30 years of Bombay: ‘If we shoot such sequences today, we will be thrashed up’, say its makers

Kasaragod: After 30 years -- 31 years and four months, to be precise -- the laterite-stone path of Bekal Fort turned into a corridor of memory. As Manisha Koirala, Mani Ratnam and Rajiv Menon walked along the ramparts where 'Bombay' (1995) was filmed, a morning tourist played A R Rahman’s 'Uyire Uyire' on his phone. Koirala smiled, almost instinctively. “I’ve been posting this song… what a song,” she said.

The Kerala Tourism Department brought together the director, actor and cinematographer at Bekal to mark 30 years of Bombay and to showcase the fort as a destination. The gathering was reflective -- a return to a place where cinema, politics, and geography once aligned.

Mani Ratnam had been searching for a location far removed from urban bustle for the moment when Shekhar Narayanan Pillai (Arvind Swamy) and Shaila Bano (Manisha Koirala) expressed their love. “I told him about Bekal. He liked it immediately,” recalls Menon.

What followed became one of Indian cinema’s most enduring images: Shekhar singing 'Uyire Uyire Vandhu Ennodu Kalanthuvidu' with longing; Shaila running towards him, unshackled from the boundaries of faith. The song’s immortality was not just Vairamuthu’s poetry or Rahman’s music, nor the voices of Hariharan and K S Chithra, or even the chemistry of the lead pair. The grasslands, moss-clad laterite walls, and the crashing monsoon sea of Bekal Fort carried equal weight.

Few have captured the fort with such intensity, before or since. “Many had filmed Bekal Fort before us. But these visuals endured because of when they were shot,” says Menon, the film's cinematographer.

'Bombay’ (1995), set against the Babri Masjid demolition and the Mumbai riots of 1992, told a defiantly humane story of communal harmony through an interfaith romance and marriage -- a political statement Rajiv calls “brave” and difficult to retell today.

‘I couldn’t have missed it’
Koirala remembers spending nearly a week in August 1994 in Kasaragod, filming at Bekal and in Thalangara. “It’s been 30 years. We shot a beautiful, iconic song in a beautiful location. I couldn’t have missed this,” she said, referring to the small gathering hosted by Tourism Minister P A Mohammed Riyas.

“I’ve done many films, but I’m always recognised for Bombay and Dil Se…. Thank you, Mani sir,” she said.

As they walked to the same sea-facing bastion where Shekhar and Shaila once held each other, Koirala pointed out that she could still recognise the hotel where the crew stayed while passing through Kasaragod town. Mani Ratnam recalls putting them up at the City Tower Hotel, as there were no hotels near Bekal then. Today, Bekal has three five-star resorts. “It’s changed a lot,” says Koirala, “but I could still recognise it.”

‘Rajiv is the reason we reached Bekal’
Mani Ratnam credits Menon, once his choice for the lead role in ‘Roja’, for discovering Bekal. “First, I must thank Rajiv. He introduced me to this place. And second, the weather -- the monsoon was beautiful. The sea was wild. It gave the song its mood,” he says. “Things have changed, but the feel is the same. The emotion is the same. The film is identified with that song.”

Looking for a location for an ad film
Menon traces Bekal’s discovery to a road trip to Kudremukha in Chikmagalur while scouting locations for an advertisement. He stopped over in Kanhangad at the home of a retired naval officer who had once worked with his father. The naval officer's own painting of a fort hung in the living room.

“I asked him where it was. He said Bekal Fort is just six kilometres away. I liked it, but I was short of time,” Menon recalls. The officer insisted, even mentioning that he had once discussed the fort with Menon’s father. “That emotional tug made me go.”

The ad never materialised. Soon after, Menon began work on 'Bombay'. When Mani Ratnam spoke of the 'Uyire' song, Menon suggested Bekal.

When the crew arrived, rain lashed the fort. They waited indoors on the first day. “Eventually, we began shooting in the rain. It turned into a blessing,” says Menon. “We captured the fury of the sea, the moisture, the monsoon moss, the mood. Everything fell into place.”

The shoot, however, was demanding. Koirala slipped on the rocks. Menon fell on the first day and needed five stitches on his face. Fishermen returning from the sea helped the crew, and when a few youths tried to create trouble, they stepped in to protect the shoot.

Menon also reflects on the geography of cinema.  “It is very strange that this story is supposed to be set in Tamil Nadu. We have a fort like Bekal in Tamil Nadu. The girl’s house is in Pollachi. She meets Aravind’s family at the Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace in Madurai, and she crosses the river in Kasaragod,” says Menon, as Mani Ratnam jokingly interjects: “Don’t reveal everything.” 

"Everything came together as one village in two reels. This is the beauty of cinema,” says Menon. But he is unsure if such a film can be made today. 'Bombay' was a brave movie, he says. “If we shoot such sequences now, we will be thrashed up,” he adds, gesturing to a far more hostile political climate.