One of Bollywood’s top blockbuster directors, Rajshri bossman, Sooraj Barjatya, 61, dives deep into his film journey as he switches into web-series with Bada Naam Karenge
Filmmaker Sooraj Barjatya (R) with mid-day’s entertainment editor Mayank Shekhar (L) at the latest edition of Sit with Hitlist. Pics/Satej Shinde
Before I sit down with Sooraj Barjatya, 61—the director rightly deemed the father of the great Indian family drama, ever since the blockbuster success of his Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (HAHK, 1994)—I entertain an unusual thought in my head. ADVERTISEMENTFor decades, the gentle, reticent Sooraj has maintained a stoic, quiet public image. What if the actual man behind those conservative movies, dipped in shudh desi ghee, espousing love for mamaji, chachiji, samdhan, devar, is actually a wayward chiller, himself—given to slasher flicks at home, for his private pastime!I playfully poke him with these fantasies, for this profile—asking him what he does for fun. He’s sweetly measured, as usual.
For his hobby, he says, “I am right now into Puranas, reading the Gita, [Tulsidas’s] Ramcharitmanas; that’s my time for fun, when I am actually by myself.”
With Sooraj, what you see is what you get. There is no fakeness. We can see that.
In fact, back circa 2001, he recalls, he had once gone over to Fire ‘n’ Ice, a popular nightclub in Mumbai’s Lower Parel. Director Farah Khan spotted him there. She instantly called up Karan Johar, wholly shocked: “Look, who’s here!”
Sooraj was with his wife, Vineeta. They retreated to a nightclub corner, where another partygoer simply asked him to please leave, bellowing: “Yeh [jagah] hum paapi logon ke liye hai [This place is for sinners],” Sooraj laughs.
The filmmaker was actually at a discotheque, in a sense, researching for his forthcoming film then, Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (MPKDH, 2003).
Which he wished to make, feeling the need to reflect something more trendy/hip. This is soon after Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999), an adaptation of the Ramayan, set in an Indian joint family.
Sooraj was in his “early thirties”, looking for a reset. He sacked his traditional music composer, Raam Laxman; brought onboard Anu Malik. For the lead cast, he had Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, instantly ready for the roster.
He says, “I feel so guilty towards all of them. Because they gave me everything. But while making that film, I realised, I am not there. This is not me. I was asking others, if they’d like what I’m making!”
A big feedback came to him from Bollywood’s resident pop-philosopher, actor Govinda. Sooraj says, “Govinda Ji sweetly met me [after MPKDH] to say that hits, flops come to everyone. That’s not the point.
“But, he told me, everyone has a purpose—ghode ka apna kaam hota hai, sheep ka apna kaam hota hai, sabka apna kaam hota hai.
“These words of wisdom stayed with me so much, that I then made Vivah [2006]. From that film onwards, I stopped wanting to be someone else. Then I can go to a night club to observe, and that’s good enough—but not try and become that person. It’s a liberating thought.”
MPKDH bombed in the theatres. Vivah had a “silver-jubilee [25-week] run in 125 cinemas, across the country.” Perhaps the last such film. To the point that the term ‘silver jubilee’ itself may be lost on the present generation of filmgoers.
But that’s how family films work—Sooraj, who’s also the bossman of Rajshri Pictures, the fountainhead of desi family entertainers, for over 75-plus years, explains its footfall math.
For one, he confesses, his core audience are women. They’re the ones who bring the family into theatres, in the first place. Sooraj says he’s deeply conscious of their tastes—even literally.
For instance, “Observe the food in our films. I make it a point that they’re carefully shot like advertising. In Maine Pyar Kiya [MPK, 1989], when Laxmikant Berde has to carry a tokri of puris, we kept reshooting it, because the puris had to be properly full-blown, on every take.”
Secondly, Sooraj distinguishes the mainstream family film, from a massy actioner. The latter gets the excited audiences right from Day One, for the first dib.
For example, “One would go to see a Dhoom 2, first. Which is what happened at Jaipur’s Raj Mandir theatre, where it replaced Vivah.
“But after eight weeks [once the audiences had seen Dhoom 2], Vivah was back for a 35-week run. People keep telling [others, about a family entertainer], and people coming, slowly, slowly…”
That’s the Rajshri experience. Sooraj recalls, “I’m going back to 1969. Two films released that year. One was Jigri Dost and the other, Jeene Ki Raah, from LV Prasad Ji’s banner.
“Both were with Jeetu Ji [Jeetendra], who was a big star. Jigri Dost had a house-full, whereas Jeene Ki Raah barely had collections in its fourth week.
“LV Prasad Ji called up my grandfather [Tarachand Barjatya] to ask, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ He calmed him down, ‘You did no wrong. That’s Jigri Dost, and people will watch it first; it’s glamorous. Yours is Jeene Ki Raah, that audiences will visit, aaram se [in due course of time]. That’s exactly what happened.”
The analogy Sooraj uses sort of settles the debate: “One is the new McDonald’s [in your neighbourhood]. But then, you have to come down to Maharaja Bhog [eventually].”
