It was expected to happen, but not at the level at which it is happening. The last Assamese film of Assam’s cultural icon, singer-actor Zubeen Garg, is surpassing all expectations. It opened yesterday (31st October) to unprecedented response from the public who are probably viewing the film as not just a film but also a balm for their grief over the death of their favourite hero.
The audience for Roi Roi Binale had gathered in full force for shows which started as early as at 4.30 a.m. yesterday. Young and old, men and women, rich and poor — all kinds of people could be seen queueing up outside cinema halls all over Assam to watch what they know will be the last film of their darling. Sons/grandsons coming to the cinemas, carrying their very old mothers/grandmothers in their hands, are not the only emotional scenes one is witnessing at the cinemas. Inside the auditoria, it is not rare for people to be sobbing inconsolably when Zubeen first comes on the screen and also through the film. A couple of instances of people fainting inside the auditoria have also been reported.
Zubeen died tragically while swimming in the sea in Singapore on 19th September. He had gone there to participate in the North East India Festival but died tragically a day before the event. Even while a high-level enquiry has been instituted by the Assam government into the death to rule out foul play, the people of Assam are pouring out all their love on the musical romantic film, directed by Rajesh Bhuyan. Shyamantak Gautam, Zubeen and his wife, Garima, are the producers of Roi Roi Binale.
Looking to the craze for the film, it opened yesterday outside of Assam too. This is, in fact, the first Assamese film to be released all over India in such a big way on the same day as in Assam. The stations where Roi Roi Binale has opened outside Assam circuit are Bangalore, Mysore, Hyderabad, Madras, Vellore, Kochi, Vizag, Trivandrum, Coimbatore, Bombay, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Baroda, Vapi, Goa, Delhi, NOIDA, Lucknow, Dehradun, Chandigarh, Calcutta, Patna, Ranchi, Dhanbad, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Siliguri, Tripura, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Cooch Behar, Raipur, Indore and Jaipur.
Believe it or not but the first day’s net all-India collections totalled Rs. 2.52 crore! Of this, around Rs. 2.05 crore is from North East alone. No other Assamese or even Hindi film has ever recorded such a humongous total on the first day!!
In commercial terms, the film is turning out to be a blockbuster of epic proportions. Going by the initial response, it is almost a foregone conclusion that Roi Roi Binale will turn out to be the biggest Assamese blockbuster ever. Almost every cinema in every city and town of Assam has recorded housefull collections for the entire first week in advance. Says the distributor of the blockbuster, Siddharth Goenka, “History is being written with Roi Roi Binale. People are going crazy over the film. The love for Zubeen is overflowing.” The film is being distributed by Shankar Goenka and his son, Siddharth Goenka, of Goenka Enterprises. The distribution concern has distributed almost all the past Assamese blockbusters in the last 5-6 years, but this one is expected to surpass each of them by a substantial margin.