Pooja Bhatt on her web movie Cabaret finally seeing the light of the day, why the film did not get a theatrical release, and on reuniting with dad Mahesh Bhatt for Sadak 2
Shaheen Parkar (MID-DAY; January 13, 2019)

Like filmmaker father Mahesh Bhatt, Pooja Bhatt minces no words in stating her opinions. She is an interviewer's delight. You don't need to ask too much. The actor-turned-filmmaker knows exactly what you are looking for. She's witty, entertaining and articulate. Right now, she feels akin to a mother who has just delivered a baby. Her production, Cabaret, which was stuck for over two years finally released on Zee5 on January 9. "All this while I was like a single mother, taking care of the project, I finally found a partner [the digital medium] with whom I can share my joy," she laughs.

About 14 years ago, Bhatt had announced Cabaret with Mallika Sherawat, who at that time, was her dad's protégé. This was after Sherawat had tasted stardom with Murder (2004). The project did not roll. But Bhatt is quick to point out that this Cabaret is different. "It is the writer-director Kaustav Narayan Niyogi's vision. Initially, I had thought of going along with my script, but he reworked it and made it his own. It's his debut and he, too, had to patiently wait for the film to release. The other day, he was driving past Juhu beach and saw a hoarding of Cabaret. He stopped the car and called me. There was a long pause, but we had said so much in those unspoken moments. We are relieved and hope to celebrate soon with the cast and crew."

Cabaret stars Richa Chadha, Gulshan Devaiah and cricketer S Sreesanth. "Richa has charted her own path, Sreesanth is still in the after-glow of Bigg Boss and Gulshan will find his way. The timing of Cabaret's release could not be better for me. Guess it was destined to release now."

Bhatt explains what went wrong. "Cabaret was complete and ready for release. Every film is allotted a budget for production and marketing. Budgets are written in stone. We live in a time where marketing is an important part of filmmaking. Whenever I make a film, I ensure that we don't lose money or that nobody wants to see it. Just before the release of the film, the producers [T-Series and Wave Film] slashed the promotion budget. The promos were on air and the buzz had been created. I had to take a painful decision: Whether to go ahead with the release with the truncated amount or pull the plug. I chose the latter. It was a tough decision but had to be taken."

The digital world is a whole new medium. "I may be an old school filmmaker and actor but I have got the maverick streak from dad. He made films like Daddy (1989) and Janam (1985) for Doordarshan, these were the days when no new film would release on the small screen. Filmmakers felt he was crazy to do it, but now, three decades later, films are being made specially for the small screen."

Bhatt says she is used to battling roadblocks. "Filmmaking involves a lot of people and there are differences. Obstacles do not bother me. I emerge stronger. It is a learning experience. At the end, all is well that ends well. I only need to head to my farmhouse in Kalote, a two-hour drive from Mumbai and I am recharged. It is another planet where I spend time with my dogs and get recharged to face new challenges."



'It's homecoming for all of us'
Pooja Bhatt begins work on her next, Sadak 2, in April. The romantic thriller is a sequel to her father's 1991 film, which starred Sanjay Dutt and her. The film is also remembered for the late Sadashiv Amrapurkar's performance as the villain, Maharani. Sadak 2 marks Bhatt senior's return to direction after a hiatus. It is also the first time Pooja is teaming up with sister Alia.

"It's homecoming for all of us. I am acting after ages. My last film as an actor was Everybody Says I'm Fine in 2001. I am working with my dad after long and so is Alia. I am reuniting with Sanju after ages. So, there will be a lot of bonhomie on the set." She also terms it as payback time for dad from whom she has learnt the craft. "I will be working in front as well as behind the camera. It is a matter of pride for me as I have never assisted him. We plan to roll in April."

Pooja also accompanied her dad for the location hunt in Uttarakhand. "We have already begun work on the music, it is heartwrenching. Aditya Roy Kapur is already on board. We will soon cast the rest."