Madhuri Dixit-Nene and Salman Khan in Hum Aapke Hain Koun
This is the theatrical thumb-rule, from those who’ve known them better. I suspect the same theory might apply to content on OTT platforms as well.
Wherein a new, flashy movie/show on a streamer catches full-on attention as the talking point on the first weekend. As if it’ll disappear after. Only, that sustainable content stays to be discovered, or rediscovered, forever.
Consider the Gen Z/Young Adult family (romantic) drama, Bada Naam Karenge (BNK), on SonyLIV. That’s the web series that Sooraj has turned show-runner with.
It bears the Rajshri stamp, like nothing you’ve watched on a streamer so far—large network of families, a sense of innocence among the young, flavour of small towns Ratlam, Ujjain, Indore…
Shailesh Kapoor, from the content tracking agency Ormax, I noticed, called the series a potential “game-changer” for the home-viewing ecosystem. I can see why.
For years, the Rajshris weren’t entertained in the OTT scene; as Sooraj recalls, “They were looking for something edgier.”
BNK is a family series, quite separate from the over-the-top, overlong, swish-pan saas-bahu serials of Star Plus, that dominated Indian TV, 2000 onwards. It’s about subtle, real, young love, in the times of Corona.
What I was struck by is its unpretentious simplicity. It’s possible that you haven’t seen the series. It’s more possible that families will chance upon it at some point, while the word spreads.
The show features two lovely, debuting lead actors, Ayesha Kaduskar, Ritik Ghanshani—part of families that are loving, but conservative. And as it happens with the latter, extra-possessive of their young.
Their transgression is that they once lived together in a big city, out of a circumstance, given COVID-19. Their graver transgression, to me, for a Rajshri product, is they even drink at a party together!
Ayesha Kaduskar and Ritik Ghanshani in Sooraj Barjatya’s debut OTT show, Bada Naam Karenge
Sooraj laughs, “Well, there is only one party-scene. And even there, I kept telling [director] Palash [Vaswani], if we can set it during Holi, and therefore thandai being passed around.”
It’s a world that Sooraj knows, because he spent a lot of time at his maternal grandparents’ home in Agra, growing up. Also, he says, his own Mumbai home mirrors that same joint family set-up/culture, including the youngest generations.
In the sense, more particularly, of the Marwari community, that the protagonists of BNK belong to. As does Sooraj.
Who, I find to be a fascinating lot—originally from a 50-odd kilometre radius in Rajasthan; spread across the country, broadening their business empires locally, retaining their filial and commercial connections globally.
Sooraj argues, “[Marwaris] are an amalgamation of the entire Bharat. We love to have a lot of money. But there are very few of us in the film business. Because we want to be safe.
“Before we invest anything, we must know how much we are going to get back. This is very difficult in this profession. Especially, creativity doesn’t come first to us. We know how to make money, out of money. But I think [Barjatyas] had to be here. And we had to tell some stories.”
Before there was fake news, there were quiz masters, who made up facts for questions at inter-school/college competitions. And since Internet hadn’t deepened enough to verify the supposedly right answer, we just won/lost points, from our guesses, and moved on.
One such question asked to my team, I remember, was the visual of a female actor in a song, perhaps from Janwar (1965), ‘Tum se accha kaun hai’.
Question: Who’s the actor, and what’s her relevance to Bollywood history? Answer: Rajshree, V Shantaram’s daughter, on whom Rajshri Pictures is named.
This was during college/school. Although I won’t find that phony quiz-master again, it’s taken me years to prove this as fake fact/news.
Sooraj tells me Rajshri Productions is named after his paternal aunt, Rajshri Saraogi (nee Barjatya), who was born the same year the film company was founded by his grandfather, Tarachand.
Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon
That date being August 15, 1947—making Rajshri exactly as old as independent India!
The company was founded in Kolkata, which is where young Tarachand moved to, from “Kuchaman, a small estate in Rajasthan.”
The only thing Tarachand ever wanted, Sooraj says, was to earn well for his mother: “She came from a poor background, she couldn’t eat well in her sasural. And he wanted to provide for her. That ambition drew him to Calcutta.”
Tarachand found a job as a manager in a Bengali film company, Chamaria Pictures, where he performed rather well. Except, as his family grew, he wished to expand, and go his own.
The company allowed him to pursue his side-gigs, alongside. Which is how Tarachand started a small arm, distributing films for Central Provinces-Berar, a tiny province of British India. But what films could he start with?
Sooraj says, “My grandfather would get tears in his eyes, when he’d tell me about Gemini Pictures, and Shri SS Vasan, in Madras.”
Basically, Vasan/Gemini Pictures had made a huge blockbuster, Chandralekha (1948). Tarachand urged them to dub it in Hindi. Vasan was unsure—who would watch a non-star cast pic across India?
Tarachand persuaded him nonetheless, including shooting portions of the film, with actors originally mouthing some lines in Hindi. Once done, Vasan offered “all India distribution rights of Chandralekha” to Tarachand.
