Satya

Awards

Album Awards:
• 1998 - Filmfare Awards - Best Background Score - Sandeep Chowta

Trivia

Album

• This was Telugu film actor Chakravarty's first Hindi film in a lead role. He had made his Hindi film debut earlier in Ram Gopal Varma's "Shiva" (1990), which was the Hindi remake of Varma's own hit Telugu film by the same name.[1]
• Writer, producer, director Anurag Kashyap started his career in Hindi films with this film. He co-wrote the film with Saurabh Shukla. Kashyap wrote for Ram Gopal Varma again for the film "Kaun" (1999), which was their last film together.[2]
• Ram Gopal Varma cast Manoj Bajpai in a major role in this film after he was impressed by his work in his previous film, "Daud" (1997). This became Bajpai's breakthrough film.[3]
• The success of this film spawned a number of films inspired by the Mumbai underworld. Ram Gopal Varma himself followed up this film with "Satya 2" (2013). However, it was not a sequel. He also directed two other films premised on the Mumbai underworld - "Company" (2002) and "D - Underworld" (2005).[4][5][6]
• The idea of this film came to Ram Gopal Varma when he learned about the murder of the T-Series chief, Gulshan Kumar. Varma was in the office of producer Jhamu Sughand when Sughand got a call informing him about Gulshan Kumar's murder. As Sughand was recounting the news of the killing, Varma started thinking about the event from the perspective of the gangster who had killed Kumar. He concluded that other than when they killed or got killed themselves, very little was known about the life of gangsters. It was then that he decided to make this film.[7]
• Writer, actor and editor Apurva Asrani debuted in this film as an editor. He was only 19 years old at the time. He, along with Bhanodaya, won the Filmfare Award for Best Editing for this film.[8]
• Ram Gopal Varma had made a film called "Drohi" (1992) inspired by the James Hadley Chase novel "My Laugh Comes Last" (1977). When the film didn't work, director Ram Gopal Varma decided to make another film with the same story but without the mistakes he had made in "Drohi". This was that film.[9][10]
• Many characters and plot points in this film were based on real-life gangsters and events involving them.
• The title of this film was Ram Gopal Varma's homage to Govind Nihalani's "Ardh Satya" (1983), a film that had a big influence on him. The film's title also happened to be the name of Varma's first love.
• Following the critics' and audience's appreciation for the film's background score by Sandeep Chowta, it was released separately after the film's release with the title "Satya: The Sound".
• Distributors were sceptical about the saleability of this film. Therefore, to protect them from losses, the film was released on a commission basis. Its popularity grew by word of mouth and the film went on to become a big hit.

Song

• Goli Maar Bheje Mein - Vishal Bhardwaj composed this song using dummy lyrics he wrote for its mukhda - "Jab talak ranhenge gham tab tak piyenge hum / To gham ke neeche bam laga ke gham uda de / Maar goli dard ke dam uda de, mama Kallu mama". The film's crew members loved these quirky lyrics. However, when they approached Gulzar to write the song's lyrics, he thought the dummy lyrics were gimmicky. He then went on to write three different versions of the song's lyrics but was turned down by filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma each time. Varma then asked Vishal Bhardwaj to record the song using his lyrics but the composer refused to do so without informing Gulzar. The director then decided to shoot the film without the song. On the day he was filming the scene that was supposed to feature this song, his crew asked Varma to consider recording the song with Gulzar's lyrics since they had some extra time available. Varma relented and finally decided to include it in the film. A year after the film's release, Varma went to Vishal Bhardwaj's house late in the night to talk about how wrong they had been about this song![11]

1. ^ Shiva (1990)
2. ^ Kaun (1999)
3. ^ Daud (1997)
4. ^ Company (2002)
5. ^ D - Underworld (2005)
6. ^ Satya 2 (2013)
7. ^ A chance meet led Ram Gopal Varma to make Satya
8. ^ Apurva Asrani profile
9. ^ Ram Gopal Varma interview
10. ^ Drohi (1992)
11. ^ The Vishal Bhardwaj Interview - Unfiltered by Samdish