On Sanjay Dutt’s 60th birthday, filmmaker-friend Mahesh Bhatt pens a letter to the actor
Mahesh Bhatt (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 29, 2019)

Dear Sanju,

When Ingmar Bergman (the iconic Swedish filmmaker) turned 70, Akira Kurosawa (the great Japanese film maker) wrote him a letter for his birthday. In this letter he wrote, “A human is born a baby, becomes a boy, goes through youth, the prime of life and finally returns to being a baby before he closes his life. This is, in my opinion, the most ideal way of life. I believe you would agree that a human becomes capable of producing pure works, without any restrictions, in the days of his second babyhood.”

Don’t ask me why Sanju, but having shot with you for Sadak 2 after being away from the director’s chair for 20 years, I feel exactly the same way about you. You are a man, entering the phase of your second babyhood.

Every time we are about to shoot an important scene, I see you dive deeper and deeper into the wilderness locked in the innermost chambers of your heart and bring out a fire which dazzles not only me but also the younger generation of actors, like Alia Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapur. Watching you now, I am absolutely convinced that as you touch 60, your “real” work, the work that stems from the “real” you, is just beginning.

Today, the footprints of time, and real life experience, are visible on your gorgeous face like never before. Your life proves that it is by suffering, and suffering alone, that one ceases to be just a mere acting machine. The periods of solitude that you’ve experienced in prison, face to face with suffering, have woken you up to deep love, compassion and understanding.

In this industry, where there are no second acts, you have proved time and again to the world that has always been too keen to write your obituary, that you have the ability to re-invent yourself. How lovely it is to reconnect with you in the ‘Autumn years’ of our lives, Sanju. But as the wise say: Autumn is just another spring.

Happy Birthday.

Love, Mahesh

Mahesh and Pooja Bhatt speak about why their film Daddy is relevant in modern India, and why it needs a female interpretation
Jaspreet Nijher (BOMBAY TIMES; May 9, 2018)

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and his daughter Pooja Bhatt are known to speak their mind. Recently, before the staging of the theatrical adaptation of their film, Daddy, in Chandigarh, they spoke to us about the relevance of this 1989 film today, and their own battle with alcoholism. Pooja, who made her Bollywood debut with Daddy, is keen on re-narrating the story, albeit from a female perspective. In a conversation, the duo spoke to us in characteristic Bhatt style — unrestrained and effusive.

Why the need to reinterpret the film Daddy into a play?
Mahesh: At a time like this when there is all-pervasive darkness, when your leaders boast of connecting every village and city with electricity, there is an inner darkness, which you can’t look away from. At this time, it is pertinent to reopen Daddy, which was based on human evolution. The idea of these adaptations, for both films Daddy and Arth, came from this bright theatre actor Imran Zahid whom I met in Delhi more than a decade ago. To get out of Mumbai and come to Delhi, to meet these uncontaminated, clean youth with a fresh naivety, touched me so much that I agreed to their idea. To see the film from their perspective, but not from a patronising view, is also difficult without the need to interfere.

How much of yourself from the film do you see in the play?
Mahesh: I am not obsessed with my imaginary greatness. I am a fumbling, stumbling human, and the film deals with the most vulnerable, fragile phases of my life, when I had almost come to the brink of the abyss. But I looked the darkness in the eye, and pulled myself back, and I am still here. The human heart is as old as life itself, and hence the struggles shown in the film are still very relevant for the human race, and this narrative of man oscillating between dread and hope.

Pooja, how much of the play reflects your subjective emotions from the film?
It is ironic. I keep telling my siblings I have an edge, for you have only seen the flight of Mahesh Bhatt, I have seen him in the gutters. I have seen him pick himself up from that gutter and return to life. And the irony of that reality was, the girl who picks up her father from the dumps, and weans him off alcohol had to herself struggle with it many years later. So, life comes back a full circle. Alcoholism mard ki jaagir nahi hai. Men can turn to alcohol and tom-tom about it, but no one expects women to have a problem, especially if they are in the public eye. If I didn’t have the same blood and genes in me as my father’s, I wouldn’t have been able to pull myself out. We call ourselves role models, but roles models aren’t people who look pretty at all times. They are someone who show people they are as human as others, they have the same frailties where they fall and pick themselves up then, and share it with the world.

So, we are referring to the same genes that make you as unrestrained in speech as Bhatt saab?
Oh, that is a genetic flaw! All four of us siblings have the same core, even if we have different perspectives. My father gave me the inheritance of a quote from Swami Vivekananda, ‘Be truthful and be fearless’. How many of us actually live the things we retweet on Twitter, and walk our talk by sharing our weaknesses with the world? It’s been many months since I’ve been sober now. But people don’t want me to talk about it. I didn’t drink hiding inside, so I will not recover in the closet. We have to take away this word shame from our supposed frailties- from rape, domestic abuse, alcoholism. I drank like I lived — copiously and fully, and I will recover like that.

