Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 3, 2015)

When Basu Bhattacharya confided in Sangeeth Sivan's father that his son, Aditya, wanted to direct a film, cinematographer-director Sivan immediately offered to loan him his equipment, which included lights and a Mitchell camera, and his sons, Santosh and Sangeeth. Sangeeth was a capable production guy with contacts at Prasad Lab in Chennai which got him rolls of high speed Agfa film for free which Santosh, a talented cinematographer, put to good use, reeling off one brilliant four-minutes, 400-feet shots after another. He even did the dissolves and superimpositions in camera, having experimented on this earlier with his brother on the documentaries they had worked on.

"Babla (Aditya) and Nusrat (Aamir Khan's sister) would write the script all day and we would shoot through the night. The last shot would be taken as day was breaking and the last Rs 200 would be spent on chai, samosas and jalebis," recalls Sangeeth, adding that one day, Pankaj Kapur wanted a packet of cigarettes. "The money was over so I scrounged around and managed to put together the Rs 80 needed. The next day, he returned the money to me, saying I could pay back what I owned to everyone in tens and twenties having watched me beg and borrow."

He recalls shooting at Bandra with Pankaj waiting on a bike under a lamp post. He had to strike a match which cast a glow on his face. "He gave us take after perfect take without the match blowing out despite a strong wind from the sea. It was only later that he revealed that he'd strike three-four matches together knowing he wouldn't be caught out in a long shot," says Sangeeth.

Aamir was shooting for Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak simultaneously and would turn up whenever he had an evening free and the rest of the team who had bunked out at Basu's bungalow for two months, would spring into action. Even though they could only shoot when co-producer Asif Noor who had a shop in Bandra sold a pant or a shirt, the shoot went off smoothly. None of the crew got paid and even Aamir used his remuneration for the promotions. Raakh was ready before QSQT but as they had promised, they waited for Aamir's uncle, Nasir Hussain's film to release first. It was a blockbuster and they were rewarded with a steady stream of distributors. But many of them got scared off when they discovered that it was a dark, three-hour plus film with no masala. The ones who stayed insisted on its length being trimmed down. "Babla who was out of the country, warned that not a single frame should be cut," reveals Sangeeth. "But Asif managed to convince him."

Then, Sangeeth and the film's editor, A Sreekar Prasad, sat down to re-edit the married print which had already been mixed, ensuring there was no sound jerks. Aamir, who knew the script well was consulted on the cuts. "On one occasion he told us to edit a scene that had him crying without glycerine. But on second thought, he felt the high-performance shot should be retained. So we had to put back what had been cut twice over," he laughs.

Sreekar won the National Award for editing, Pankaj for best supporting actor and Aamir got a special jury mention.