F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b

Aladin is Sujoy Ghosh’s new film starring Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Ritesh Deshmukh and Jacqueline Fernandes. In an interview to CNN IBN’s Rajeev Masand, Amitabh Bachchan has spoken about the story of Aladin where the lead character is called Aladin Chatterjee (Ritesh Deshmukh). And here is the story according to Big B…..

I must say that the facts of the old story are just there in few places — there is the lamp, there is Aladin and there is the genie, and that’s it. The location is interesting because it’s a make believe though it is contemporary.  

The lamp has been integrated in a peculiar way. Aladin’s parents were looking out for something, which would bring world peace and then it gets lost and they get demolished. He (Aladin) is a weak and timid person in college. He keeps getting bullied by his seniors who are tougher and stronger than him.

He has always led a very reticent and reserved, exclusive life. And he sees a girl in college whom he falls in love with at first sight and needs to communicate with her but he doesn’t have enough courage and energy. The gang that teases him in college is always teasing him because his name is ‘Aladin’and they keep referring to the lamp in a sort of funny and sarcastic manner.

Every opportunity that they get, they either bring a lamp in his face and say, ‘Come on rub it, some genie will come’ or make fun of him. And they (the gang) convince the girl to give him a lamp as a present albeit in a joke but it turns out that the lamp indeed is the ‘magic lamp’and he has to rub it in front of them because they are making fun of him and suddenly a man appears who is a genie and says — I am genie and I have three wishes and I am 5000 years old and due for retirement and these are my last three wishes, so would you hurry and ask them because I need to get back.

And he can’t believe what’s happening to him because all kinds of strange magical things start happening. And eventually he confides that he loves the girl and that he wants her.

The genie says — Ah! that’s the wish. So very tactfully all these two wishes come true and Aladin being sort of a moral person says that he didn’t want it this way and says that if he wanted to win this girl, he would win her through what he was and asks the genie could he make that wish come true for him.

So the genie does that. And through the last wish, Aladin becomes a normal person and through normal means he is able to pursue the girl that he is in love with and how they come together. There is the villianous angle of Sanjay Dutt, who is an ex-genie who is desparate to get the lamp and he knows where it is.

 But he also knows that the genie that has come out, who is oddly named ‘Genious’ is protecting Aladin. There is a little twist there where Sanjay Dutt, who is playing as a ringmaster of a circus has a small element of the lamp with him which is almost like the Superman’s kryptonic, where he would lose all his powers once he sees that. And he (Sanjay Dutt) uses that very tactfully to get to the lamp and steal it and then the climax of how Aladin and genie saves it and eliminates the other.

Hmm. So , its a romantic film with a hero, heroine and villain. The new addition is the Genie! BTW, you can read the full interview here.