You ever felt the need to take your subjective battle to your films?
Yes, in fact I am in talks over it. We have seen a Sharaabi with Amitabh Bachchan, a Daddy with Anupam Kher, but where is the female perspective? So, I have been promised that I will be given a script with a woman protagonist dealing with alcohol. With women, this problem runs even deeper. We conceal our drinking because we don’t drink with our husbands and parents. And the pressure is even more because we compete with men, we are body shamed and morally lectured.

Mahesh Bhatt (MID-DAY; April 28, 2017)

My earliest memory of Vinod is from the sets of Raj Khosla’s Mera Gaon Mera Desh (1971) , where I was the third assistant, and he was making his debut as a villain — Jabbar Singh, not Gabbar Singh! At the very first shot of the film where Vinod dismounts a horse, kicks open a door, and draws his gun out, Raj Khosla said the prophetic words, “This guy will set this nation ablaze.” As an assistant who was entrusted to attend to actor’s needs, we became very close right from the beginning — even while he was a rising star, and I was a struggling nobody. When the opportunity came for me to direct a film, it was a foregone conclusion in my head that he would agree to star in it, although the movie, ironically titled Mukti, got shelved, for financial reasons.

The loss of Vinod’s mother, who he was extremely close to, had jolted him to seek answers to existential questions of life — who are we, where are we coming from, and where are we going. I introduced him to ‘Bhagwan Rajneesh’, so he could find solace in the Godman’s tips. I was already a sanyasi by then. Every weekend, Vinod and I would drive down to Osho’s ashram (in Pune) in his white Mercedes, meditate for hours, listen to the Godman’s discourse, read books on Sufism, Nanak, the Gita… Those were intoxicating days.

As an actor, Vinod immediately fit the demands of the times. He was extremely good-looking by the standards of the film industry. Women would swoon over his physique, charm, and charisma. Men would look up to him for the obvious machismo. He remained the only contender who could take on the might of Amitabh Bachchan, or perhaps even dethrone him in the '70s. This was the prevailing narrative. And this is why, if you notice, whenever Vinod did a film with Big B — Hera Pheri (1976), Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), Khoon Pasina (1977), Parvarish (1977), Muqaddar Ka Sikander (1978) — audiences instantly lapped it up. They were a delight to watch together.

But much beyond his ambition or determination to succeed as an actor, Vinod had an adventurous spirit. What kind of person would gamble his stardom to seek enlightenment? He packed off at the peak of his career to become a gardener in Osho’s ashram in Oregon. It was considered a suicidal move by the industry. By the time he returned in the '80s, India and its movies had altogether changed. I did Jurm (1990) upon his return from the ‘circus’. Many people still remember that film for the song, Jab koi baat bigad jaaye.

Vinod was basically a man who celebrated life. His spiritual guru also encouraged sensual pursuits, and he thirsted for life’s answers. Over years, while we differed on our views on politics, spirituality and God, and drifted apart, we still stayed in touch. I’ll never forget the time he once called me over to meet him at Filmistaan Studio, Goregaon. I was no more Osho’s disciple — having figured that all I had received from the Godman were words; nothing had changed within me. Vinod was worried for me because the news of me flushing my Osho mala (prayer beads) down the commode had reached the Godman. He wanted to protect me from the wrath of ‘God’. It’s at moments like these that one unwittingly reveals their love and affection. Behind that tough exterior of a hero was a largehearted man, who could cry easily at the sight of suffering, and was generous to a fault. Vinod, to me, is not the person I’ll remember from flickering images of the silver screen. He touched my life, and changed its course. People don’t cease to exist because they die. They continue to breathe within you. As Vinod will — until I die.

Mahesh Bhatt directed Vinod Khanna in Lahu Ke Do Rang (1979), Jurm (1990) and Maarg (1992) 

(As told to Mayank Shekhar)

Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; April 10, 2017)

As Vishesh Films completes three decades on April 2, its lodestar, Mahesh Bhatt, talks about its latest offering and six intensely personal dramas that are cherished memories today
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 1, 2017)


BEGUM JAAN (2017)

This Partition drama is a new spring for Vishesh Films. After a few flops, a gloom had descended over the establishment which had the infrastructure and access to money, but the core from where my films had come had withered. That’s when I accidentally stumbled on this Bengali film, Rajkahini, whose director, Srijit Mukherji, was suggested to me by my writer Suhrita Sengupta.

I’d liked his work and when invited to see the film at a preview theatre, I dragged my reluctant brother, Mukesh Bhatt, along. I was devastated by it. The film shook me, my body and soul. I came out of the screening, hugged Srijit tightly and said, “As long as there are storytellers and filmmakers like you, the moral compass of the nation is intact.” In that embrace was born the narrative of Begum Jaan.

