Friday, 6 May 2016

India's most popular town


HOW MANDAWA BECOME SO POPULAR This Sleepy Town In Rajasthan Is Bollywood's Lucky Charm, Only You Don't Know About It! Lets start to know about it The next time you plan a road trip from Delhi to Jaipur, strike off Jaipur, drive five hours and 270 kilometers off route and you'll reach a little-known place called Mandawa. I'm sure that's not convincing enough for you to change your holiday plans. But what if I tell you that this almost blurred location on the map of Rajasthan is Bollywood's most favoured location to recreate Pakistan, will that sound better? Hell yes, the tiny place on the Narnaul-Jhunjhunu road via Rewari city, finds mention in films like Bajrangi Bhaijaan and PK. Most of the residents of this region have their individual stories to tell, about playing the local supporting cast in the movies to getting pictures clicked with their favourite stars. For many in the industry, the place has become a lucky charm as the films which have been shot here, have done well at the box office. Why has Mandawa, in the past few years, become a preferred location for Bollywood? Well, it has remained home to the rich merchant families, and hence, is full of palatial havelis adorned with beautiful wall paintings. Despite the merchants migrating from the place, its magnificence is intact and is slowly turning into a major tourist and filming attraction. The fact that most locals are still ignorant of the stardom of Bollywood stars, logistics become easier. Trivia: A tea-seller once failed to recognize Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao and treated them as any other tourist in Mandawa. Later when he got to know about them, he took a selfie with Aamir, which now hangs at his shop. Says Sandeep Singh, a scouting agent who helps filmmakers find locations and arrange shootings in Mandawa:"Mandawa is becoming popular among directors for its natural locale, cheap production cost, no star-struck crowd, calm life with people emphasizing on their day-to-day work rather than crowding around vanity vans." The small town's rustic ambiance and intriguing maze-like bylanes have been time and again used to make Mandawa 'look like Pakistan' in movies. Salman Khan said Mandawa's picturesque landscape is its biggest turn on While the locals have now become well versed with languages like Spanish, Italian, French and Japanese, to suit every kind of travellers, the hotels around it easily serve you the region's trademark dal-baati, maal-pua, jalebi, rabri and laal maas. And since the filmmakers are as follows taking note of the small town, it is turning out to be profitable for villagers as more employment is being generated. Let's take a look at some of the famous films and their particular scenes that were shot in Mandawa. 1. Bajrangi Bhaijaan The Indo-Pak border towns for the blockbuster were erected in Mandawa. Even the scene where Salman sleeps over a slab, while refusing to enter the madrassa was shot here. In the film, one of the village's havelis became a Pakistani jail to lodge Salman's character and an open field with long grass turned into the border area which Salman and Nawazuddin cross as they enter "Pakistan". The door from where an old Muslim man comes out in complete denial of what Nawazuddin was asking him to do is actually owned by a famous Saraf family. The region's sand dunes also added to the film's visual background. Almost 22 minutes of the movie was shot here in Mandawa. Wow! 2.PK The village where Aamir lands from outer space to the place where he was hit by Sanjay Dutt's truck while escaping the locals is a location here. The rustic song "Tharki chokro" to the place where it's famous 'dancing car sequence', everything was filmed in Mandawa. A local boy also played the small part of the kid who offered samosa to Aamir in PK. And for more info you can read my next post comming soon

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