How Jaggu Dada Turned Into Jackie Shroff

From a silent young man in a stable full of horses in Dev Anand's "Swami Dada", to the loveable hero of Subhash Ghai's "Hero" and from one of the criminals who is reformed by Dilip Kumar in Ghai's "Karma", to the father of Kareena Kapoor in Ghai's "Pardes" and to the Sai Baba of Shirdi in Deepak Balraj Vij's "Shirdi Ke Sai Baba", today Jackie Shroff has come such a long way. And yet some of his critics call him just another handsome hero who is not an actor! He has won some major awards for his performances, especially in films like "Parinda" and "Gardish" and yet they refuse to recognise him as an actor! Let us take a walk with Jackie as he completes twenty-five years as an actor which is no ordinary feat for a man who has still not found the kind of recognition he deserves as the great survivor in an age and time when perishing is so easy, surviving so very difficult in this slippery world of films.

Jackie as his contemporary and seniors and the local police station of Teen Batti, a "slum" in the sophisticated areas of posh south Mumbai, remember him was "a good for nothing boy", "a hoodlum", "a dada (bad man) of area" and "a terror". There are women in their fifties who remember how they never went out of their homes after sunset because of the fear of Jaggu Dada being on the prowl with his long hair and beard, accompanied by his "boys" (there were no 'bhais' and 'bhaigiri', those days, only 'Dadas' and 'Dadagiri' and Jaggu Dada was one of the best Dadas). They talk about the every evening fights between different gangs of "dadas" and how Jaggu Dada's gang was the most feared and best known in the surrounding areas of Teen Batti and the local police station.

They talk about how Jaggu Dada fell in love with Ayesha, the most beautiful girl from one of the more prominent families in the area and how their affair shocked families and the entire area and how the two kept their affair alive in the face of stiff opposition from different areas of influence. They say it was Ayesha who was a well known model who brought change in the life of Jaggu Dada. It was during their affair that Jaggu realised his potential of making it as a model. He got himself photographed and left copies of them with some of the leading modeling agencies. He took him no time to find his face and personality accepted and he found work as a model for several products. Charminar cigarettes was one of them.

It was the hoarding of the Charminar ad on Juhu Beach that caught the attention of Dev Anand, the filmmaker forever on a quest for new faces and new talent. He met Jackie and found him interesting. He had already done the major casting for "Swami Dada' the film he was making then. He offered Jackie a big role which was a part of the major scene and Jackie in his excitement over meeting Dev, his favorite hero and his offering him a chance to be seen on the big screen accepted Dev's offer. There were a number of other stars in the film, big and small but Jackie's personality stood out even in the brief scene. He was marked by all those who saw the film and there were many who asked woh jo ghodon ke saath chup chap baitha hua lakda hai kaun hai? (who is that boy sitting silently in the midst of a horde of horses?).

Subhash Ghai was one of them. Ghai who was to start his own company as a producer was trying to make a film with one of the star-sons who were rising those days but the exorbitant prices they were demanding and their tantrums made him change his mind. He decided to take one big risk by casting a new face, a new hero for "Hero", his first film as a producer. He had seen that "boy" in Dev's "Swami Dada". He sent for him, gave him a few grueling tests and finally launched him as his hero with Meenakshi Sheshadri who had a big flop in her very first film "Painter Babu" produced by Manoj Kumar, as his heroine. People in the business who were following Ghai's interesting graph as a director wondered how an intelligent man like him take a step