Tripping On Himesh Reshammiya's 'Badass Ravi Kumar' Dialogues? Writer Bunty Rathore Reveals How He Wrote The Viral Lines

In 2014, Himesh Reshammiya broke the Internet with a line from his film The Xpose, where he equated the blood count in a body to his urine. "There won't be as much blood in your body as Ravi Kumar can urinate in one go!" he thundered to both grimaces and whistles. 11 years later, the trailer of his new film Badass Ravi Kumar — part of The Xpose universe — begins with the same information. You may have the blood, but he still has the piss.

"Some people asked me, 'The human body has 6.5 litres of blood, so why is he pissing so much? Is his bladder ok?'" Bunty Rathore laughs as he recalls penning the line, which makes a comeback in Badass Ravi Kumar, for which he has written the dialogues as well. "But you can't make a film like this with logic. Logic should be optional!"

The trailer of Badass Ravi Kumar took the Internet by storm when it dropped on January 5, with its over-the-top action and crackling, self-aware dialogues. Rathore says his phone hasn't stopped buzzing, as friends are flooding his WhatsApp with memes.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, the Meerut-born writer, who has been in Mumbai since 2001 and has worked on films like Dhamaal (2007), All The Best (2009), and Golmaal 3 (2010), talks about how he wrote the dialogues of Badass Ravi Kumar and why Reshammiya's presence has elevated the film and already stunned the "trollers".

Edited excerpts:

Bunty Rathore with Prabhudheva and Himesh Reshammiya.

What has been the response to the trailer so far?

The feedback has been great. But if Himesh bhai wasn't there, this would have been just a regular trailer. His presence has elevated it and made it the talking point. Some viewers watch him act to troll him, but even those people saw the trailer and went, 'This is not bad?! It has come out well.'

It is also because the makers have been really self-aware in the trailer. They are laughing along with the audience...

Yes, which is why there are slates in the trailer that say 'logic optional', '80s ki picture',  and 'same style, new film'. This is my fourth film with Himesh bhai and I must tell you that he is a far-sighted man who understands the market and perception. A few years ago, he told me how we have stopped making the 'Bachchan' kind of cinema and he wanted to attempt something in this space. This was even before Pushpa and Animal. So, yes, he's aware and that's what comes through in the trailer. There's nothing to hide, no manipulation. This is exactly what the film is.

This is also the start of The Xpose universe?

Yes! Initially, other actors were considered for The Xpose but for some reason, it didn't work out. That's when Himesh bhai decided to do this film. Now, I had written The Xpose keeping in mind that a big star would come on board, like how Akshay was there in Himesh's production Khiladi 786; this is why The Xpose was heavy on dialoguebaazi.

When Himesh bhai decided to headline the film, I wondered how would he even pull it off. But he worked hard; he'd send me video recordings of the dialogues and voice notes to get the right modulation. What you see in Badass Ravi Kumar has roots in how he prepped 10 years ago. After the film became a hit, he wanted to do a sequel but not in the form of a continuation. Finally, in 2022, he called me to suggest that we should instead do a spin-off of the character.

Also Read | From 'Gentleman' To 'Game Changer': How Director Shankar Uses Songs In His Films

How did you even write lines like 'Tere shareer mein itna khoon nahi hoga jitna Ravi Kumar ek baar mein mut deta hai'?

(Laughs) The first thought was 'Tere shareer mein jitna khoon hota hai, utna main naali mein baha deta hu.' I wasn't entirely convinced, so I told Himesh bhai that I have an alternative, but it would be slightly tricky. The moment he heard it, he was wowed.

So Himesh can recognise a potentially hit dialogue?

He respects the written word a lot. If you tell him a line and he likes it, he won't tamper with it. Usually, when you write a comedy film, you first create an atmosphere in the writers' room and then you start suggesting your ideas. With him, you can directly approach him with work and he'll listen to it with sincerity. We wrote four to five drafts of Badass Ravi Kumar, and every line that was locked never got changed.

The Badass Ravi Kumar trailer also has dialogues like, 'Tu bada hoke bigda hoga, main bachpan se kharab hu,' 'Immigration ke baad seedha cremation.' What is the art of imagining such lines?

I grew up in Meerut, watching the films of Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Mithun Chakraborty. So my writing reflects the DNA of those Hindi masala films. When it comes to Badass Ravi Kumar, the film has heavy dialogues, but they are all underlined with an element of fun. So every dialogue has a quirk because Ravi Kumar has that himself as a character.

So the art is to first understand what is the world of the film. The fact that this was a self-aware setup, where everything had to be punchy but fun, made all the difference. If you give these lines to any other actor, chances are they'd become quite serious or regular. But the dialogues are trending because they are delivered by Himesh, who people don't expect this from.

What was the hardest line to crack? 

There's a long dialogue about patriotism in the film, which I won't reveal now, but it took me some time to crack it. The other was 'Immigration ke baad seedha cremation.' The line was originally ending at, 'Aa raha hu main.' So the question was, what comes after that? I wrote several lines but couldn't get the right punch until this came to me. I knew this would work.

How do you know when to not cross the line? For instance, there is a dialogue which goes, 'Jin toofaano mein tum jaiso ke jhopde ud jaaya karte hai, hum unhi toofaano mein apne kapde sukhaya karte hai.'

Yes, so you have to constantly keep in mind what the character is. For example, I had not written this line initially for Badass Ravi Kumar! It's from my archives. When I was writing Total Dhamaal (2019), there was a sequence where I thought Ajay Devgn would say 'Jinn toofaano mein tumhare jhopde ud jaate hai...' and Sanjay Mishra would interrupt him by adding, 'Un toofaano mein hum kapde sukhate hai.'  But I didn't use it there and banked it in my archives.

Years later, when Himesh and I were on the way to meet Salman Khan, I told him that every time I think of Ravi Kumar, I feel he's a guy who'd say something like, 'Jin toofaano mein...' When Himesh heard the line, he was blown away, and asked me to quickly send it to him on WhatsApp. This dialogue came before the script of Badass Ravi Kumar was even written!