Tanvi Trivedi (BOMBAY TIMES; October 10, 2018)

On Monday, the #MeToo movement gathered momentum with a popular TV writer and producer of the 1990s show, Tara, accusing Alok Nath of sexually violating her when they were colleagues.BT spoke to the survivor’s friend, Pooja Bhatt, on the issue. Here’s what she said:

“I have known her for a very long time now, so if she is accusing Alok Nath of sexually assaulting her, there is no reason not to believe her. But I have not known Alok Nath, I only did one film with him where he played my father and I hardly had any scenes with him. But he is known to have an alcohol problem, and though I have not witnessed it first-hand, I have heard that he suffers from a Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde problem for years.

She has said that she was asked to keep quiet about this and forget what happened. Who are these people who asked her to keep quiet? This is a problem every woman is facing since time immemorial. So many women are sexually assaulted, teased and raped every day, sometimes in their own homes, and the mother asks her daughter to keep quiet. Why are we not teaching them to speak up when it happens to them? I feel that along with Alok Nath, all those people who have asked her to keep quiet are equally responsible, because they help such predators to continue doing these horrible crimes.

Interestingly, people in India are saying that we are a part of the #MeToo movement, which started in the West. But, don’t you realise that crimes like these have been happening in India for years now? I also hear people asking why she has woken up now to tell her story. I feel that nobody has the right to question why she is talking about the incident after 19 years. We have all been survivors of sexual assaults — when somebody grabbed us from the back, or punched us in the train or bottom-slapped us. If a woman as outspoken as her is talking about it after 19 years, I think that somewhere, we are going wrong in not teaching our children that they should talk about it.

Thirdly, the bodies that the film and TV fraternity have created to protect our rights are not able to help at all. In fact, if these bodies are not able to help an employee get her or his pending dues from their producers, how will they help a woman, who was raped 19 years ago, get justice?

Having said that, I also want to reiterate that every man is not a sexual predator. Also, a Twitter or Facebook post should not decide whether a man is a rapist or not. There should be a proper inquiry on this matter and the allegations should be proved.”

Harshada Rege (DNA; September 22, 2018)

Mahesh Bhatt’s daughters — Pooja Bhatt and Alia Bhatt — were born two decades apart. Little wonder then, their equation with their father is vastly different. While Pooja was launched in Bollywood by Bhatt in Daddy (1989), Alia made her debut with Karan Johar’s Student Of The Year (2012). Though the veteran filmmaker had retired by then, he now returns to helm Sadak 2, which will feature both the actresses. During a recent meeting, the Bhatt girls shed some light on the equation they share with daddy dearest and the impact he has had on their lives and careers.

THE MIND READER
Pooja feels that her papa has the uncanny ability to read what’s on her mind. She cites an example, “The other morning, I was uploading a picture of him and his boss Raj Khosla on my social media account. I was thinking of a caption when he messaged me exactly what I was about to type out. I thought to myself, this is getting a bit scary, he is picking up my thoughts now.” Living with him, she feels, is like living under a microscope. “You just can’t hide,” she says, adding, “When I think about him, I remember the quote by Galileo where he spoke about the sun. He had said that the sun does every job with the same amount of ease and puts in the same amount of passion to make the planets revolve around it as it does as warming the grapes that put the wine on your table. Similarly, dad babysits Edward (Alia’s cat) with the same passion that he has when he makes a movie.”

A BIG SWITCH
For Alia, who never thought that her father would ever step out of his retirement to direct a film with her, this project is a dream come true. But that isn’t just because her father is an ace filmmaker, but also because of the way their bond has evolved. Alia elaborates, “In these last two years, I’ve witnessed a switch in my relationship with my father. I had never thought that I would ever have this kind of an equation with him. He was always very busy when I was young. Now that I am working, I understand why he was so caught up. But the relationship that I share with him today is solely because of the time, affection and attention that he has given in building and nurturing it.”

THE TEACHER
Pooja credits her dad for playing a big part in shaping the personality of those close to him, like Sanjay Dutt and herself. “Working with him has made us the people that we are today. We had the privilege of being on his sets where he told us that you don’t need to be anything more than what you are. The world would need to accept and exult in what you are,” she avers.