When Mukesh saw how overwhelmed I was by the film, he decided to remake it in Hindi. With all his caution and worldly wiseness, Mukesh Bhatt has taken many risks based on my gut instincts. He’s as much a gambler as me, without whom we would not have come this far.


ZAKHM (1998)

So many painful memories because this film was semiautobiographical, based on my proud origin of having a Hindu father, a Muslim mother and a Christian schooling. It was my last directorial and because it dealt with communal politics and the carnage post ’92-’93, my mother was concerned believing that by taking up for secular values, I’d upset the ultra right-wing forces. She died after the first schedule and I had to unmask her Muslim identity which she had hidden behind a sari, tika and mangalsutra when she was alive and had to tell the family that her last wish was to be buried.

She went into the grave as Shirin Mohammad Ali as she didn’t have her husband’s name attached to her. It was graceful of the man in charge of the burial ground in Byculla to let me perform the last rites after learning that I was a Hindu by the name of Mahesh Bhatt. When I stepped into the grave and turned her face towards Kaba, it was the most intimate time I spent with my mother who was no more. That became the defining image planted in the climax which touched the nation’s consciousness.


SADAK (1991)

I remember an enchanting night in Mysore’s Brindavan Gardens where we were shooting Nadeem-Shravan’s romantic track, “Tumhe Apna Banaane Ki Kasam” with a young Pooja Bhatt and the new star Sanjay Dutt. In between shots, I would be listening to a commentary on the Gulf War. Sanjay wondered why I was interested in something happening in Iraq. We had to finish the shoot before dawn becauses it was an expensive location but even though we stretched ourselves, one shot remained. I resigned myself to completing it elsewhere but Sanjay protested, saying, “We have to shoot it here.”

I told him it was impossible to carry the equipment to a distant location before daybreak. “I’ll do it,” he said, and lugging one of the huge archlights, turned to the lightboys and commanded, “Follow me.” They did and we got the shot before the sun came up.


DADDY (1989)

Not for nothing was I labelled the “autobiographical” filmmaker. I went through the attics of my life and shamelessly pulled out stuff others shudder to reveal to the world, including my battle with the bottle, to launch my 16-year-old daughter Pooja Bhatt as an actress in Daddy. It’s a film about an alcoholic struggling to reform for his daughter, part fiction-part real.

My wife Soni Razdan is away in Hong Kong with our newborn child and Pooja was staying with me in Juhu during the shoot. Every night she would rehearse her lines for the next day, perform them for me, then go to bed. One night, after she and the rest of the world had fallen asleep, I had a sudden craving to go to a bar and have a drink.

‘Who would know’, I asked myself. My wife was away and my daughter, asleep. A voice replied from deep within, “You can con the world, you can con your child, but how can you con yourself Mahesh Bhatt? You would know.”

I didn’t have that drink and it was a turning point for me in my struggle with alcoholism. The next morning, I rewrote the climax with Anupam Kher who played the alcoholic, being offered a drink by the baddie before going on stage and tossing the whiskey and the temptation away. What happened in life was transported to the movies. Celluoid has been my intimate diary and I’ve let the world into that space because there’s nothing to hide.


NAAM (1986)

After the critically acclaimed Saaransh and Arth, this was my first money-spinner. It enjoyed a golden jubilee run and brought back Sanjay Dutt after a string of disasters. It also put the spotlight back on Salim Khan after a split with his scriptwriter partner Javed Akhtar.

I have to thank Kumar Gaurav for making Naam possible for us. When I narrated the idea to his producer-father, Rajendra Kumar admitted it was good but then apprehensively turned to his son and pointed out that Sanjay Dutt’s role in this two-hero film was more powerful. “Why not do a film with you at the heart of it?” he suggested.

Without blinking an eye Kumar Gaurav replied, “If we’re going to make this movie, it has to be on this story.” Seeing his conviction his father agreed but ironically, Rajendra Kumar’s fears are confirmed because despite Kumar Gaurav’s brilliant performance, Naam is Sanjay’s show.


ARTH (1982)

The film was done and was the talk of the town. But there were no takers. The end —Shabana Azmi’s character Pooja choosing not to return to her philandering husband or jump into the arms of her lover who promises her the moon but opting to live alone as a single mother to her maid’s daughter—was too bold and unconventional for our Hindi film industry.

There was another problem. My narrative stood on the shoulders of two brilliant actresses, Shabana and Smita Patil, but the latter had moved out of the art house circuit into Bollywood’s A-list. She was convinced I’d been grossly unfair to her character, Kavita, pruning some of her best scenes to make her look like a lesser actress to build up Shabana. An uncomfortable silence stretched between us which I didn’t know how to bridge.

One day, I ran into her at Parkview Hotel. I’d gone to drop off playwright Vijay Tendulkar whom she’d come to meet. The staircase was too narrow to avoid a collision. She tried to walk away but I wouldn’t let her. “Smita, you can’t do this to me. You can accuse me of being a less talented director who could not do justice to your part, but to accuse me of being partial is unfair and you know it,” I entreated, looking into her eyes.

