Himesh Mankad (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 19, 2020)

After “Dus Bahane” 2.0, Baaghi 3 has brought back another chartbuster, “Ek Aankh Maaru Toh”, from Tohfa (1984). While the original, composed by Bappi Lahiri, was a playful Kishore Kumar-Asha Bhosle duet, the 2020 version, titled “Bhankas”, has Tiger Shroff and Shraddha Kapoor doing a tapori dance at Riteish Deshmukh and Ankita Lokhande’s shaadi. It was shot over three days on a set in Mumbai with 300 background dancers.

“Bhankas” has been recreated by Tanishk Bagchi and sung by Bappi Lahiri, Dev Negi and Jonita Gandhi. “Thirty-five years ago, I created 'Ek Aankh Maaru Toh' for Jeetendra and Sridevi and it got me a lot of love,” reminisces Bappi da, adding that the phrase ‘Aankh Maarna’ was used for the first time in this song. “Indeevar ji wove it in beautifully. It was Sajid Nadiadwala’s (producer) idea to get the iconic track back as he believes the song can be a superhit again. Given that Varun (Dhawan) and Alia’s (Bhatt) 'Tamma Tamma' worked big time, I am sure this one with Tiger and Shraddha will also do wonders because my songs from the ’80s are relevant even today,” he asserts.

In the Ahmed Khan directed Baaghi 3, Tiger is on a mission to rescue his brother, Riteish, from a Serbian-based terror outfit.

Subhash K Jha (DNA; April 29, 2015)


For those came in late, Jaya Prada and Sridevi both reigned in Bollywood at around the same time and were rivals. That status quo remained constant 25 years. When they worked together in Tohfa and Maqsad in 1984, not a word was spoken between the two on the sets.

During Maqsad, leading men Rajesh Khanna and Jeetendra locked the two ladies together in one make-up room. When the door was opened an hour later, they were sitting in different corners, staring in opposite directions. Over two-odd decades, they didn’t share screen space and or acknowledge each other’s presence in public.

That was, until this Monday evening. Says an eyewitness, “Both actresses walked into Amar Singh’s party within 15 minutes of one another. Sridevi with husband Boney Kapoor and Jaya Prada with the host (and her political mentor) himself. To everyone’s shock, they shared the same table. Within minutes, the two ladies smiled at one another and were talking. The 25-year-old cold war was over.”

According to producer Sheetal Talwar in whose pub the cold war ended, the Sri-Jaya reunion was on the cards for a while. “Amar Singh, who is very close to the Kapoors and to Jaya Prada must have been instrumental in the rapprochement. To see them chatting together was a sight for sore eyes.”