The actress-filmmaker feels that very few directors have the acumen that her father does. “I strongly believe that it’s the film-maker’s gaze that you bloom under. And he looks at you in a certain way that makes you feel as though you are the most beautiful creature on the planet. For me, it’s going to be joyous to watch Alia being directed by him because I am going to see this whole new relationship blossom between them now.”

NOBODY LIKE HIM
It was the way Bhatt narrated the story that made Alia feel that no other director could direct Sadak 2. “When I heard the story, I told him what Sanju had already said, that I cannot do this film if you are not directing it. I was not just in tears, but I was sobbing and shaking at the end of it. He put up the most creative narration that I have heard in my life with the music and the beats. It was so earnest that it broke my heart. Sanju recently told me, ‘Alia you don’t know what you are getting into. You have no idea what it is to be directed by your father’. At the shoot of the picture with the cast, I got a glimpse of it. And to tell you the truth, I am scared for my life because if that’s the kind of emotional journey that we are going to go on for I don’t know how many odd days, I think I may just end up being born again.”

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.

Upala KBR (DNA; June 6, 2017)

Actress-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt with lawyer Afroz Shah and thousands of volunteers have been responsible for cleaning 160,000 kgs (160 Tons) of garbage from Versova beach. Pooja recalls, “Afroz and I go back many years. Initially, he didn’t tell anybody that he was doing this. When I first went to Versova beach and I consider myself an optimist, it was a physical blow to me! I was like — what have we done to our surroundings?”

The big change
Pooja says, “I learned from Afroz that it’s too easy to blame others. We worked silently for the first 50 weeks but it was only when the Patron of the Oceans Lewis Pugh, British endurance swimmer and ocean advocate came to Mumbai to clean the beach that the city and everyone else woke up and said ‘A white man is cleaning our beach.’ Then Head of UN Environment Erik Soleheim came and put his might behind us. The PM Hon’ble Narendra Modi also acknowledged our journey and now after 87 weeks, it’s been a mad rush for everyone to jump into the fray and get a piece of the pie.

Thousand flamingos!
She continues, “Four days ago, Randeep Hooda, Afroz and I took a boat from Lokhandwala creek to Malad where the garbage was coming from and that was another horrifying sight to see. Right behind Lokhandwala is a huge creek which could have been a tourist site for fishing, picnic, boating etc as we could reclaim our public places but when you go down the creek it’s black, dirty water and from there a radius of 10 km Bollywood people stay. We tell lies and spin lies and shoot in pristine locations but don’t look at the filth right under our noses. We saw over a 1000 pink flamingos as we ferried across the creek and saw the upstream mangrove forest choked with plastic. It was heartbreaking to see the birds skimming for marine life and getting plastic instead.”

Be responsible
She feels that Mumbai needs to dispose waste responsibly. “We have become a nation of blamers — kyun hota hai? We don’t realise that we are part of the problem. As long our aangans and homes are clean we are fine. Each of us has to protect the environment. It is too easy to blame the BMC or government but why don’t we take responsibility ourselves? Let anyone come and take credit but eventually we have formed a community of people. I was not part of that before. People of all caste, religion and economic strata — bonding and working together, sharing each other’s thoughts is fantastic! We have one thought — we have taken so much from the world but now it is time to give back. We have a plastic landfill for segregation, but our eventual aim is to convert this into fuel. We have planted coconut trees across the beach.”

Next is Bandra
“I want to bring to Chimbai beach in Bandra (known to be the most polluted beach in Mumbai) the same change we have brought to Versova beach. I am a Bandra girl but have never been to Chimbai beach. I want to replicate that model for sure and we need to give the community a sense of belonging and ownership.”

Upala KBR (DNA; May 6, 2017)

Pooja Bhatt has admitted to us that she and her father Mahesh, uncle Mukesh and Sanjay Dutt have been meeting regularly “for more reasons than one” at their Khar office. And that one of those reasons is putting together a sequel to Sadak (1991).

She tells us outright, “Besides enjoying each other’s candidness, we are exploring the possibilities of a sequel to Sadak. One thing we are all clear about though — that we won’t attempt it until we believe we can live up to the first... Sadak is a classic and a favourite of millions of people. If we revisit the film, we need to be sure why. But just being in the same room together takes us back to such a precious time from all of our lives.”

