A large, shiny disco ball hangs at the threshold of a quaint garage-store in Bandra. An old man in a humble shirt sits behind the counter, and his grandson wanders behind. It looks like any other tiny Bandra shop, so regular that one might not even look at it twice. Still, that mysterious hanging disco ball is always cause for intrigue.
Unable to resist its allure on our daily route to work, we dug deeper only to realise that there was so much more than met the eye. Stories of parties in Rajendra Kumar’s house, Shahrukh Khan’s dance sequence in Baadshah, the best of Kishore Kumar and other Bollywood stalwarts quickly followed, giving us an insight into the film industry from a truly unique perspective. And it all started with a tiny cottage called Victory Manzil, shared by five generations of a single family.
The Great Great Grandfather, Victory Manzil’s original resident
Viramji L Painter, named after his profession, moved from Gujarat to Mumbai after he lost his land there in the late 1930s. As he moved to the sleepless city of dreams, he found himself a cosy cottage tucked into what used to be the village at Pali Road, Bandra. Painter rented this pre-independence cottage, named Victory Manzil at the time, as his residence, which doubled up as a work space. Painting boards, walls and other odd-jobs won him his bread, and eventually earned enough to buy the cottage. Today, his three-week-old great great grandson calls it his home too.
The Great Grandfather, Bombay’s go-to Bollywood projector man
Soon, the painting profession faded, and so did the surname. As a child, Kishan Viramji Thakur would accompany his father for the odd painting job, but it never stuck, and he tried his hand as a cycle repair man. Then, an electrician. Soon enough, his skill with wires gave him a window into Bollywood of the late 1950s.
“Ek electrician ka job kar raha tha, aur waha mil gaya. Wiring ka work karke usko theek kar liya,” he grins. After fixing up an old projector he found lying around at a job, Kishan ji started his new business. He proactively acquired reels of Bollywood’s latest blockbusters from Eros and other theatres in South Bombay, and began word-of-mouth promotions of his miniature film screening business. From children’s birthday parties where he would screen Tom and Jerry, local events and festivals to film-star gatherings and more, Kishan ji was there, projector and screen in-hand.
“Ek chokra ladka tha,” he tells us, talking about the young boy who accompanied his business. Stretching out of Bandra, he started to work Andheri and Lokhandwala, and even travelled to Gujarat to screen in Surat, Ahmedabad, and Baroda. When asked how old he was when he single handedly launched a private film screening endeavour, he couldn’t recall his exact age, and simply said, “Kaafi chota tha,” his hand gesturing how short he was. About 5 feet tall.
Rajendra Kumar’s house featured as a popular location for him, as he was called to screen the best of Bollywood amongst, well, the best of Bollywood. “Maza aata tha, parties mein ja kar. Thandai dete the,” he regales with a reminiscent smile. With industry celebrities vouching for him, it wasn’t long before he was the usual suspect for all projector screening requirements, earning him a spot in film-star parties across Bombay.
The grand uncles, lighting up Bollywood’s disco age
Bombay’s Bollywood celebrities had a go-to projector man from the 1950s to 70s, and two of his children took forth the Thakur name in the film industry. Shifting businesses from projectors to something more glamorous, Ravi and Ratilal Kishan Thakur moved, with the rest of Bollywood, into the disco age.
The bright-lights brother: Saara Zamana Haseeno Ka Deewana, one of Kishore Kumar’s classic hits, was one of Ratilal’s first Bollywood gigs. As he lit the set, he infused the track’s video with the pulse of Bollywood’s new era of disco, and gave Kumar the perfect backdrop to shine. The lighting savant started out his career working for a small, now defunct store in Bandra called Tommy Lights. Once he was well groomed in the business, he started his own company and went on to supply lights the sets of Bollywood’s best dance numbers, including a track from 1981’s Rocky starring Sanjay Dutt.
The disco-ball brother: Mein Khiladi Tu Anadi (1994) was Ravi Thakur’s first disco lighting gig, and after that, the phone just kept ringing. In 1997, his shiny disco balls lit up a song in Guddu Dhanoa’s Ziddi starring Sunny Deol and Raveena Tandon. As 1990 came around, he set up his own disco-ball supplying company which still stands today as Ravi Disco Lights, providing disco balls, LED screens, displays and more to the best of Bollywood.
The father, the face of Victory Manzil’s disco ball store
Walking up to the road-facing open garage of Bandra’s Shakti Raj Housing Corporative Society, which was once a small cottage known as Victory Manzil, you’re greeted by that shiny disco ball hanging above a stack of lighting equipment. Vicky Negi, whose mother is Kishan Thakur’s daugher, now runs Vicky Discowala, an independent disco ball supplying and lighting company which he started in 2012. From illuminating festivals at Mumbai’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna Mandir, to Marathi movie sets, Vicky’s disco balls have seen a variety of audiences. Now, he’s taking the family legacy forward as he’s carved out a niche for himself in Bollywood films.
As he was helping his uncle on the sets of Baadshah, Rakesh Roshan walked in. In search of someone to do the lights for Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, he found Vicky Negi and Ravi Thakur. From there, Vicky has gone on to decorate the backdrops of Munna Bhai, Wanted, Om Shanti Om, Bheja Fry and more. And to carry on the disco baton, Vicky and his wife just had their first child.
The newest kid on the block
The youngest and most recent resident of the old Victory Manzil cottage is Vicky’s newborn son. Only a few weeks old, his generations-old connection with the Bollywood industry still precedes him.
Click here to see the entire series of photographs taken by Karan Khosla.