It’s something the young entrepreneur couldn’t believe.
“Chandralekha was the Baahubali of its times, or what Pushpa would be today,” Sooraj recalls. Such is how Rajshri entered the big league, subsequently setting up distribution offices across North India.
Stills from Maine Pyar Kiya
Similarly acquiring films from the South, for nation-wide releases, with Hindi dubs. Essentially, what’s now called the pan-India release.
And then, of course, they combined it with distributing popular Hindi titles, having established a deep trade-network.
Rajshri entered film production, only in the early 1960s. That’s the business Sooraj’s father, Raj Kumar Barjatya, oversaw. Their breakthrough was Dosti (1964), starring two unknown male leads, Sudhir Kumar, Sushil Kumar, with a phenomenal soundtrack, that continues to resonate.
Sooraj says, “Dosti took everyone by surprise. People first said, who would watch? It’s a black and white film. Langde andhe ki picture hai [it’s about a blind and lame man]. But my grandfather was spiritually inclined, and he was convinced.”
Throughout his career, Tarachand would visit The Mother at her ashram in Pondicherry with his film ideas. She had decreed that he only make films that “elevate the consciousness of humans/society.”
Dosti was one of them. He never looked back after.
Sooraj remembers, “As a child, I’d be on story sessions with my grandfather, listening to all the top commercial pictures, and he’d say, ‘It’s a superhit film, but of no use to us.’ I used to wonder, if it’s super-hit, why is it of no use to us?
“So, then, he took me over to our company emblem, that is [Goddess] Saraswati. And he told me, ‘Jo yahan banega usmein Saraswati ka vaas hona zaroori hai [Saraswati must reside in whatever gets made here]’.”
The script of Rajshri mainly drew from Indian literature. The directors were relatively lesser known. Also, since, as Sooraj puts it, the celebrated ones would want to produce their own films.
But, more importantly, as he says, the lead actors in those films couldn’t be the popular hero-heroines of the times. The subjects were such. The superstars could simply not slip in.
He says, “For example, if you see Uphaar [1971]. There’s a crazy girl. Now, you can’t just put any star in there. You need someone without a screen image.
“Or a film like Geet Gaata Chal [1975], about a teenager. How can you put ‘Shah Rukh Khan’ in a teenage role? It has to be a newcomer. Those were the subjects we picked.”
Mayank Shekhar and Sooraj Barjatya
For instance, Amitabh Bachchan did star in a Rajshri film, Saudagar (1973). But this is right before Zanjeer (1973). Which made his ‘angry young man’ stardom too big to fit into a Barjatya vehicle.
It took Bachchan almost 50 years to feature again in a Rajshri production, aged 79, with Uunchai (2022), directed by Sooraj; about friends, who are family.
What Rajshri mastered was essentially “the non-star film” that, in turn, gave debutants breaks into an industry that has perennially faced the insider-outsider divide.
As Sooraj says, “I can go on listing the breaks from Rajshri: first film of Sanjay Khan, Jaya Bachchan Ji, Rakhee Ji… We can go down to Mithun [Chakraborty] Da’s first commercial picture; Raj Babbar Ji’s first film was signed with us. Naseeruddin [Shah] sir’s first commercial film…”
It’s astounding alright. What’s equally astounding about Rajshri that I had heard, years ago, is they’ve had a rather precise rule-book of sorts, detailing stuff you can/can’t do in a Rajshri film. This is besides that the whole family should be able to watch the film together.
For instance, Commandment #1: You can’t have a villain in a Rajshri film. The ‘circumstance’ is the villain! Commandment #2: There should be no action. And if there is a required action sequence, the number of punches cannot exceed 14!
Not 13, not 15; 14, to be sure. No, wait, is this really true? Guess what, Sooraj says, “Yes, it is,” and asks me how I know. Actually, I have no clue how I know!
Sooraj smiles, “My grandfather and father’s point was that since the villain is a must—it’s best if it can be a circumstance. We don’t need to have too much of violence, hence.
“HAHK: Bhabhi (Renuka Shahane) dies. That’s all there is to it. She slips. It’s a circumstance.
“MPK: Currency notes get destroyed by water. Poor boy, so that is a circumstance. Now, Uunchai: The heroes want to climb up [a mountain]. There, age is the circumstance [for an antagonist].
“As for 14 punches in an action sequence—that was told to me while making MPK, because I was a young man, and the action director can go on, with a fight sequence [if you don’t put a cap to it]. So, 14 punches. That’s it.”
And it’s not that the rules have always been followed, though. Sooraj admits, “Whenever we have deviated, it hasn’t quite gone down well.” I bring up his last film with Salman Khan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015), for instance.
He says, “Salman and I can see through each other. The first draft [of Prem Ratan] that I took to him, he said, why are we complicating things; go for simple.
“Yet, I put some action into it, because I wanted to [serve his audience]. I tried to play it safe. I should have just made a straight emotional affair. The film did well. But when I look at it now, I don’t like to see the climax.”