While it is known that Mahesh will only write for and not direct the sequel (buzz is Srijit Mukherji), it was unclear if Alia would be a part of the project. Shares Pooja, “It’s too early to speak about the script and casting. All I can say is that Bhattsaab is writing the sequel and has to be the creative backbone with regards to the storytelling.”

Tell her that buzz is Sadak 2 will be a remake of 1994 Tamil drama Mahanadi, which deals with social issues like corruption and child trafficking and that Alia would play Sanjay and Pooja’s daughter, Pooja laughs off the rumours with a blunt reply. “There is no buzz in that buzz, unfortunately!” she says.

Pooja Bhatt opens up on her battle with the bottle and how she reclaimed herself
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 2, 2017)


Today is the 68th day and Pooja Bhatt hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol since she pulled the plug on December 24. She’s gone through Christmas and New Year and even brought in her 45th birthday on February 24 without a drink. Talking about her battle with the bottle openly in the public space is part of her catharsis.

“I want to bust the stigma attached to alcoholism in our country. Women particularly are discouraged from seeking help because it’s a matter of shame for the family. We don’t share our pain or frailties, we cover our weaknesses and it becomes a cancer,” says Pooja, admitting that in her case it was a chat with her father that led to this decision.

On December 21, Mahesh Bhatt messaged her from Delhi and they got talking about the state of the country, about leaders who in their eagerness to imprint their footsteps in the sands of time create absolute mayhem. As he was ringing off, he told her, “I love you kid.” She responded, “I love you too pops. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing else worth loving in the world.” He replied, “If you love me then love yourself because I live in you.”

Her father had never alluded to her problem, but the text urging her to love herself, struck a chord. Pooja promised him that “from this moment I’m going to be the best ‘me’ I’m capable of being” and after putting down the phone wondered if going out with someone and polishing off a bottle of whisky was loving herself. The answer was a resounding ‘no’.

On Christmas I went to bed sober

On Christmas Day, the Bandra girl who is Christian by faith, put her phone on silent and sat in her apartment with her four cats listening to the strains of “Silent Night” wafting in from somebody’s home. “I ate dinner and went to bed at 11.40 pm, sober. At midnight I heard the bells of the four churches ring and felt rejuvenated,” she exults.

She took off for a holiday to Lahore, to Delhi, to several places. And while in the past she’d spent evenings alone, with a bottle of wine, in some café, watching the world go by, this time, she stayed away from the wine. Not just through Christmas but even the drunken revelry of New Year.

The public pressure escalated as her birthday neared. She toyed with the idea of taking one drink. “But then I asked myself if I needed it, and if I did, why stop with one glass? Why not drink the whole bottle of champagne because as somebody said, ‘One drink is had with the enemy.’ I called my friends to my farm, we swam at 2 am, we did many fun things, but I didn’t drink,” she smiles.

She’d smoked her first cigarette at 23 and has never done cocaine. But she was drinking by the time she was 16. Growing up in an Anglo-Indian environment, it was normal for wine to be passed around the table and beer opened on Sunday. Even in the film industry there were people drinking copiously.

“Alcohol is comforting, it colours your evening. It’s a socially accepted narcotic even at business lunches and in the boardroom. Also, living in a fast-paced city, being in a high-stress profession, it becomes a reason to celebrate and cope with failure. Your film is a hit, you bathe in champagne, it flops, a single malt lessens the pain,” she avers.

Two years ago, Pooja ended her marriage. Though the end of a 10-year relationship is akin to death, she did not give herself time to mourn. She moved on, and the world said cheers to her spirit and energy. “Before I knew it, it’s a whirlwind of hedonism,” sighs Pooja who can drink every man in the room under the table thanks to her Scottish genes and her father’s genes. “I was born to a man who has never done anything in half measures and I inherited that. So when I drank, I drank copiously. Your appetite increases even as the alcohol does terrible things to your body, clutters your mind and colours your judgement of the people you’re hanging out with.”

