Bollywood actor Paresh Rawal managed to entertain one and all, while playing the role of ‘Baburao Ganpatrao Apte’ in the 2000 film Hera Phera. He brought the house down with his stellar performance as Babu Bhaiyaa- an annoying aged landlord. The actor mouthed some very interesting one-liners which have the power to leave one in splits even today. While the movie also featured Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty as Raju and Shyam, who were great, Paresh Rawal’s acting took the cake.
Read about the REAL-life ‘Baburao Ganpatrao Apte’; the man who inspired Paresh Rawal’s character in the 2000 film Hera Pheri. The iconic character was inspired by none other than Rajat Dholakia, a popular composer of films, theatre and ads. Speaking with Bollywood Hungama, actor Snehal Daabbi shared the rare trivia about Paresh Rawal’s Babu Bhaiyaa character. He had written the film with Neeraj Vora and had also played a character in it called ‘Raapchik maal’.
During an interaction, Snehal shared that the character of Baburao Ganpatrao Apte was inspired by Rajat Dholakia, whom they used to call ‘Juku’. He mentioned that Juku was exactly like Baburao. Daabbi said, “The role of Paresh Rawal (Baburao Ganpatrao Apte) was inspired by a music director in Gujarati theatre, Rajat Dholakia. We used to call him Juku.” He added, “So Juku was exactly like Baburao. Paresh Rawal, Neeraj Vora and I had decided in advance ki Baburao Juku jaisa hi hoga. ‘Arre baba’ (says it in Baburao style)…this is how he talks. The original film, Ramji Rao Calling (1989), wasn’t so funny. We added a lot of madness. We went to meet Juku with drinks and told him ‘Aapko study karna hai.”
Furthermore, when Daabbi was questioned about Rajat Dholakia’s reaction to the plan, he shared, “He knew we were basing the role on him. And nobody in Gujarati theatre used to mind about such things. I had done a role in a play where I imitated Arvind Joshi (father of actor Sharman Joshi). There are times when he was sitting in the audience and he would laugh the loudest on such scenes.” Also Read: Chunky Panday On Having 3 Celebrities At Home Now With Ananya Panday And Bhavana Pandey: ‘My House Is Like A Comedy Show’- EXCLUSIVE
Meanwhile, Paresh Rawal’s dialogue “Utha le re baba, utha le ... mereko nahi re, in dono ko utha le” referring to Akshay Kumar and Suniel Shetty is popular even today. Baburao memes also trend on the internet.
Rajat Dholakia aka real-life Baburao Ganpatrao Apte is the son of the veteran composer, Dilip Dholakia. He has composed music and background score for many films like the 1989 film Parinda, 1994 film 1942 A Love Story and several others. The music composer has also won the National Award thrice in the Best Music category.
Image source: YouTube; IMDb