While Rajshri has been around since 1947, Sooraj was the first member from his family firm to actually direct films. His late father, Raj—better known as Raj Babu in film-industry circles—he says, “had modelled himself on Irving Thalberg of MGM Studios.”
But he had the eye/ear for great stories. And what Raj Babu left behind for Sooraj is actually a detailed file, with plot-points from movies he’s liked—whether from Rajshri or other productions.
Knowing his son’s natural inclinations as director, Raj Babu felt the file would serve as the North Star for subjects to pick. One of the notings, for instance, is where Uunchai came from.
I never got a chance to interact with Raj Babu. I do remember observing him once, from a distance, at a talk by Hollywood’s top screenwriting guru, Syd Field.
Everybody was listening. I noticed Raj Babu, sitting down like a student, taking copious notes, instead.
Which is ironic, only for the fact that if Syd Field, a stickler for the three-act screenplay structure, ever watched Raj Babu’s idea for Sooraj, HAHK—he could still flip in his grave.
Now, that’s a film, without a conflict, up until its final 30 minutes, that defied all logic of screenwriting.
Sooraj says, “The [HAHK] structure originally belongs to [Rajshri’s] Nadiya Ke Paar [1982]. We owe it to KP Mishra’s novel, Kohbar Ki Shart.
“Which was a textbook in Agra University. My father had read the book. And if you relate the novel to HAHK, Madhuri [Dixit’s character] gets married to Mohnish [Bahl’s character].
“What follows is a massive drought in the village, where everyone dies. That’s the third act. My father didn’t like that [final] part of the story.”
So, technically, HAHK was without a third act. Hardly ever has a film been loved more. Madhuri Dixit was its superstar. Incidentally, she had also debuted in a Rajshri production, Abodh (1984), where Sooraj was an assistant.
Back then, Sooraj was given the charge of counting Madhuri’s bangles on the sets of Abodh. Which is when his mother had come to visit.
She was dead against him turning into a director, which she felt was a financially unsafe pursuit. She would’ve liked him to own/run studio-floors instead.
Back home, she admonished Sooraj, “Is this what you’re going to do in life—count bangles?” Sooraj’s dad, with a filmmaking bone of his own, fully betted on his son.
This was at a time when Rajshri were at their financial lowest. Mad actioners had taken over Indian screens. Middle-class audience stayed in to watch films on video players, that made for a more comfortable home entertainment. It was a novelty.
The 1980s, being no different from 2025, with the cycle repeating. And people hitting theatres, only for spectacle as cinema, and bingeing on OTT platforms, at home, for everything else. It’s a phase, of course.
That said, Raj Babu and Sooraj could see the revival of musicals with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, and the like, in Hollywood. That’s the genre Sooraj picked for his first film, a young romance, while he’d only just turned 20.
MPK became a sensation. It revived Rajshri. A condition that Sooraj’s mother had laid before him turning director was that he must get married first.
Which is what he did at 21. HAHK followed. I wonder if he put all that he saw at his own wedding into HAHK! Sooraj says, “That, and so many other family weddings I had been to.”
HAHK is packed with songs and anecdotes, as in kissa, as against story, or kahaani. The beauty of the film is, of course, the space it accords the ensemble cast.
You have Salman [back from MPK] standing in a corner of scenes, while the samdhi, samdhan, mama, chacha, etc, take centre-stage!
And this can only happen, because the new superstar had already trusted the director Sooraj’s conviction once.
They first met, because a model, Shabana Dutt, who had also tested for a role in MPK, didn’t land the part, but recommended Salman.
Sooraj recalls, “Salman thought he’d be given dhoti and bansuri for his role, because those are the films Rajshri used to make. He heard the script slouched on his seat, and straightened up only once he heard the ‘Kabootar jaa’ segment. But his auditions didn’t go well. His voice had no throw.”
Choreographer Farah Khan, Salman’s friend, came over to help him with the dance auditions. That bombed too. It’s just that once Sooraj got him to pose to the Rishi Kapoor romantic song ‘Oh hansini’, he could see a debutant heartthrob.
Only, that Salman was already appearing as a second-lead in a mid-tier film [Biwi Ho To Aisi]. Newcomer lead was a must. All this while, Salman kept sending Sooraj pictures of his friends he could cast instead.
Even when Sooraj went over to an ad shoot to finally express regret to Salman for MPK, the actor continued to introduce blokes on the set that he should have for the film!
Sooraj says he was floored by the “genuineness of a human being, first.” It had to be Salman. The rest is history.
Which, I realise, actually goes back to one more generation! Sooraj says, “Salim [Khan] Saab [Salman’s father] tells me he owes his move to Bombay, also to Rajshri Productions. He lived in Indore. That’s where the wedding of my tauji/uncle [Kamal Kumar Barjatya] was being held.
“Salim Saab said he was a ‘struggler’ then. He knew there would be lots of film dignitaries at the wedding. So, he came to see [having gate-crashed]. There, he met producer, Mr. K Amarnath, who told him, ‘Hero banega? Aaja Bombay!”