One evening, in the middle of another mindless conversation, she asked herself if she’d be sitting there without the alcohol. The answer was another ‘No’ and it was time for some soul searching!

She’d seen what alcohol did to her father, how it had killed her parents’ marriage. She’d been in relationship with an alcoholic and got her into the news. She’d lost a friend at 40 to alcohol and had a drink to mourn her. But all this while, it was someone else’s problem, she was in control. This time, as her father had urged, she looked into the mirror unflinchingly and acknowledged she had a problem too.

“I was 45 and if I wanted to give myself 10 years of living, I had to quit now before I drank myself to the grave. I had to reclaim the sharper, brighter me which had got watered down,” says Pooja.

She was in Delhi recently sharing the stage with Sanjay Dutt who admitted he’d been a shy kid and drinking had made it easier for him to talk to a girl. Pooja’s never been shy or short on confidence. For her drinking was a way of deflecting reality till she became a victim of what she calls mindless drinking.

Pulling the plug

“Luckily, I pulled the plug before it became impossible for me to stop. I’m in the pink of health except for the weight I put on because I’m now a stressful producer. But being the daughter of an alcoholic makes you four times more susceptible to becoming one,” she says.

She didn’t need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as she had strong support systems in her dad and her Cabaret director Kaustav (Narayan Niyogi). Years ago, Mahesh Bhatt had picked up his younger daughter, Shaheen and the child had moved her head away. That day he quit drinking and never went back even though as you see in the climax of Daddy, one night after returning from the shoot and pouring Anupam Kher a drink, he was tempted to take one too after everyone had left and Pooja was asleep. He asked himself who’d know and realised that he could lie to the world but not himself. He would know! “I didn’t think that the girl who’d counselled her father in Daddy would one day council herself,” Pooja says poignantly.

Kaustav quit drinking two years ago because if anything went wrong on the Cabaret sets, he didn’t want anyone to blame it on his drinking. “No one thought he could stay 24 hours without alcohol but he proved them wrong. For me these two are shining examples, who understand without me telling them anything,” she says, but agrees for many others, institutions like AA are necessary. “There are many who want you to fail. Strangers are more supportive than some of your own because your battle makes them realise that they have failed,” she points out.

Today, Pooja herself has no problem being around anyone who drinks. She has a fully stocked bar at home and even pours out drinks for friends. “If I can’t be around alcohol and resist it, it means I’m not in control. Each day strengthens my resolve as I realise I have more hours to a day now. Even when I drank till 4 am, I’d be at work at 10 am but I was burning myself out. Today, I feel lighter with the excess water gone. All the drama alcohol brings is eliminated from your life,” she says.

Her biggest victory was waking up to the news of her baby sister Alia Bhatt winning the Filmfare Best Actress Award. “I messaged Alia saying normally this would have been an excuse for me to crack open a case of champagne first thing in the morning. But this time I celebrated by not drinking,” Pooja signs off.

In a first from within the producer community, Pooja Bhatt takes on the Diwali release deal between the state and Film Producers' Guild to ensure 'smooth' release of Karan Johar's 'Ae Dil Hai Mushkil'
Pooja Bhatt (MID-DAY; October 28, 2016)

I write this piece knowing that my voice is like a candle in the wind, and will have no impact on those already converted to the thought that you speak of peace in these times, you are automatically a traitor. Yet, my conscience does not permit me to stay silent when I see some of my brethren succumb to powers that be, without even an attempt of a fight.

Why such a meek, soft stand? I asked myself. But on gathering facts, I realised that no one can fight for someone who does not want to fight for themselves. How do you coax someone out of an abusive relationship if they don't want to get out of it?

It was the year 1999 when my film Zakhm was denied a censor certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), headed by our very own Asha Parekh. I remember my father, Mahesh Bhatt, taking a clear stand, when the CBFC wanted to tamper with the film: We would release the film the way it was, or set fire to the negative!

My uncle Mukesh Bhatt (now president, Film & Television Producers’ Guild of India) backed that decision. Conviction does not need PR. The result of that conviction was not only a clean release, but a national award for Best Film on National Integration. All this was possible because Zakhm was produced independently, and not underwritten by corporate funding.