“How can you do this to me? Now I can’t even be angry with you. You’ve taken away all my anger,” she wailed. She went on to watch the film and liked it. And our almost-sour relationship had a happy ending.

SAARANSH (1984)

On the first day of the new year, when my colleagues, after a night of indulgence were still recovering from the hangover, I was at Mehboob Studio with my actors and technicians, and the entire Barjatya family, gearing up to take the first shot of my new film. I shouted, “Action” and in the foreground a telephone began to ring. A grainy image of Anupam Kher as BV Pradhan, a retired school teacher of 70, walked into the frame to pick up the receiver. A disembodied voice — mine — informed him that his only son was dead after being mugged while returning from an Independence Day celebration in New York. The shot was okayed in one take but instead of the usual claps and smiles I could see that my producers were uncomfortable.

Rajkumar Barjatya, speaking for his family, asked me respectfully if it was the right shot for the mahurat given that we were announcing an end. I pointed out that the essence of Saaransh was coming to terms with the finality of death and debunking the popular notion of immortality. With my words their concerns melted away as the true meaning of Saaransh asserted itself with the first shot.

Mahesh Bhatt admits Vishesh Films needs steroid shot, will oversee move to focus on content-driven cinema
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; March 16, 2017)

For almost a decade, filmmaker brothers Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt were known to unapologetically bank on sex and thrill to get a grip on box office success. From erotic thrillers like the 'Murder' (pictured below) and 'Jism' franchise to supernatural films like the 'Raaz' series, films emerging from the Vishesh Films banner have been commercially successful. But their last few films, 'Blood Money', 'Khamoshiyan' and 'Mr X', were washouts at the BO, and it’s believed that Mahesh felt it was time to reinvent themselves.

Vidya Balan-starrer 'Begum Jaan' is an outcome of this introspection, he admits. “The film marks a renaissance for Vishesh Films. It’s a new homecoming for me. This is the kind of cinema I was known for in my formative years. That withered away. I am privileged to have a filmmaker like Srijit Mukherji [director] on board,” he says. He agrees that the audience is bored of the kind of cinema they have produced in the last few years.



“We had become complacent. We felt everything was going well with our production house. We were making films that generated revenue since they were smartly packaged, but they looked like assembly line productions. The economic model was working, but we had lost an emotional connect [with the audience] for which we were known. It was as if we were cloning our own content,” he shares.

Bhatt knows the secret for a production house’s longevity is relevance through constant reinvention, when he says, “We were known as thinking leaders [of the industry] and that’s where we want to be. The audience gave us a reality check. We are now set to ride on new energy with content-centric cinema.”

Mahesh Bhatt wished his lil’ girl a day before her 24th birthday to beat everybody at the draw and yesterday was busy redirecting gifts and bouquets to her bachelorette pad
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 16, 2017)


Alia Bhatt turned 24 on Wednesday with a quiet celebration at her bachelorette pad. The actress, who had been living with dad Mahesh Bhatt and mum Soni Razdan, moved into her own apartment last year with sister Shaheen and her doting dad says he’s happy to send all the gifts and bouquets arriving at his door for her to Alia’s new home.

“I’m happy to play the traffic cop and redirect all the gifts and flowers which have been descending all day in Soni’s and my space and ask them to take them to the lady’s house across the street. Her mom and me are mighty pleased to be in her new house and bring in her birthday with her,” says Bhatt, recalling the baby who’d entered the world at 4 am, 24 years ago today, is one of Bollywood’s bright young stars.

Bhatt smiles as he remembers his friend, philosopher and guide, U G Krishnamurti, telling him, “This lil’ girl of yours will be a star one day.” Alia was barely nine at the time and it seemed like the kind of a statement to pep up a youngster. “He saw in her the potential that we as parents don’t see in our little ones,” admits Bhatt.

The past year has brought Alia awards and accolades galore for her performances in Abhishek Chaubey’s dark drug drama, Udta Punjab, and Gauri Shinde’s coming-of-age story, Dear Zindagi. Bhatt is proud that his daughter remains grounded thanks to her mother and her upbringing.

“The family is very supportive and Alia is lucky to be in a space where everybody celebrates her achievements. She is constantly given a reality check and made to look at the achievements of other actors and performers to keep her hunger alive. Fortunately, she’s not a person who is easily satiated by what she has achieved,” asserts the admiring father, who on the eve of her birthday sent her a quote from the Psalm Ode, stating, ‘Teach your tongue to say I do not know, and you will progress’, insisting that once people start believing that they know everything there is to know, it makes them rowdy.