And he came to Bombay.
Before I sit down with Sooraj Barjatya, 61—the director rightly deemed the father of the great Indian family drama, ever since the blockbuster success of his Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (HAHK, 1994)—I entertain an unusual thought in my head.
ADVERTISEMENT
For decades, the gentle, reticent Sooraj has maintained a stoic, quiet public image.
What if the actual man behind those conservative movies, dipped in shudh desi ghee, espousing love for mamaji, chachiji, samdhan, devar, is actually a wayward chiller, himself—given to slasher flicks at home, for his private pastime!
I playfully poke him with these fantasies, for this profile—asking him what he does for fun. He’s sweetly measured, as usual.
For his hobby, he says, “I am right now into Puranas, reading the Gita, [Tulsidas’s] Ramcharitmanas; that’s my time for fun, when I am actually by myself.”
With Sooraj, what you see is what you get. There is no fakeness. We can see that.
In fact, back circa 2001, he recalls, he had once gone over to Fire ‘n’ Ice, a popular nightclub in Mumbai’s Lower Parel. Director Farah Khan spotted him there. She instantly called up Karan Johar, wholly shocked: “Look, who’s here!”
Sooraj was with his wife, Vineeta. They retreated to a nightclub corner, where another partygoer simply asked him to please leave, bellowing: “Yeh [jagah] hum paapi logon ke liye hai [This place is for sinners],” Sooraj laughs.
The filmmaker was actually at a discotheque, in a sense, researching for his forthcoming film then, Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (MPKDH, 2003).
Which he wished to make, feeling the need to reflect something more trendy/hip. This is soon after Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999), an adaptation of the Ramayan, set in an Indian joint family.
Sooraj was in his “early thirties”, looking for a reset. He sacked his traditional music composer, Raam Laxman; brought onboard Anu Malik. For the lead cast, he had Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, instantly ready for the roster.
He says, “I feel so guilty towards all of them. Because they gave me everything. But while making that film, I realised, I am not there. This is not me. I was asking others, if they’d like what I’m making!”
A big feedback came to him from Bollywood’s resident pop-philosopher, actor Govinda. Sooraj says, “Govinda Ji sweetly met me [after MPKDH] to say that hits, flops come to everyone. That’s not the point.
“But, he told me, everyone has a purpose—ghode ka apna kaam hota hai, sheep ka apna kaam hota hai, sabka apna kaam hota hai.
“These words of wisdom stayed with me so much, that I then made Vivah [2006]. From that film onwards, I stopped wanting to be someone else. Then I can go to a night club to observe, and that’s good enough—but not try and become that person. It’s a liberating thought.”
MPKDH bombed in the theatres. Vivah had a “silver-jubilee [25-week] run in 125 cinemas, across the country.” Perhaps the last such film. To the point that the term ‘silver jubilee’ itself may be lost on the present generation of filmgoers.
But that’s how family films work—Sooraj, who’s also the bossman of Rajshri Pictures, the fountainhead of desi family entertainers, for over 75-plus years, explains its footfall math.
For one, he confesses, his core audience are women. They’re the ones who bring the family into theatres, in the first place. Sooraj says he’s deeply conscious of their tastes—even literally.
For instance, “Observe the food in our films. I make it a point that they’re carefully shot like advertising. In Maine Pyar Kiya [MPK, 1989], when Laxmikant Berde has to carry a tokri of puris, we kept reshooting it, because the puris had to be properly full-blown, on every take.”
Secondly, Sooraj distinguishes the mainstream family film, from a massy actioner. The latter gets the excited audiences right from Day One, for the first dib.
For example, “One would go to see a Dhoom 2, first. Which is what happened at Jaipur’s Raj Mandir theatre, where it replaced Vivah.
“But after eight weeks [once the audiences had seen Dhoom 2], Vivah was back for a 35-week run. People keep telling [others, about a family entertainer], and people coming, slowly, slowly…”
That’s the Rajshri experience. Sooraj recalls, “I’m going back to 1969. Two films released that year. One was Jigri Dost and the other, Jeene Ki Raah, from LV Prasad Ji’s banner.
“Both were with Jeetu Ji [Jeetendra], who was a big star. Jigri Dost had a house-full, whereas Jeene Ki Raah barely had collections in its fourth week.
“LV Prasad Ji called up my grandfather [Tarachand Barjatya] to ask, ‘Where did I go wrong?’ He calmed him down, ‘You did no wrong. That’s Jigri Dost, and people will watch it first; it’s glamorous. Yours is Jeene Ki Raah, that audiences will visit, aaram se [in due course of time]. That’s exactly what happened.”
The analogy Sooraj uses sort of settles the debate: “One is the new McDonald’s [in your neighbourhood]. But then, you have to come down to Maharaja Bhog [eventually].”
Madhuri Dixit-Nene and Salman Khan in Hum Aapke Hain Koun
This is the theatrical thumb-rule, from those who’ve known them better. I suspect the same theory might apply to content on OTT platforms as well.
