25 Years on: Celebrating Aamir-Juhi's romance in QSQT

Mansoor Khan's directorial debut Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak released 25 years ago today, April 29, with then upcoming actors Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla, starring in their first major roles. Fondly referred to as QSQT by cinephiles, the film went on to create box office history and catapulted the lead actors to superstardom overnight.

Sukanya Verma revisits the magical film.

There's a funny story behind how I watched Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak for the first time.

In 1988, when the concept of channels dedicated to trailers were completely alien, we relied on the services of Chhayageet and Chitrahaar on Doordarshan for a weekly dose of soundtrack videos to enjoy everything new, popular or timeless.

Around then, I noticed the promotion for Mansoor Khan's directorial debut is unusually keen. Sometimes they'd air more than one song from the about-to-release romance starring two unfamiliar faces -- Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla. And right before the clip, they'd play out its multiple posters, almost like a PowerPoint presentation.

Moreover, Anand-Milind's gleaming score against Majrooh Sultanpuri's fanciful poetry was a smash hit from the word go.

Every single song -- Papa kehte hain, Ghazab ka hai din, Aye mere humsafar, Akele hain toh kya gham and Kaahe sataye sung by Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik made a lasting impression on its listeners.

I heard this over my transistor from the legendary Ameen Sayani on his musical countdown, Cibaca Sangeet Mala and experienced it first hand when the frequent playing of its cassette resulted in recurring damage and buying three new tapes.

Now, summer vacations had just started and I was holidaying with my family at my aunt's home who neither had a VCR nor a colour television.

Owing to the instant hysteria it generated, tickets weren't available easily (remember no multiple screens or show) but the video was out in the market within a week or so.

Yielding to my constant pleas, my aunt rented its VHS tape and asked her landlady in the adjacent bungalow to play the video, which was then relayed on our TV by using a splitter. (At that time, it felt like the coolest technology ever.) 

So this, ladies and gentlemen, is the extent of effort that went in for me to catch my first viewing of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak.

Eventually I watched it several times again, in colour -- (cinematographer) Kiran Deohans creates a ravishing imagery on Plasma/LCD/LED/screens, you name it -- to know its entire screenplay by heart.

Still a primary school student when Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak came out, it's incredible how affectionate I continue to feel towards this film, which released on this day, April 29, 25 years ago. It's like that line, 'Humpar aapka bahut acha impression pada hai.'

Produced by the man behind dazzling entertainers like Tumsa Nahi Dekha, Teesri Manzil, Yaadon Ki Baarat, Hum Kisise Kum Nahin -- Nasir Hussain, Qayamat Se..., directed by his son Mansoor, worked as a clutter-breaker during a time Bollywood reeked of action and revenge, re-launching the career of two previously unnoticed actors -- nephew Aamir Khan (in Ketan Mehta's Holi) and Juhi Chawla (Mukul S Anand's Sultanat).

Hussain's last couple of films had bombed badly and the success of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (which would go on to become one of the first movies -- at least in my memory -- to be addressed by its abbreviated title, QSQT followed by the likes of MPK, JJWS, DDLJ, K3G, etc) was imperative.

As luck would have it, it became a huge blockbuster and turned its leading duo into overnight sensations.

Though this Romeo and Juliet-inspired confection doesn't have an exceptional storyline, Mansoor creates an endearing equation around the shy, aloof Raj (Aamir) and spirited, jabbering Rashmi(Juhi).

Lovers facing parental opposition against the backdrop of enemy clans is not a novel premise.

But what sets QSQT apart is how Mansoor prefers to focus on building the connection between a boy and a girl from warring Rajput families, making them genuine and likable as well as a steady refusal to spin them into melodramatic beings on discovering each other's true identity.

Where Raj and Rashmi are concerned, they're both very young and petrified of their fierce, temperamental fathers preferring to lie through their teeth instead of engaging ugly confrontations.
 
