What has gone into Yashraj?

With Chak De India, Yashraj Films has decided to do what the banner has been seriously contemplating for a long while.

The most illustrious and productive production house in the country has finally gone experimental with their commercial entertainment.

No no. Don't get them wrong. They aren't going into the offbeat mode. If they wanted to, they would've done so with Feroz Abbas Khan's Gandhi My Father which Yashraj took on, and then decided against it after burning their fingers distributing the other Gandhian film Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara.

What Chak De India signals is a bolder braver and more audacious phase in Yashraj's distinguished existence.

It's simple, really. With Shah Rukh Khan in his only Yashraj outing so far not directed by either father or son Chopra but by the US-returned one-experimental-film old Shimit Amin, the banner could have played up SRK's Rohit-Rahul-Raj image.

Instead they have cast SRK in his most unorthodox image-defying role ever. As the red-eyed burnt-out coach of an all-girls' team in Chak De India SRK has neither songs nor a leading lady to reckon with.

Whenever the superstar has tried something unexpected, for example Ashutosh Gowariker's Swades he has been greeted by a far-from-overhwhelming audience response.

But is the banner daunted by the possibility of the masses staying away from a film about an out-of-favour game (albeit featured a furiously favoured lead star)?

Not the least. Chak De India is being released with the same fanfare that we associate traditionally with the banner.

And that isn't all. Their two other big releases this year would again push the envelope…but oh so glamorously.

Pradeep Sarkar's Laga Chunri Mein Daag moves ahead of the expected ambit by showing the eldest daughter of a respectable Brahmin family bending the rules of morality for the family's sake.

The last film that showed the daughter of the house taking to an unconventional profession to keep the kitchen fires burning was K Balachander's Aaina in 1974.

The film despite its powerful plot and treatment, bombed.

Says a source close to Yashraj, "The banner is hoping that audiences today have matured beyond watching Shah Rukh as a lover-boy, or cringing if Rani does something unthinkable."

Keeping this in mind the banner has also got Aaja Nachle on release. The film casts 40-year old Madhuri Dixit in the lead and has the theatre at its background.

Again,an offbeat gambit….and one that shows the way Bollywood's most illustrious banner is heading.

And contrary to rumours not one frame is being re-shot in any of the above films.

In fact the seeds of change are to be seen in Yashraj's earlier releases this year, Tara Rum Pum Pum dragged the Indian middleclass' poverty line to the US and Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom was so wacky it was indecipherable to the average viewer.

Hopefully with Chak De India Yashraj will find a more meaningful métier in its 30 year existence.