Wherein a new, flashy movie/show on a streamer catches full-on attention as the talking point on the first weekend. As if it’ll disappear after. Only, that sustainable content stays to be discovered, or rediscovered, forever.
Consider the Gen Z/Young Adult family (romantic) drama, Bada Naam Karenge (BNK), on SonyLIV. That’s the web series that Sooraj has turned show-runner with.
It bears the Rajshri stamp, like nothing you’ve watched on a streamer so far—large network of families, a sense of innocence among the young, flavour of small towns Ratlam, Ujjain, Indore…
Shailesh Kapoor, from the content tracking agency Ormax, I noticed, called the series a potential “game-changer” for the home-viewing ecosystem. I can see why.
For years, the Rajshris weren’t entertained in the OTT scene; as Sooraj recalls, “They were looking for something edgier.”
BNK is a family series, quite separate from the over-the-top, overlong, swish-pan saas-bahu serials of Star Plus, that dominated Indian TV, 2000 onwards. It’s about subtle, real, young love, in the times of Corona.
What I was struck by is its unpretentious simplicity. It’s possible that you haven’t seen the series. It’s more possible that families will chance upon it at some point, while the word spreads.
The show features two lovely, debuting lead actors, Ayesha Kaduskar, Ritik Ghanshani—part of families that are loving, but conservative. And as it happens with the latter, extra-possessive of their young.
Their transgression is that they once lived together in a big city, out of a circumstance, given COVID-19. Their graver transgression, to me, for a Rajshri product, is they even drink at a party together!
Ayesha Kaduskar and Ritik Ghanshani in Sooraj Barjatya’s debut OTT show, Bada Naam Karenge
Sooraj laughs, “Well, there is only one party-scene. And even there, I kept telling [director] Palash [Vaswani], if we can set it during Holi, and therefore thandai being passed around.”
It’s a world that Sooraj knows, because he spent a lot of time at his maternal grandparents’ home in Agra, growing up. Also, he says, his own Mumbai home mirrors that same joint family set-up/culture, including the youngest generations.
In the sense, more particularly, of the Marwari community, that the protagonists of BNK belong to. As does Sooraj.
Who, I find to be a fascinating lot—originally from a 50-odd kilometre radius in Rajasthan; spread across the country, broadening their business empires locally, retaining their filial and commercial connections globally.
Sooraj argues, “[Marwaris] are an amalgamation of the entire Bharat. We love to have a lot of money. But there are very few of us in the film business. Because we want to be safe.
“Before we invest anything, we must know how much we are going to get back. This is very difficult in this profession. Especially, creativity doesn’t come first to us. We know how to make money, out of money. But I think [Barjatyas] had to be here. And we had to tell some stories.”
Before there was fake news, there were quiz masters, who made up facts for questions at inter-school/college competitions. And since Internet hadn’t deepened enough to verify the supposedly right answer, we just won/lost points, from our guesses, and moved on.
One such question asked to my team, I remember, was the visual of a female actor in a song, perhaps from Janwar (1965), ‘Tum se accha kaun hai’.
Question: Who’s the actor, and what’s her relevance to Bollywood history? Answer: Rajshree, V Shantaram’s daughter, on whom Rajshri Pictures is named.
This was during college/school. Although I won’t find that phony quiz-master again, it’s taken me years to prove this as fake fact/news.
Sooraj tells me Rajshri Productions is named after his paternal aunt, Rajshri Saraogi (nee Barjatya), who was born the same year the film company was founded by his grandfather, Tarachand.
Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon
That date being August 15, 1947—making Rajshri exactly as old as independent India!
The company was founded in Kolkata, which is where young Tarachand moved to, from “Kuchaman, a small estate in Rajasthan.”
The only thing Tarachand ever wanted, Sooraj says, was to earn well for his mother: “She came from a poor background, she couldn’t eat well in her sasural. And he wanted to provide for her. That ambition drew him to Calcutta.”
Tarachand found a job as a manager in a Bengali film company, Chamaria Pictures, where he performed rather well. Except, as his family grew, he wished to expand, and go his own.
The company allowed him to pursue his side-gigs, alongside. Which is how Tarachand started a small arm, distributing films for Central Provinces-Berar, a tiny province of British India. But what films could he start with?
Sooraj says, “My grandfather would get tears in his eyes, when he’d tell me about Gemini Pictures, and Shri SS Vasan, in Madras.”
Basically, Vasan/Gemini Pictures had made a huge blockbuster, Chandralekha (1948). Tarachand urged them to dub it in Hindi. Vasan was unsure—who would watch a non-star cast pic across India?
Tarachand persuaded him nonetheless, including shooting portions of the film, with actors originally mouthing some lines in Hindi. Once done, Vasan offered “all India distribution rights of Chandralekha” to Tarachand.
It’s something the young entrepreneur couldn’t believe.