Sparks fly between them immediately -- all through the time a trigger-happy Rashmi clicks pictures of him against a sunset or when Raj cleans her wounds with cotton swabbed in Dettol following Rashmi's heartfelt admission of her feelings for him to right till the part where the twain elope and play house on top of a rugged hill.

Even if they had to abscond, they could have planned it a little better. Like travel to a proper city, get a real job and get married in court instead of cutting his finger with a knife and doing a literal khoon bhari maang.

But literacy is a dispensable concept in our movies and whether it's Love Story, Dil, QSQT or Maine Pyaar Kiya, and most runaway hero prefer to be seen with an axe instead of a file.

Despite this incredulity and growling, regressive daddies ('Shaadi ke baad patni wohi karegi jo pati chahta hai') concerned with 'khandaan ki izzat' and 'dushmani,' QSQT endlessly charms.

The soundtrack as well as the part-booming, part-dulcet background score is terrific.

The direction displays confidence and taut storytelling. And after a long gap, audiences witness the return of a chocolate-faced hero whereas the heroine, while dainty, is a refreshing change from all the coy types ridden by the waiting-for-the-guy-to-make-the-first-move syndrome.

He's introduced strumming a guitar, she riding a horse. Aamir and Juhi convey this shift in dynamics flawlessly, intimately.

Together they make a couple you'd like to see again and again. That none of their subsequent films worked until Ishq (nine years later) is another story. 

The chirpy actress makes tons of cute faces and delivers various flirtatious lines in her sing-song style -- Dettol wali koi chhot nahi/Humari shaan mein kuch aur kehna chahein toh hum sunne ke liye taiyaar hain -- says, 'Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was like a college play. We would rehearse, laugh, play, shoot -- it was wonderful.'

Aamir, on the other hand' reveals he 'was very nervous on the first day and sweating like a pig' in an old issue of Movie magazine.

The superstar's unease works to his advantage in scenes when the puny Raj turns into bashful Raj around Rashmi.

Recall that embarrassment in his laughter (uh-heh-uh-heh) when Juhi presents him a set of photos she shot of him against the 'doobta sooraj' and a hilarious candid where he's buried in a shawl in front of his friends?

His budding perfectionism is also evident in the manner he plucks the guitar strings while lip-syncing to one his biggest chartbusters looking absolutely dapper in white shirt, black vest and messy black tie.

Perhaps the only thing I didn't like (even then) is the unexpected, distressing end.

Okay, so maybe the grandiose twins in its title Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak makes its intention quite obvious. But as a kid, I had a hard time believing it actually happened. As an adult, I deem it, like Jai's death (in Sholay), plain unnecessary and almost always skip the last 10 minutes. Such denial doesn't hurt.

In a fascinating interview to Indian Express, the director reveals how his father 'insisted on a happy ending' and would have preferred to see the bullets hit Goga Kapoor (he's irredeemably mean) instead but Khan didn't want to compromise on his vision and stuck with the tragedy. Clearly, the risk was worth it.

The QSQT mania was unavoidable. Even the surprise realisation of Aamir Khan's marital status to (then spouse) Reena Datta (she appears in a cameo as one of the students in the song, Papa kehte hain) failed to affect an inch of his popularity.

Back then, the local grocery shop sold something known as Jolly Sweets -- something along the lines of Willie Wonka's Golden Tickets concealed in a candy wrapper.

Only instead of a trip to chocolate factory, the coupon would get us a free postcard of QSQT (or Shahenshah and later Maine Pyaar Kiya). I accumulated an entire stack of its postcards.

When I met Juhi to interview her role as producer with Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani and to compile a list of her pick of the best-looking actors in Hindi cinema, I lightly mentioned how her pigtails were a huge hit among schoolgirls when QSQT came out and how I hated not being part of the 'thing' since I had a boy cut.

Her response was a giggle mixed in disbelief and delight.

She'll probably react the same way if I tell her how even after 25 years, 'mazaa aa raha hai, kasam se.'