Asrani plays ‘Angrezon Ke Zamane Ka Ticket Checker’ in railways in Kunwarapur

By Jyothi Venkatesh

Kunwarapur produced by actor turned-director Avinash Tiwari and directed by Rajendra Rathor is the second film that has been made in Bagheli language by him. Avinash Tiwari had earlier made a film in Bagheli called Budhiya. Though Budhiya was a serious film, his second film as a producer- Kunwarapur is a situational comedy.

“I want to make the Bagheli film industry in Madhya Pradesh thrive. More than 6500 languages are spoken in the world. Although in our country, the languages mentioned on the notes have been considered as national, so far films have been made in about fifty regional dialects and many films in many Indian languages have created a distinct identity of their own. The Bagheli language is prevalent in about eleven districts of Madhya Pradesh”, says producer-actor Avinash Tiwari.

Avinash Tiwari is a resident of Sidhi district, a region of Madhya Pradesh, who, while producing films in Bagheli, is also planning to make a film city in Sidhi and his Bagheli comedy film ‘Kunwarapur’, is about a cursed village, where no one has been married for 45 years. “I play the role of Prem Prakash who marries without asking for dowry and after that the village is relieved of its curse. Though it was planned to shoot the film Kunwarapur inn 25 days, it was completed in twenty one days depicting the important historical places of Satna district. The film has been shot with a lavish budget of around a crore of rupees at various locations in Satna like Madhavgarh Fort, Sakaria Railway Station, Sakaria Village etc”, says Avinash Tiwari.

Also read: Remembering Rajendra Kumar aka Jubilee Kumar on his 94th birth anniversary

The film stars Baghelkhand’s superstar actor-producer Avinash Tiwari and Annapurna Dwivedi in the main leads with Asrani, who plays the role of Angrezon ke zamane ka ticket collector in trains along with Rajpal Yadav, Manoj Singh Tiger, Anshul Giri Bittu, Ashok Mishra, Vikram Kochhar, Garima Agarwal, Urmila Sharma, Shraynavi, Umesh Bajpai, Rashmi Dubey, Mehak Tiwari, Bharat Singh, Anupriya and resident local artists Anjali Payasi, Krishna Mishra, Uttam Kevat, Vikas Dwivedi, Vivek Goswami, Ajay Dewan, Krishna Yadav, Prateek Mishra, Khushbu Tiwari, Bharat Upadhyay, Jyoti, Deepti , Nidhi etc.

The film has been written by Avinash Tiwari and produced under the banner of Avinash Films Production. Parvesh Singh has penned the lyrics and composed the songs. The film has a total of six songs including folk songs. Sonu Nigam has given his voice to one song. Local folk singers have also been given a chance to sing. Nadeem Ansari is the cinematographer of the film, while Dilip Mistry and Rajendra Singh Rathore are the choreographers.

Rajendra Rathor has directed many ad films, fifty music videos and a film ‘Shaadi Mein Siyapa’ for OTT and is all set to make his debut in. Bagheli, He also hails from Madhya Pradesh and believes that today South Indian filmmakers earn a lot by making films in their mother tongue. “Till date actors who hail from M.P. have been used in Hindi films only as fillers and exploited and no o0ne has cast them in full-fledged roles. I also want to give good films to the society by making films in my mother tongue”, signs off Rajendra Rathor.