Nana Patekar was critically injured during the shooting of Parinda, recalls Vidhu Vinod Chopra

During a train journey, filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra and his frequent collaborator, Abhijat Joshi, decided to write one more movie together. It started with two brothers and took five years to complete. And even though Chopra's first Hollywood film, Broken Horses, which opens this Friday, has its genesis in his 1989 Hindi movie, Parinda, he insists that it's turned out very different.
"For one, unlike our Indian bhais, an American will never die for his brother which is one reason why the macho Kishen, a hired mercenary, transforms into a childlike Buddy who's a little slow mentally. And the violence which was slightly over-the-top in Parinda, is more real in Broken Horses," points out Chopra.
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He admits that he's always been drawn to stories about brothers or friends and partners who're like brothers, perhaps because he's always been really close to his own brother, Veer. "I was frustrated because even after a year, no distributor wanted to buy Khamosh, a really good thriller with an unconventional plot, so I decided to make a more commercial Hindi film about two brothers on the streets of Mumbai. The younger one is hungry, the older one dries his tears and tells him not to worry, he's there and will look after him. Parinda started with that premise," reminisces Chopra, adding that he used all the pillars of Hindi cinema in plot construction. "And after I'd built the edifice, I removed the pillars, one by one, and to my surprised delight found that it still stood its ground."
He cast Jackie and Anil Kapoor to play the brothers. They were the youngest stars at the time and the only ones ready to work with Chopra who had the reputation of being difficult. "They were very nice to me," he smiles.
However, Naseeruddin Shah who he'd worked with in a few films, including Khamosh, wasn't ready for an encore. So, for thekurta-pyjama-clad don Anna, Chopra settled for a new face, Nana Patekar, whom he'd seen in a play, Purush. The ganglord's den was a water tank on top of Antop Hill, strewn with the scrap of nearby slum dwellers which Chopra rented from BMC for Rs 500.
"And the screams you hear are for real because Nana actually got burnt during the shooting of the last scene," he informs.
Those days there were no digital fires and the fire they built of rubber solution and petrol went out of control. Nana was critically injured and was in hospital for almost two months. It took almost a year for his injuries to heal and Nana returned to the sets with pyrophobia, a real fear of fire. "So we built a set in Film City where we could complete the fire sequence in more controlled conditions," says Vinod, admitting that the fear of fire is also integral to the plot of Broken Horses, along with water. "But there are no pigeons."
Parinda was initially titled Kabutarkhana and a quarter of a century later, is still remembered for Inspector Prakash's reunion with Karan which ends abruptly when he's fatally shot and dies in the arms of his childhood buddy who recognises the goons. “It was filmed at Kabutarkhana one of the first things I spotted, probably because of all the pigeons flying around, when I stepped out of Dadar station. I thought through the pigeons would could convey the concept of emancipation of the spirit of the dying man,“ he points out. The Kabutarkhana is a busy junction of five roads and the shopkeepers in the area downed shutters for the shoot believing Chopra was the younger brother of the Prime Minister.
The film's climax was shot at the Gateway of India on New Year's eve. "We shot there on three different New Year over three years because money was short. Once before we started the film, the second time with the actors and finally, just before the release. All the shots were incorporated," informs Chopra, adding that Parinda was made in 66 days while Broken Horses took half the time. "I hope it is a far better film because the idea was to rectify all the mistakes I'd made the first time."
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WATCH: Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Broken Horses creates intrigue! - TOI