want him to move. He catches the tone of the film so beautifully that you don’t need to tell him anything,” he said.
Vijay Ganguly gave the example of a section of the song sequence that Kapoor learnt quickly on the spot. “We suddenly got the track and [there was] this music piece in the middle and then Dada said, 'Kuch karte hai iss pe [Let’s do something on this]' so we came up with dance steps. Then Ranbir came and he said, “Yeh main thodi seekh ke take de doonga, iska toh rehearsal chahiye [I can learn this and give a take, I need a rehearsal for this],’” he recalled.
They decided to break down the dance in small parts for him so they could shoot it with Kapoor. “While he was doing it, Dada just looked at him and said, ‘Ranbir, kar le na, yaar, poora kar le [do the whole thing]’ They [Anurag and Ranbir] have a brilliant chemistry. They don’t have to communicate, they just look at each other and it happens. He said, ‘Give me a minute,' and went over the steps. He did the entire dance in [less than] 10 minutes. It is a difficult [sequence] to go over the steps, even a good dancer would find it hard,” he said.
Vijay Ganguly is the son of filmmaker Anil Ganguly and his sister, Rupali Ganguly, is an actress. As a child, he visited his father’s film sets and even assisted him. He remembers that his father “always wanted us to do something on our own. He said, ‘Main tumhara haath pakadke kahin nahin bithane wala hoon, khud sikho [I’m not going to hold your hand and tell you where to sit]. Find what you want to do.’”
He began dancing in 1998 and got his training from Shiamak Davar’s dance classes. He also joined his dance troupe. Later on, as Shiamak Davar began choreographing film songs, he set Vijay Ganguly to handle the shoots. “I used to enjoy that more than dance — this dance step is like this, but how are you going to shoot it? That was very exciting for me. Then Bunty Aur Babli (2005) happened,” he said. At that time Shiamak was not in town and I was standing in front of Mr [Amitabh] Bachchan and I had to tell him what to do. I’ve grown up seeing him and he knows my father and all, but still, it was him. I was frozen. I was like, ‘I can’t do this’. But he made it easy. The [rap] song ‘B N B’ gave me confidence.”
After Jagga Jasoos, Vijay Ganguly has his hands full. This year alone he has Baadshaho with Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi, Chef with Saif Ali Khan and Tumhari Sulu with Vidya Balan. But he reveals his ultimate passion is to direct and make his own film. But as he says, “Once a dancer, the dance never goes away from you."
Jagga Jasoos is due to be released on 14 July.