Bhatt wanted to be the first one to wish his baby so the day before, he walked up to her house at around 7 pm. “She was surprised. She reminded me that her birthday was the next day and I told her I wanted to beat everybody at the draw. I wished her again on Wednesday morning. The rest of the day is always planned by her mother who is very particular about celebrating birthdays. I’m just informed and toe the line,” he laughs.

He nostalgically says they all have a collage of memories of her birthdays which melt into each other. “Before I could blink my eye, my lil’ girl is a shining star in the sky. I was awestruck when I first laid my eyes on her in the early hours of the morning. I’m still awestruck when I see her going from strength to strength, doing things which are beyond my imagination. My wonderful baby has always had this ability to astound me and keep marvelling at this gift of life,” he says emotionally.

While he is happy to cater to all his daughter’s demands, Bhatt who has given up direction, says he has no plans to return with a film for Alia. “She knows that page has turned. She is doing brilliant work and there are brilliant filmmakers and writers around to contribute to her evolution as an actor. I can hopefully put together a project in my company for her but Mahesh Bhatt, the director, bloomed and then crumbled into dust. I don’t believe in reincarnation,” he signs off.

Fresh from a holiday in Maldives, Mahesh Bhatt celebrates his ‘dysfunctional family’, which has created a new ‘normal’
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 20, 2016)

Mahesh Bhatt has just returned from a four-day vacation in the Maldives, deconstructed, and is trying to put himself back together. The family holiday was Alia’s gift to her mother, Soni Razdan, on her 60th birthday and Bhatt marvels at how his 23-year-old daughter who is all for staying “fiercely connected”, has given birth to the whatsapp group where she keeps the chatter going. He admits that he had willingly thrown himself into work and set out to achieve all that he has. And though he has no regrets, he realizes today, at 68, that while he has given his four children— Pooja, Rahul, Shaheen and Alia— everything, he held back the most important thing and it was time to give more of himself.

So, the workaholic writer-filmmaker who was never into vacations, allowed himself to be persuaded into going on this break with Soni and daughters, Alia and Shaheen. He found himself in a villa with a private beach, mesmerised by the pristine beauty and overwhelmed by the explosive silence. “I’ll always cherish the memory of the four of us cycling on the island. I bought a Panama hat which cost a bomb and even got myself sunglasses for the first time because the sunlight was too bright,” he reveals. “The real treasures of this holiday were not just the splendid sights of nature but the treasures hidden within oneself... Of gratitude, compassion and the sense of ‘we-ness’. The real treasures of life waiting for me to discover them.”

He also discovered how big a star Alia had become as people approached her for photographs, autographs and to rave about her performances. He was also left dumbfounded by Shaheen’s unique connection with wildlife, including sea turtles and fishes. He’s equally moved by her piece on depression in Mumbai Mirror and will have it framed for his study. “Unlike me it wasn’t an act of bravado. She wrote about the paralysing biochemical aberration with a candid simplicity. To see your child look into the abyss of depression and not blink but emerge stronger is a proud moment for any parent,” he says.

Since his return, he’s also been bonding with son Rahul and admits it’s another proud moment when people call his fitness guru son the architect of Aamir Khan’s impressive wrestler body in an upcoming film. He’s also moved to hear Rahul talk about him in glowing terms in recent interviews. “We’ve had a wounded past, but it’s never too late to make up and rebirth a father/son relationship,” he reasons, pointing out that in a strange paradox, his four beautiful children who have come out of what people believe to be a dysfunctional home, have gone on to to create their own normal, living life on their terms.

Next year, his daughters will collaborate on a project for the family banner, Vishesh Films, with Shaheen scripting Aashiqui 3 and Alia top-lining the cast. How does that feel? “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, this is showbiz,” he warns. “Yes, the script is in Shaheen’s young and capable hands but when Aashiqui 3 will become a go-go project, we’ll know only by and by. The intention is there, but as we have seen many times before, there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 21, 2016)


Mahesh Bhatt’s path-breaking 1982 marital drama, Arth, could return to the screen in a new avatar. The film’s writer-filmmaker has sold its remake rights.

Confirming the same Bhatt told Mirror, “Two gentlemen, Sarath Chandra and Pravesh Bhardwaj, approached for the rights of Arth. Sarath and his mother both have been great admirers of the film and he had been chasing me for eight months. He is enamoured by the narrative and has taken up the challenge to remake it. The film will be a given a 21st century interpretation, contemporised by a new mind as per the new age. Sarath wants me to have a creative gaze on the film. I have suggested them a writer who can work on the script.”

Arth is a semi-autobiographical film about a filmmaker having an extra-marital relationship with an actress for whom he decides to leave his wife. It delved into Bhatt’s relationship with Parveen Babi it featured Shabana Azmi in a National Award-winning performance as the wife, Kulbhushan Kharbanda as his screen alter ego and Smita Patil as the actress. There was also Rohini Hattangadi as a maid in an abusive marriage and Raj Kiran as the wife’s sympathetic friend. The film had a memorable sound track by Jagjit and Chitra Singh.

