Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

KABUL EXPRESS apart from its aura of being a film that has been shot in the post-Taliban regime in Afghanistan is also going to be a movie, which would show case Buzkashi, the Afghani version of Rugby, where the ball is replaced with a headless sheep, after nearly a decade or so on the Indian screen. The director of the movie Kabir Khan on the eve of the release of the movie in London had said that he had used the original Buzkashi from Panjsher Valley in the movie.

Buzkashi is an adventure sport which rushes the adrenalin and that is precisely the reason why it has been used in the international movies for quite a long time, and is also an acknowledgement about the challenge that it poses to the human faculty. Hollywood stars like Anthony Queen and Omar Sherrif who hailed from the Orient have been a part of this great spectacle for quite a long time. It was shown as a part of the Hollywood movie CARAVAN featuring Anthony Queen where in the King of Afghanistan Mohammed Zahir Shah was a part of the film and was shown as witnessing the great game. Omar Sherrif had featured in a film HORSEMEN where Buzkashi was an integral part of the movie. Probably this was also the reason that Sylvester Stallone featured this great sport in his Rocky series, and in Rocky-III (1988) Buzkashi formed an integral part where Stallone had participated in a real game with real players after a prolonged training. However, that was the end of it as far as featuring Buzkashi in the Hollywood movies is concerned.

It is also surprising that while the Pathans have been an integral part of the film milieu it was left to Feroze Khan to launch it on the silver screen in his opus DHARMATMA, and then it was for the first time that the Indian public had a real taste of Buzkashi. Shot in the then picturesque valley of Panjsher, it provided the glimpse of beauty that Afghanistan had and which had not been brought to the knowledge of the general public. In DHARMATMA it was the point of initiation of love between Feroze Khan and Hema Malini in the true tribal tradition of having won the booty of Buzkashi and then staking the claim of the girl, as being able to win the trophy is the ultimate among the Pathans as far as valour and strength is concerned. Danny Dengzongpa was the opponent who lost out to Feroze Khan.

Buzkashi again went into wilderness as far as its picturisation into Hindi Movies was concerned, and it was left to the dynamic and adventurous director, Late Mukul Anand who took it upon himself to bring Buzkashi back again on to the silver screen of Bollywood. And who else, but Amitabh Bachchan to don the mantle of Pathan and play the game, but now the challenger was a female, Sri Devi. The opening scene of KHUDA GAWAH, which opens, with Buzkashi is considered to be one of the most prominent action sequences shot in Bollywood. In a surprising parallel it was Danny Dengzongpa who once again was a part of the Buzkashi shot, but this time around as a colleague of Badshah Khan aka Bachchan. And once again the ultimate fallout of the match of love between Bachchan and Sri Devi.

Fittingly enough, it had to be Yash Raj films who are writing a new chapter in Indian film industry had to get the credit, unconsciously though, of bringing Buzkashi once again to India, and it is hoped, as per the admission of the director that it is real Buzkashi that Buzkashi of KABUL EXPRESS would not result into a romance on the Indian screen once again.