Ramsay Brothers

Ramsay Brothers ^[1] are Bollywood filmmakers and sons of F.U. Ramsay.^[2] The Ramsays were originally the Ramsinghanis, who ran an electronics shop in Karachi and Lahore. After Partition, Fatehchand U. Ramsay (F.U. Ramsay) along with his seven sons, moved to Mumbai and set up an electronics shop at Lamington Road. Soon, lured by the glamour of Hindi cinema, he got into show business with films such as Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh (1954), Rustam Sohrab (1963) and Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi (1970).

The films flopped and the Ramsays were reeling under huge debts when inspiration struck. In a scene in Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi, Prithviraj Kapoor wears a devil’s mask to carry out a robbery and terrifies Mumtaz. The film didn’t work but the “monster” sequence did, encouraging the Ramsays to experiment with Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche (1971). The film was advertised in a half-hour, late-night show on radio which helped it get the “Houseful” board up when it was released.

Its success sparked a trend of shoe-string budget movies that were wrapped up in a month with a crew of 15. ^[3]

Films

The Ramsay Brothers have made more than 30 horror films in India, which epitomise the lower depths of 1980s Bollywood sleaze and gore, but which have secured their place in Hindi cinema’s hall of fame as the pioneers of horror.^[4][5][6] They are producers, directors and editors for many famous Hindi horror movies such as Veerana, Purana Mandir, Purani Haveli (film) and Bandh Darwaza, and the TV series "Zee Horror Show". Their first film Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche proved a milestone for them and for Indian horror film industry. At a time when the average Hindi film took about a year and 50 lakhs to complete, Do Gaz Zameen Ke Neeche was shot in 40 days on a budget of Rs 3.5 lakhs. All the eight Ramsey brothers boarded buses with small-time actors, a sparse film crew, their wives and their mother and father and drove to a government guesthouse in Mahabaleshwar that cost Rs 12 a room – they took eight rooms. They didn’t spend on sets because they shot on location. They didn’t spend on costumes because these were picked out of actors’ wardrobes. The cameras were all borrowed. All the departments for making the film was taken care by the eight brothers. The film ran to full houses in the first week after its release. It made Rs 45 lakhs.^[7]

Details

^[8][9] They are a team of seven brothers:

• Kumar Ramsay^[10]
• Keshu Ramsay
• Tulsi Ramsay
• Karan Ramsay / Kiran Ramsay
• Shyam Ramsay
• Gangu Ramsay^[11]
• Arjun Ramsay

References