Mumbai: Filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwanis recently released period streaming series ‘Jubilee, which charts the evolution of Hindi cinema in parallel with the independence of India, is fast growing on the audiences and has contributed to the pop culture in a very short span of time.
One thing from the series that is at the tip of the tongue of every audience member is the leitmotif of the line “Madan Kumar Bh*****d” which appears at regular intervals, said by every character during the course of the series. However, Vikram had no plans of keeping it in the series, it’s something that happened organically.
In the series, Madan Kumar is the larger idea of the superstar and is personified by Aparshakti Khurana’s character of Binod Das after Nandish Singh Sandhu’s Jamshed Khan is killed in the riots after the partition of India.
Talking to IANS, Vikram, who made his second period drama with ‘Jubilee’ exactly a decade after his most loved period film ‘Lootera’, said, “That Madan Kumar Bh*****d was not actually planned during the scripting or the shoot. It was just an off-handed idea that Ram Kapoor’s character of Shamsher Singh Walia would say after he realises that he would suffer huge financial losses if Binod is made Madan Kumar. And, he said it very convincingly because the rage was coming from a very justified place on his character’s part”.
Ram said it in such a manner that it inspired every cast member and from there on it took a different trajectory. Vikram told IANS, “Looking at his dialogue other cast members, who too had genuine disdain for Binod because of his certain choices and action, too used it. Then Sidhanth (who plays Jay Khanna in the series) came up to me one day and said he wishes to curse Madan Kumar in a similar way. I said, ‘Okay fine go ahead, if it doesn’t fit the story arc, we will remove it during the edit'”.
And there was no stopping then, as the story progresses, Madan Kumar can be seen being hurled with expletives, on his face or during his absence, mostly during his absence in the frame. It has become a phenomenon sparking a memefest on social media.
‘Jubilee’ is streaming on Prime Video.
–IANS