20 YEARS OF PAGE 3: ‘Page 3 is 80% truth and 20% fiction’

The whole Page 3 world is very superficial and temporary,” says Madhur Bhandarkar. The filmmaker, whose 2005 film Page 3 showed Mumbai’s P3 culture, recalls, “After making this film, I realised that you can’t take success or failure too seriously. All that facade of bigness – it fades away, and you can just go into oblivion. Page 3 is nothing but a mela.”
As the Konkona Sensharma-starrer marked 20 years recently, Bhandarkar revisits the drama and says that its commentary is still as relevant as it was back then.
‘Journalists have access to everyone’
Konkona Sensharma plays the protagonist in the film, a Page 3 journalist who covers all the happening parties of Mumbai
“I remember seeing a group of journalists coming from a party at a five-star hotel and heading to a taxi stand. Inside the party, I saw them hobnobbing with stars and celebs, but once they stepped out of the hotel, they were going to the taxi stand.” This stark contrast between the two worlds that a journalist experienced intrigued him. “A lot of people said, ‘Why do you want to have a journalist’s point of view? Why not a socialite’s point of view?’ I thought journalists are the ones who have access to everyone – from Bollywood and fashion designers to the corporate world and bureaucrats. Who else would be a better narrator?” recalls Bhandarkar.
‘Nobody had made a film about the P3 world, so I did’
After the success of his previous films Chandni Bar (2001) and Satta (2003), Bhandarkar was invited to all the big parties of Mumbai and started attending the typical P3 events. He says, “I was completely taken aback by the glamour of this world. Coming from a very lowermiddle-class family, it felt surreal to suddenly be mingling with high-society people – people I had only seen in newspapers. There would be people from all walks of life at the same party, including doctors, bureaucrats and stylists. I was very fascinated. Sometimes the drinks would get people into high spirits, and they would say anything, only to forget what they said the next morning. All these things were very interesting to me. Nobody had made a film about this party world, so I decided I should make it.”
‘Using P3 as the film title had a lot of objections’
“I was never aware of what P3 was all about,” Bhandarkar says. “People would often call me and say they saw my photo in the P3 of Bombay Times. Later, I got to know what it meant,” he explains, adding, “Using P3 as the film’s title had a lot of objections. Except for urban audiences, nobody knew at the time what P3 meant. Nobody understood its concept back then. But I was sure that I wanted P3 to be the title of the film. As the title was in English, there were apprehensions, and it had a limited release. The film’s shows kept increasing. After Monday, I started receiving calls from people asking for tickets – it became a huge hit.”
‘I took Konkona to the Bombay Times office for research’
Bhandarkar’s research for the film started in Kolkata. He says, “When Konkona joined the film, I took her by train to the Bombay Times office in VT. The newspaper office shown in the film is inspired by the Times Of India office. A lot of elements were derived from there. I took Konkona to the office, where she met BT journalists, interacted with them, and took notes on their body language, the ambience, and how they worked. Konkona believed in my conviction and surrendered to the vision of the filmmaker.”
‘Lata didi didn’t do film songs then but she liked Kitne Ajeeb...’
Bhandarkar reveals, “I’m a Lata Mangeshkar bhakt. It was my distant dream that someday Lata didi would sing for my film. At the studio, didi asked me, ‘How should I sing this song?’ She asked for all the details – who is it going to be picturised on? At what point will the song appear in the film? I told her, ‘Aapne woh jo gaana gaya tha na – ek chehre pe kai chehre laga lete hain log.’ I told her that it is a soothing song but reflects how society is today. I told her that ‘Kitne ajeeb rishte hain yahan ke’ is a philosophical song and we wanted her voice for it. In those days, she used to refuse film songs, but she agreed to do this because she liked the song, even though there was no big star cast.”

Talking about the funeral scene in the film, Bhandarkar shares, “This is what I witnessed at the funeral of a famous Bollywood personality. I overheard things like – someone asking how they liked a Lakhnawi chikankari work, another inviting someone to a movie, and someone else asking, ‘Are you coming to tomorrow’s party?’ All this was happening in the background of a prayer meeting, with relatives crying in front of the photo of the deceased”

Madhur Bhandarkar had approached a couple of actresses, but it didn’t work out. He says, “When I told Konkona about the film, she said, ‘I don’t understand the P3 world, but you’re a good filmmaker, so I’ll do the film.’ That was the conviction she had, and that’s how we made the film. It was a very low-budget project. We didn’t have a big budget, but actors like Boman Irani, Tara Sharma, Atul Kulkarni, and Sandhya Mridul all came on board and contributed to the film.”