In an earlier interview to Mirror Bhatt had admitted that the iconic film had found it difficult to find buyers because the heroine had refused to return to the husband and chosen instead to walk the path alone. “Its DNA was perceived as a threat to the established narrative of a man-woman relationship and distributors would walk out of a screening to tell me that the film was a disaster,” he informed.

A chance meeting with Hrishikesh Mukherjee who was the chairman of the National Award jury that year led to it being entered for the National honours and it went on to bag Shabana the Silver Lotus for Best Actress. Immediately afterwards Rajkumar Barjatya decided to distribute it and the rest is box-office history.

Was it difficult to give away the rights to what is undoubtedly one of his most iconic films? “Not at all, it was done before, Balu Mahendra remade it in 1993 in Tamil as Marupadiyum. I am not finicky about rights,” Bhatt signed off.

Mahesh Bhatt reveals why he hasn’t worked with his youngest daughter; says a collaboration is possible only if he thinks he can contribute to her brand value
Letty Mariam Abraham (MID-DAY; August 10, 2016)

He is a man of many words and hardly pulls his punches. His frank, candid opinions can easily endear one to him. That’s Mahesh Bhatt for you. In a freewheeling chat with hitlist, the filmmaker talks about his upcoming TV show, Naamkarann, how Barkha Bisht reminds him of late actress Smita Patil and why he doesn’t expect daughters, Pooja and Alia, to follow moral codes. Excerpts:

Is your new show a remake of your 1998 directorial venture, Zakhm, which was inspired by your life?
Zakhm was fiercely autobiographical, based on my mother and my troubled life. But Naamkarann is not a rehash. It takes off where Zakhm ends. It’s drawn from my life, but isn’t entirely my story. It isn’t a sequel either. It’s centered on a 10-year-old girl.

Why did you decide to go back to TV instead of making a sequel?
Television today is the medium of mass entertainment. Filmmakers of great repute are on TV or making mini series, even in the West. There are so many characters in a story; you can’t do justice to all of them in just 150 minutes.

Television is run on the TRP game. Have you made the show keeping that in mind?
We have been given creative freedom by the channel. They gave us inputs and an understanding of what people want.

Are you convinced with the choice of actors?
Barkha [Bisht] is a fascinating actress. She reminds me of Smita Patil.

You could have easily got a bigger name for the show.
I am not a slave to names. I am known to work with new people.

Thriller and spooky shows are ruling the small screen. Do we have takers for a heartwarming story like this?
Why not, if they could embrace Janam in 1984, Buniyaad in 1986 and Daddy in 1989? If there’s space for a Naagin or an Udaan, there is space for Naamkarann too.

What stereotypes does this show intend to break?
The stereotype that you need a male figure to establish your identity. It also asks a fundamental question: why elders preach what they don’t practice. I have no business to ask Pooja or Alia to follow a morality code, which I myself never followed.

Has Alia lent her voice to the show track?
No, Monali Thakur has sung the song composed by Anu Malik and written by Kausar Munir.

When will we see Alia working in your films?
Only when I contribute to her brand. She will kick me out if I do not contribute to her growing stature. But, for emotional reasons, I don’t work with stars; Alia is one. Nor do I use my children as my meal ticket. I am active, more relevant than them. Only when our mutual needs coincide, we might work.

Hasn’t she expressed interest to work with you?
After Hamari Adhuri Kahani, she told me, ‘Papa you must write a film like that for me’ and I wondered what had happened to her. I don’t think she needs to hold her father’s hand. Whenever she is at the crossroads, she texts me and we talk.

Alia is more successful than Pooja...
That’s because she is younger, more dedicated. But, Pooja has been a star; she chose to move away. She hasn’t been able to establish herself as a filmmaker, but she is still in the driving seat. To me, she is far more successful because she has lived life on her own terms and has never leaned towards her father for a single penny. My daughters [Alia, Pooja and Shaheen] are standing on their feet.

Mahesh Bhatt says India's ready for a film in which good people have sex
MUMBAI MIRROR (April 7, 2016)

Flashback to 1974 and the dawn of my cinematic career... The refusal of the Censor Board to certify my film, Manzilein Aur Bhi Hain, revolving around two gangsters and a prostitute, on the grounds that it is against the holy institution of marriage, opens my eyes to the mass perception that in Indian cinema only bad people have sex, the good ones fall in love. The film is mutilated, mauled and finally sees the light of day. It is a disaster!

Fade out...
Fade in to 2015 and a darkened auditorium... After a screening of Love Games, I am told by the Examining Committee of the CBFC that they will certify the film only if we agree to 18 cuts. I point out to Vikram (writer-director Vikram Bhatt) that nothing has changed in four decades. The power wielders are still locked in a time warp, completely out of sync with reality.

