20 Years of Yuva: ‘Traffic Signal’ was the working title; the bottle-breaking scene was not shot in Hindi as Ajay Devgn’s daughter Nysa was unwell; Tamil version happened, thanks to Vivek Oberoi’s accident

Yuva (2004), starring Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi, Rani Mukerji, Esha Deol and Kareena Kapoor Khan, celebrated its 20th anniversary on May 21. The film was not a huge box office success but is memorable for the performances, music and stylish execution by Mani Ratnam. The film deals with three characters and instead of narrating their story in a parallel fashion, the reputed filmmaker chose a different route. He introduced the trio together in a tense scene right at the beginning. This was followed by three tracks, focusing on the three characters. Once the flashback ends, the tracks merge. It gave the audience a refreshing experience. In the book ‘Conversations with Mani Ratnam’, Baradwaj Rangan talked to the filmmaker about Yuva and some of its unique aspects.How the Tamil version became a realityIt is common knowledge that Yuva was a bi-lingual and that the Tamil version was called Ayutha Ezhuthu (2004), starring R Madhavan, Suriya, Siddharth, Esha Deol, Meera Jasmine and Trisha. What many are not aware of was that the Tamil version was put together when Yuva’s 70% shooting was complete.Mani Ratnam in the book revealed that he had toyed with the Tamil version and had even spoken about it with Suriya and R Madhavan. But he didn’t go ahead with it. Then, Vivek Oberoi met with an accident while shooting for the film on a Kolkata bridge. It led to a 3-to-4-month gap in the shooting schedule. This is when Mani Ratnam approached Suriya and R Madhavan again.Mani Ratnam said, “The story was about three people. It was in three sections. Each actor was required only for a limited number of days. So, we could shoot the Tamil version in the gap, while Vivek was recovering. And then, we completed the Hindi version.”The curious case of the missing scene in YuvaThose who have watched Yuva and Ayutha Ezhuthu would have noticed that there’s an intense bottle-breaking scene between Suriya and R Madhavan. The same scene is absent in the Hindi version between Ajay Devgn and Abhishek Bachchan.Mani Ratnam explained why the scene didn’t make it in Yuva, “We had the same episode in Hindi too. We started shooting it...but we ran into a personal problem. Ajay’s child (daughter Nysa) was unwell, I think. He had to go and we couldn’t complete the scene. So, we just moved on.”Three colour tonesFinally, Yuva is also memorable as the tracks had different colour tones – red for Lallan (Abhishek Bachchan), green for Michael (Ajay Devgn) and blue for Arjun (Vivek Oberoi).On this, Mani Ratnam explained, “It was possible to treat each story in a different shade depending on where they were born and what they were made of. One was in browns and reds – basically, someone who is at the lower end of the social spectrum and with a certain amount of violence built into him. Ajay’s track is in green because they represent somebody who looks at the future, at ways of taking us into the future. And the one in blue – is somebody who is cool, laid back and chilled out, very today, not affected by anything.”He added, “In fact, for a short while, I was even contemplating calling the film Traffic Signal. That was the working title we had, as there were three different colours.”Also Read: Vivek Oberoi recalls horrifying accident while filing Yuva, praises Abhishek Bachchan and Ajay Devgn for support