“Chandralekha was the Baahubali of its times, or what Pushpa would be today,” Sooraj recalls. Such is how Rajshri entered the big league, subsequently setting up distribution offices across North India.
Stills from Maine Pyar Kiya
Similarly acquiring films from the South, for nation-wide releases, with Hindi dubs. Essentially, what’s now called the pan-India release.
And then, of course, they combined it with distributing popular Hindi titles, having established a deep trade-network.
Rajshri entered film production, only in the early 1960s. That’s the business Sooraj’s father, Raj Kumar Barjatya, oversaw. Their breakthrough was Dosti (1964), starring two unknown male leads, Sudhir Kumar, Sushil Kumar, with a phenomenal soundtrack, that continues to resonate.
Sooraj says, “Dosti took everyone by surprise. People first said, who would watch? It’s a black and white film. Langde andhe ki picture hai [it’s about a blind and lame man]. But my grandfather was spiritually inclined, and he was convinced.”
Throughout his career, Tarachand would visit The Mother at her ashram in Pondicherry with his film ideas. She had decreed that he only make films that “elevate the consciousness of humans/society.”
Dosti was one of them. He never looked back after.
Sooraj remembers, “As a child, I’d be on story sessions with my grandfather, listening to all the top commercial pictures, and he’d say, ‘It’s a superhit film, but of no use to us.’ I used to wonder, if it’s super-hit, why is it of no use to us?
“So, then, he took me over to our company emblem, that is [Goddess] Saraswati. And he told me, ‘Jo yahan banega usmein Saraswati ka vaas hona zaroori hai [Saraswati must reside in whatever gets made here]’.”
The script of Rajshri mainly drew from Indian literature. The directors were relatively lesser known. Also, since, as Sooraj puts it, the celebrated ones would want to produce their own films.
But, more importantly, as he says, the lead actors in those films couldn’t be the popular hero-heroines of the times. The subjects were such. The superstars could simply not slip in.
He says, “For example, if you see Uphaar [1971]. There’s a crazy girl. Now, you can’t just put any star in there. You need someone without a screen image.
“Or a film like Geet Gaata Chal [1975], about a teenager. How can you put ‘Shah Rukh Khan’ in a teenage role? It has to be a newcomer. Those were the subjects we picked.”
Mayank Shekhar and Sooraj Barjatya
For instance, Amitabh Bachchan did star in a Rajshri film, Saudagar (1973). But this is right before Zanjeer (1973). Which made his ‘angry young man’ stardom too big to fit into a Barjatya vehicle.
It took Bachchan almost 50 years to feature again in a Rajshri production, aged 79, with Uunchai (2022), directed by Sooraj; about friends, who are family.
What Rajshri mastered was essentially “the non-star film” that, in turn, gave debutants breaks into an industry that has perennially faced the insider-outsider divide.
As Sooraj says, “I can go on listing the breaks from Rajshri: first film of Sanjay Khan, Jaya Bachchan Ji, Rakhee Ji… We can go down to Mithun [Chakraborty] Da’s first commercial picture; Raj Babbar Ji’s first film was signed with us. Naseeruddin [Shah] sir’s first commercial film…”
It’s astounding alright. What’s equally astounding about Rajshri that I had heard, years ago, is they’ve had a rather precise rule-book of sorts, detailing stuff you can/can’t do in a Rajshri film. This is besides that the whole family should be able to watch the film together.
For instance, Commandment #1: You can’t have a villain in a Rajshri film. The ‘circumstance’ is the villain! Commandment #2: There should be no action. And if there is a required action sequence, the number of punches cannot exceed 14!
Not 13, not 15; 14, to be sure. No, wait, is this really true? Guess what, Sooraj says, “Yes, it is,” and asks me how I know. Actually, I have no clue how I know!
Sooraj smiles, “My grandfather and father’s point was that since the villain is a must—it’s best if it can be a circumstance. We don’t need to have too much of violence, hence.
“HAHK: Bhabhi (Renuka Shahane) dies. That’s all there is to it. She slips. It’s a circumstance.
“MPK: Currency notes get destroyed by water. Poor boy, so that is a circumstance. Now, Uunchai: The heroes want to climb up [a mountain]. There, age is the circumstance [for an antagonist].
“As for 14 punches in an action sequence—that was told to me while making MPK, because I was a young man, and the action director can go on, with a fight sequence [if you don’t put a cap to it]. So, 14 punches. That’s it.”
And it’s not that the rules have always been followed, though. Sooraj admits, “Whenever we have deviated, it hasn’t quite gone down well.” I bring up his last film with Salman Khan, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015), for instance.
He says, “Salman and I can see through each other. The first draft [of Prem Ratan] that I took to him, he said, why are we complicating things; go for simple.
“Yet, I put some action into it, because I wanted to [serve his audience]. I tried to play it safe. I should have just made a straight emotional affair. The film did well. But when I look at it now, I don’t like to see the climax.”
While Rajshri has been around since 1947, Sooraj was the first member from his family firm to actually direct films. His late father, Raj—better known as Raj Babu in film-industry circles—he says, “had modelled himself on Irving Thalberg of MGM Studios.”