We approach the Tribunal and our film is cleared with just one sound bite muted. But the real victory is when a young RJ tells us, during a promotional tour, that Delhi is not unfamiliar with our characters — swingers in the hedonistic pursuit of carnal bliss. He candidly admits to being on Tinder himself and urging his listeners to confess to their marital transgressions on his show.

Yes, what Bollywood thinks is an aberration, is all too identifiable. India is ready for Love Games, it's time for our movie makers... and our censors... to wake up and smell the coffee because good people have sex too.

After watching the movie, filmmaker MAHESH BHATT dissects Hansal Mehta's portrayal of homosexuality
MUMBAI MIRROR (February 17, 2016)


"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity," said the French philosopher, activist and mystic, Simone Weil. I have always believed that stories have the power to awaken us to the truth. Works of writers, who write from their wounds, have the power to take us via their stories into the truths of other people, whose lives we are wilfully blind to, because we are busy amusing ourselves with comfortable lies.

Director Hansal Mehta and writer Apurva Asrani do just that in their film Aligarh. They take us from our safe sanctuaries and our prisons, out of the same old Bollywood stories we have been telling ourselves, and pull us into the life of Dr Shrinivas Ramchandra Siras, a linguist and author in Aligarh University, who was humiliated and ousted from his position because of his sexual orientation.

This under-two hour biographical drama, made by brilliant technicians and actors, Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar Rao, is not just a film about the rights of homosexuals. It is a passionate cry, bringing into focus every human being's right to be different from the herd, and to demand from the custodians of law our right to live our lives our way.

Homosexuality, which has been a part of human history for millennia, is controversial for all individuals, including homosexuals themselves, because it is not a dominant sexual orientation, and does not naturally lead to procreation. Whether individuals within a society agree with the practice or not, the central issue that Aligarh bravely spotlights is the right to freedom of choice within the confines of one's own personal space.

From the first shot of Dr. Siras being driven home in a rickshaw on a wintery night, and the subsequent nightmare that unfolds thereafter, Hansal makes the viewer realise that the problem of this persecuted minority is a burning issue, simply because of ones own apathy. He makes us realise that we are personally responsible for viewing homosexuality as something disgraceful, and have turned the other way when they are humiliated by society under our noses.

As I sat watching this film, I couldn't help but marvel at how India of 2016 has drastically changed from the India of the last century. Here is a filmmaker and his team who have taken a clear position and are crusading to change the nation's belief towards sexuality.

I remember that in 1998, Dilip Kumar, Javed Akhtar, Vijay Tendulkar and I filed a PIL in the Supreme Court when the film Fire was obstructed by the Shiv Sena. We had sought a directive to restore the rule of law and the Constitution, before the situation slipped into total anarchy. During that process a lot of gay rights groups suddenly appeared out of the woodwork and wanted to jump onto the Fire bandwagon, taking out candle light protests outside theatres. Their voices sought to be heard not just on the issue of freedom of speech in the virtual world but also in the real world. They attempted, at that point, to broaden the discourse. When they approached us to join them, Dilip saab took a step back. He did not want us to crusade for gay rights, only for freedom of speech back then.

When I look back at that moment now, I marvel at the quantum leap that Hansal, Manoj, Rajkummar and Apurva have taken. They've given us a moving document, which will make even the stone-hearted, blinkered viewer feel the pain and loneliness of Dr. Siras, perhaps make him feel that he too was responsible for the tragic hand that he was dealt.

If attention is indeed the rarest and purest form of generosity, then Aligarh is the most generous human document to have flowered in these mind-numbing times. Where most filmmakers are attempting to lull an audience into sleep, Aligarh, and the haunting face of Manoj Bajpayee, wakes you up, jolts you out of your slumber.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 19, 2015)

Early on Friday, at around 10 am, Mahesh Bhatt posted three tweets hitting out at the unnamed Censor Board Chairperson, Pahlaj Nihalani. In the first one he pointed out, "We live in oppressive times. We in Bollywood now have, one of our own as a thought police!"

This was followed by: "Instead of calling the process of limiting our self expression & dissent as "censorship", he calls it "concern for our SANSKRITI!"

His tirade ended with, "This guy feels that we Indians are ready to support repression as long as it is done by hiding behind the high sounding word 'our tradition'."

When Mirror caught up with the filmmaker, who was driving down from Pune, he admitted that his ire had been sparked off by his upcoming film's (Love Games, starring Gaurav Arora and Patralekha) recent brush with the Examining Committee of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Bhatt, who attended the screening, was encouraged when the Regional Officer and the other members admitted to liking the film and the fact that there was no effort to titillate even though it journeys from dirty sex to pure love. "But then they wanted certain four letter words muted out and kisses pruned down to a few seconds. What was shocking was that they didn't want the hero (Gaurav Arora), a drug addict reformed by love, to be shown consuming hard drugs. How can I show him cured of his addiction unless I establish the fact?" asks a mystified Bhatt.