Corporate funding gives you the illusion of grandeur. But eventually, it makes you weak and cautious. It makes you too damn gentile. It was painful to watch Karan Johar have to proclaim his patriotism over and over. It was even more devastating to hear him say he will never work with artistes from the “neighbouring country” again. I’m not certain if those were his lines. Or if he was merely mouthing the agenda of the mighty FOX.

Either way, what is saddening is that through this entire debate, the words ‘patriotism’ and ‘profit’ have not only been used and misused, but have drowned out the word ‘art’.

Art has no boundaries. Artistes are beyond their nationalities. That is my belief. You may disagree. That is your right. As is mine, to agree to disagree. Why can't we see the obvious? Trade continues without restrictions between India and Pakistan. Yet there is a clampdown on all things Bollywood: a curious case of soft power being used instead as soft targets. I guess Karan Johar and Fawad Khan are more marketable targets than farmers who grow cotton and paan leaves.

The theatre owners and exhibitors are terrified that their properties will be vandalised. They will not trust the state to act on its promise of providing adequate security and ensuring a film’s peaceful release. Corporates will continue with their ongoing agenda—of profit by any, and all means.

In the meanwhile, wild figures like ‘Rs 5 crore’ are thrown around as ‘sums to be donated’ by filmmakers, when at the meeting held between the chief minister, the Film Producers’ Guild, and the aggrieved filmmakers, no figure was arrived at. I repeat, no promises were made. The Producers’ Guild cannot and does not act on behalf of every producer in the film industry. Hence their supposed acceptance of “never working with Pakistani artistes” has no standing, until it is approved by each and every association — of which there are many.

I have a case pending in the High Court where I have questioned the legitimacy and authority of these very bodies that fail to protect independent producers like myself. When it comes to fighting copyright violation (in my case, with the title and film, Thank You), there is no assistance in sight.

It’s the same situation when one is hauled to court and has to fight a lonely battle for over a decade on an obscenity charge over a film poster (for Rog), even though the said poster has a ‘no-objection certificate’ from the concerned producers’ association, and the Censor Board.

So, I’m sorry, is this Bollywood? If it is, then it’s not an industry I wish to inherit. Is this Mumbai? It definitely is. And this is certainly not the Bombay I was born to.

Pooja Bhatt is a Bollywood actor turned filmmaker.

Upala KBR (DNA; September 20, 2016)


The best gift
When contacted, Pooja laughs and says, “For the last three years, Munish and I were together in Kalote. He tells my father jokingly, ‘Bhattsaab, ab toh apni beti ki zimmedari utha lo! We both didn’t feel the need to cheat. I changed from the person I was and had become completely devoted to my marriage. One fine day, I realised that I had got bored of myself and that I needed to become a wild child again and I told Munish, who was man enough to understand what I was going through, that when we got married we had promised each other that we won’t look over each other’s shoulder and I needed to find my earlier self again. As a woman, you should have the right to do what you want. Munish told me, ‘Pooja, I won’t prevent you from being you.’ Our marriage is the best gift I had.”

Where’s the permanence?
Pooja explains her telephonic conversation. “I have tried marriage and the best part about it was that we were completely honest with each other and he has dealt with me at my worst. If I get married again, it has to be that someone who can go through life with me and my six dogs and four cats. Do not look at my naked body if you cannot look at my naked soul. Any man I need has to want to be with me — one day I will be placid and another day I can be like a tsunami, so I say that if you can’t deal with a tsunami, don’t even come close to me. In my conversation, what I meant was that marriage in this present day and age is a redundant institution. I don’t want your sperm, money or flat so what do I need you for? I only want to be an equal with you, have your companionship and am happy to hold hands without tags. I don’t think there is permanence in marriage today.”