But he had the eye/ear for great stories. And what Raj Babu left behind for Sooraj is actually a detailed file, with plot-points from movies he’s liked—whether from Rajshri or other productions.
Knowing his son’s natural inclinations as director, Raj Babu felt the file would serve as the North Star for subjects to pick. One of the notings, for instance, is where Uunchai came from.
I never got a chance to interact with Raj Babu. I do remember observing him once, from a distance, at a talk by Hollywood’s top screenwriting guru, Syd Field.
Everybody was listening. I noticed Raj Babu, sitting down like a student, taking copious notes, instead.
Which is ironic, only for the fact that if Syd Field, a stickler for the three-act screenplay structure, ever watched Raj Babu’s idea for Sooraj, HAHK—he could still flip in his grave.
Now, that’s a film, without a conflict, up until its final 30 minutes, that defied all logic of screenwriting.
Sooraj says, “The [HAHK] structure originally belongs to [Rajshri’s] Nadiya Ke Paar [1982]. We owe it to KP Mishra’s novel, Kohbar Ki Shart.
“Which was a textbook in Agra University. My father had read the book. And if you relate the novel to HAHK, Madhuri [Dixit’s character] gets married to Mohnish [Bahl’s character].
“What follows is a massive drought in the village, where everyone dies. That’s the third act. My father didn’t like that [final] part of the story.”
So, technically, HAHK was without a third act. Hardly ever has a film been loved more. Madhuri Dixit was its superstar. Incidentally, she had also debuted in a Rajshri production, Abodh (1984), where Sooraj was an assistant.
Back then, Sooraj was given the charge of counting Madhuri’s bangles on the sets of Abodh. Which is when his mother had come to visit.
She was dead against him turning into a director, which she felt was a financially unsafe pursuit. She would’ve liked him to own/run studio-floors instead.
Back home, she admonished Sooraj, “Is this what you’re going to do in life—count bangles?” Sooraj’s dad, with a filmmaking bone of his own, fully betted on his son.
This was at a time when Rajshri were at their financial lowest. Mad actioners had taken over Indian screens. Middle-class audience stayed in to watch films on video players, that made for a more comfortable home entertainment. It was a novelty.
The 1980s, being no different from 2025, with the cycle repeating. And people hitting theatres, only for spectacle as cinema, and bingeing on OTT platforms, at home, for everything else. It’s a phase, of course.
That said, Raj Babu and Sooraj could see the revival of musicals with Saturday Night Fever and Grease, and the like, in Hollywood. That’s the genre Sooraj picked for his first film, a young romance, while he’d only just turned 20.
MPK became a sensation. It revived Rajshri. A condition that Sooraj’s mother had laid before him turning director was that he must get married first.
Which is what he did at 21. HAHK followed. I wonder if he put all that he saw at his own wedding into HAHK! Sooraj says, “That, and so many other family weddings I had been to.”
HAHK is packed with songs and anecdotes, as in kissa, as against story, or kahaani. The beauty of the film is, of course, the space it accords the ensemble cast.
You have Salman [back from MPK] standing in a corner of scenes, while the samdhi, samdhan, mama, chacha, etc, take centre-stage!
And this can only happen, because the new superstar had already trusted the director Sooraj’s conviction once.
They first met, because a model, Shabana Dutt, who had also tested for a role in MPK, didn’t land the part, but recommended Salman.
Sooraj recalls, “Salman thought he’d be given dhoti and bansuri for his role, because those are the films Rajshri used to make. He heard the script slouched on his seat, and straightened up only once he heard the ‘Kabootar jaa’ segment. But his auditions didn’t go well. His voice had no throw.”
Choreographer Farah Khan, Salman’s friend, came over to help him with the dance auditions. That bombed too. It’s just that once Sooraj got him to pose to the Rishi Kapoor romantic song ‘Oh hansini’, he could see a debutant heartthrob.
Only, that Salman was already appearing as a second-lead in a mid-tier film [Biwi Ho To Aisi]. Newcomer lead was a must. All this while, Salman kept sending Sooraj pictures of his friends he could cast instead.
Even when Sooraj went over to an ad shoot to finally express regret to Salman for MPK, the actor continued to introduce blokes on the set that he should have for the film!
Sooraj says he was floored by the “genuineness of a human being, first.” It had to be Salman. The rest is history.
Which, I realise, actually goes back to one more generation! Sooraj says, “Salim [Khan] Saab [Salman’s father] tells me he owes his move to Bombay, also to Rajshri Productions. He lived in Indore. That’s where the wedding of my tauji/uncle [Kamal Kumar Barjatya] was being held.
“Salim Saab said he was a ‘struggler’ then. He knew there would be lots of film dignitaries at the wedding. So, he came to see [having gate-crashed]. There, he met producer, Mr. K Amarnath, who told him, ‘Hero banega? Aaja Bombay!”
And he came to Bombay.
