Bajrangi Bhaijaan - Script Analysis

                          

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.