Ex husband = Best friend
Though Munish and Pooja announced their break-up in 2014, they are yet to divorce. Pooja says, “Yes, Munish and I are still married on paper, but I won’t ever divorce him unless he falls in love and his woman wants to have children. I love kids, but I don’t have the biological urge to produce them. Kids are delightful company and I love my friends’ children, but I won’t be a lesser woman if I don’t have them. At one point in time, I had the urge to have six kids, but now that has changed. I continue to have the best break-up of my f**king life, so f**k your marriage! My best friend is my ex-husband. We get together when we get lonely and there is nothing sexual about it. I won’t call my father at 4 am, but I can call Munna who will ask me, Kya ho gaya?”

Munish ki ‘bachchi’
While they remain separated, this is one marriage that will never get back on track again. Pooja says, “I don’t go back in life. I have learned from Munna that only go back to see how far you have come. For me, when it’s over, it is over. We are both single but we don’t make it murky by having sex. Yes, I would like to fall in love again if I meet someone who loves me the way I am. I am a hopeless romantic… Am I open to love? I am addicted to love! The day I say I don’t want love is when you should be worried about me. Do I believe in permanence? Not in that way anymore. Munish is more like a father to me as he takes so much care of me. I tell him, ‘Main toh tumhari bachchi hoon.’ Munish is honest to a fault and the greatest compliment I could give him is when I feel lonely on occasions, he never takes it personally.”

Pooja adds, “I had a string of relationships and could have married any man — Bobby Deol or anyone else, but why did I marry Munish? Because I met the right person at that time. And after 11 years of marriage to him, drinking with him, the love won’t go out of our friendship. We stay in separate bedrooms and I know he’s got my back. What Munna and I created is magic. Today, my father has built a house next to our farmhouse and chills with us every weekend in Kalote. Munish and I are more together in our separateness. I got lucky with him, he’s a very good guy… Dildaar. They don’t make men like him anymore - he broke the mould.”

Pooja Bhatt’s going ahead with her film though it is similar to Akshay’s movie
Upala KBR (DNA; June 7, 2016)


Pooja says, “We are definitely making Love Affair. I am happy that Rustom is coming before us. It will help me to prepare for our film. Let 10 Rustoms be made! Ours is an erotic, sensual drama and very human. and from a woman’s perspective (Kalki Koechlin). It is not just about the Nanavati case. As we were facing casting issues for Love Affair, I decided to finish Cabaret first. By then Rustom got announced. But so what? Silsila and Arth released at the same time and got their own appreciation. We have a fantastic script, which I am not willing to let go of. Rustom has been made in 40 times the budget of our film so we shouldn’t even be making comparisons here.”

Pooja adds that the film got delayed also because of casting changes. “Initially, we were to make it with Arjun Rampal and Kalki, but Arjun was expecting a price which we couldn’t give. We have a budget so we decided to replace him with Ali Fazal. Casting is very important for a film like this and we needed someone like Kalki who looked like a foreigner.”

According to Pooja, Love Affair is about a young and lonely foreigner trapped in India. A husband who is caught between a lover and her husband. “It’s also about what is right and what is not. The backdrop of the story is the Nanavati murder case. Yes, we have a court case but that’s not the whole story. My film is a human drama, a woman’s heartland, a dutiful wife who is swept off her feet by a charming man. In real life, there are no blacks and whites in relationships. We can have the same subject but both under different directors can be treated differently.”

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 8, 2016)

Pooja Bhatt who returns to acting after 15 years, plays an alcoholic actress who's abandoned her child in a film written by dad Mahesh
Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 19, 2016)


Fifteen years after Rahul Bose's Everybody Says I'm Fine, Pooja Bhatt is all set to face the camera again. And it took a story from dad Mahesh Bhatt to convince her to return to acting.

"He looked at me with manic eyes and told me, 'I've got a story for you.' It's a gift from a father to his daughter and will celebrate my insanity," laughs the 43 year old who also plays an actress of the same age in the as-yet-untitled film which her father is still scripting. Pooja is hoping to get the first draft by April end and roll with it this year. Also, on the agenda is Cabaret and Jism 3 which she plans to start around September-October.

In this film, her character is a talented, swinging actress who is slowly losing her mojo. She's in depression, gets drunk and into brawls, before passing out. Eventually, she realises that she is running away from the guilt of letting go of her little daughter. At that point in her life, fame and stardom was more important than playing mommy to a love child born of a disastrous relationship. So she lets the child be brought up by another and now suffers terrible remorse.

