’25 of us would have fallen straight to the ground from the 7th or 8th floor’, Pankaj Kapoor narrated the story of the lift

Pankaj Kapoor narrated a scary incident from the shooting of the film ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’. The shooting of the famous classic film ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro’ of 1983 was going on which was being filmed on an open lift at a construction site which was full of risk. There came a point when the lives of 25 people were in danger during the shooting. Actually that lift broke down while going down from the 26th floor and got stuck in the middle.

The actor, while talking about this Kundan Shah directed classic film, recalled the sequence and the danger that Pankaj Kapur, Neena Gupta and Satish Kaushik faced. The actor said that when Kundan took him/her to show the place, he/she froze as the sides of the open lift were only 1-2 feet high and there was a wire at the top that pulled it up. Talking to Filmkopath, he/she said, “The three of us, me, Renu Saluja (editor) and Kundan were standing in it when they pulled us to the 25th floor. I almost died! When we came down, I told them that the lift is so small that you can’t even put a camera on it.”

‘I saw a big crane with a lift’

he/she further added, ‘I saw a huge crane with a lift attached to it which looked safe. So, what you see in the end is a huge lift being pulled by a crane with two lighting men, a camera person, five actors and Kundan himself. The lift was going up and rotating to give a 360-degree view and we were scared!’

‘The team had to shoot some scenes on the 25th floor’

Pankaj Kapoor narrated another shot. he/she said that there was another scene where the team had to shoot some scenes on the 25th floor. The building owner’s son told the crew that the lift would go up to the 26th floor, after which they could climb the stairs and come down one floor.

‘We were lucky to survive’

he/she said, ‘We did not realise that we had overloaded the lift beyond its capacity. I kept saying that we were too many, but nobody listened to me. As we started going up, the lift got stuck on the 7th or 8th floor. There was panic, they could neither pull it up nor put it down. Then the lift was moved closer to the building. I kept saying that we should not panic and get out calmly but nobody listened. We are lucky that there was no accident. Everyone just jumped. It was not that the lift had come right next to the landing area, there was a gap between the platform and the building. Once we went up, the man said that the wire pulling the lift was tearing (due to the weight). We were lucky that we survived, otherwise we 20-25 people would have fallen straight to the ground from the 7th or 8th floor.’

“The cameras stopped working, the lights went out.”

Pankaj Kapoor told that he/she made this film without any money. he/she recalled that the actors worked round the clock for this film. he/she said that whatever could go wrong during the making of the film, happened. he/she said, ‘The cameras stopped, the lights went out, the generator stopped. You said and it happened. We were working 24 hours, which means that each one of us would rest for an hour, come back and give our shot, because we knew that we had to complete the film without stopping.’