He points out that in 1989 he'd launched daughter Pooja with Daddy, revolving around an alcoholic father cured by his daughter's love. "The film, which came in the pre-digital era had several scenes of a drunk Anupam Kher. It was aired on the national broadcaster, Doordarshan, and the present Union I&B Minister, Arun Jaitley, had liked it. Today, when every kind of content is streaming into our homes, how can such restrictions be imposed on us?" he questions.

Bhatt argues that since they applied for an adult certificate, not 'U' or a 'U/A', these cuts are not acceptable. "We will now go to the Tribunal," he informs, pointing out that India has become a force to be reckoned with worldwide because of our constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression. "Now the Board is trying to strangle freedom of thought and expression. Makers are now practicing pre-censorship, fearful of the outcome when they pick up their pen."

Bhatt is peeved with Nihalani, who he stood up for at the time of the latter's appointment, arguing that he'd headed film trade bodies and campaigned for the industry's cause. "He was one of us, fighting against the moral code of the censors. Now he has taken us back to the Dark Ages. The CBFC has become the Censor Board," Bhatt signs off.

In a first-person account, Mahesh Bhatt recounts a memorable meeting between former Pak PM Nawaz Sharif and Dilip Kumar
Mahesh Bhatt (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 17, 2015)

Don't ask me why, but when I saw the image of Dilip saab (Dilip Kumar) receiving the Padma Vibhushan Award from the hand of Sri Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister, in the presence of his proud wife, Sairaji, and a beaming Devendra Fadnavis, Maharashtra Chief Minister, along with the Governor of Maharashtra, Sri Vidya Sagar Rao, I was reminded of what the thespian had said to me after I had conducted a memorable interview with the legend in Bradford, way back in 2004 during the famous Bite The Mango Film Festival.

Dilip saab had decided to ignore the Shiv Sena's diktat, and keep the Nishaan-E-Imtiaz, Pakistan's highest civilian award bestowed upon him by Islamabad, for his contribution to better Indo-Pak understanding. He was able to brave the opposition at home, and take all those people who were questioning his allegiance to this country head on, because of the support of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had declared without mincing his words, that there was no doubt about Dilip Kumar's patriotism and commitment to the nation. Dilip saab had categorically mentioned in his letter to the Prime Minister that he was ready to return this prestigious award if Vajpayee felt that doing so would serve the national interest. It is Atal Bihari Vajpayee who needs to be thanked for firmly standing behind this King of Kings and making a historic trip possible. 'We stars are used to being revered by all kinds of people, but what happened in Pakistan when I went to receive the award is something that you have to hear Mahesh,' Dilip saab said to me.

Dilip saab was supposed to meet Nawaz Sharif, who was also the Prime Minister of Pakistan at that time. As is customary, he had contacted the office of the PM to find out what time they should arrive there, to enable to smoothly sail through the security in order to be on time to meet the PM. 'What I was then told humbled me,' said Dilip saab. 'Imagine my surprise when I was informed by his office that it was not me who was to come to the PM's office, but that the PM was coming to meet me!' Nawaz Sharif then arrived to meet Dilip Kumar with his entourage, and sat down for over an hour, with the humility and childlike eagerness of a true fan of the thespian.

This self-effacing attribute of PM Nawaz Sharif left me awestruck. It dawned on me that simple human gestures of leaders of state resonate far beyond the work that they may do in their official capacity. By honouring this great actor who has been the reference point for the Hindi film industry for the last sixty years, Nawaz Sharif had come closer to those millions of people who have cried, laughed and applauded this great actor in the darkness of auditoriums all over the world.

'Sir, I love you for loving my hero,' I said to Nawaz Sharif when I had gone to meet him in his palatial house on the outskirts of Lahore, as part of a peace delegation a few years ago. With a warm smile he said to me 'Why don't you bring Dilip saab here and you too join us and spend at least a month with us and enjoy our hospitality', he offered graciously. He was not in power then. It is his love for his icon that made Nawaz Sharif declare Dilip saab's house in Qissa Khwani Bazaar, Peshawar, where he was born, a national heritage property. This was indeed the highest tribute that any actor could have received from the head of State of a country that is so much a part of our shared heritage and yet looked upon with animosity by those who propagate the politics of hate.

I recall that on that historic occasion, Sairaji, with tears of joy in her eyes, had said, 'It would be wonderful if our Government too would acknowledge his contribution.' The thirsty know that real thirst draws out water from a parched and empty sky. The prayer which had emanated from Sairaji's heart has found its answer today. PM Narendra Modi has warmed the hearts of millions of Indians all over the world by sending his emissaries to Dilip saab's abode, to give him his much-deserved award. Too little too late? No way. Better late than never! Thank you, Mr. Modi for loving our hero.