"In most societies, and particularly ours, a man who has abandoned his child is given a second chance. But if it's the mother who has disowned the baby, she is seen as aberration, a bi*** and evil. We want to change that script," points out Pooja.

She recalls, years ago, watching a Meg Ryan, Andy Garcia film, When A Man Loves A Woman, about an American sweetheart who turns into an alcoholic. "Alcohol is another vice an Indian woman can't own up to. We are going to break that taboo too in our film. It's a heartbreaking human story that gave me gooseflesh I had not felt in many years. I'm wildly excited because there's not enough representation of women of a certain age in our cinema today. Roles were more powerful 20-30 years ago. Today the female characters are asexual, dead, with no charm," she sighs.

Pooja admits that while being a producer and a director gives you more control, acting liberates you. "And I am at that phase in my life when I want to let go now. So though I am terrified about going back and facing the camera because you can't take the medium for granted, for a story like this I'm prepared to get destroyed all over again. It's Daddy (her debut film) again, life's brought this opportunity, I'll open my arms wide and embrace it. Bring it on!" she exults.

Pooja Bhatt who gave us Bipasha Basu and Sunny Leone, is now looking for a male sex symbol
Subhash K Jha (DNA; August 28, 2015)

Pooja Bhatt’s Jism franchise gave the industry two sex symbols in Bipasha Basu and Sunny Leone. Who she picks for the third instalment is being keenly watched. However, insiders say, this time, she’s on the lookout for both a male and female sex symbol.

Bhatt admits as much. “More than the female protagonist, this time it is important which man we cast in the lead. Jism eventually is as much about the male as the female gaze and I believe in giving my female audiences as much, if not more, to drool over as the men. I always tell my my leading men that they have not arrived until they become gay icons,” she says.

She adds, "Jism 3 has to be braver and bolder than the first two parts. I am ready to break some more taboos. It’s time to re-invent the franchise.”

However, for the third film, Bhatt will require a girl bolder and sexier than both Bips and Sunny. “I need a combination of attitude, sensuality and vulnerability. I need a new kind of heroine. After Bipasha Basu and Sunny Leone, India now needs an even more unique fantasy figure. My father always says we need to change audiences’ perceptions more than we change the actors.”

The actress-producer defends the controversial roast that has landed the AIB, Karan Johar and others in an FIR soup
Subhash K Jha (DNA; February 17, 2015)


“FIRs have been filed against film artistes from time immemorial. Everyone from Raj Kapoor to Ismat Chugtai has faced it. I’ve faced it. Now it’s my sister Alia and others’ turn. One needs to take it in one’s stride and not cave in. Finally justice will prevail. I single-handedly fought an obscenity case against my film Rog for 10 years. It was frustrating. But I did not yield. Ultimately, my patience paid off and I got justice. As for Aamir’s stance against the Roast, he needs to remember that old adage... let him who has not sinned be the first one to cast a stone. His holier-than-thou moralistic posturing is getting a bit tiring, to say the least. For someone who produces Delhi Belly with the song Bhaag DK Bose and poses with a transistor covering his modesty or immodesty— that’s debatable—his attitude reeks of hypocrisy.”

Pooja Bhatt on the role that film festivals play, the struggles she faces as a filmmaker, and how her father might still have a movie left in him
Shakti Shetty (MID-DAY; September 29, 2014)

She was the first from the Bhatt clan to leave the so-called Bhatt camp to set up her own production house. But then, fiery independence comes easily to Pooja Bhatt, who’s known for supporting films that she believes in. On Sunday, Bhatt was part of a panel discussion on cinema at the fifth edition of the Jagran Film Festival (JFF). Giving her company on the panel were Manoj Srivastava, strategic consultant, JFF, and Ajay Brahmatmaj from Dainik Jagran. Needless to say, hitlist’s tête-à-tête with the feisty lady on the closing day of the week- long festival made for an interesting chat…

There are not many women filmmakers in our industry. Do you feel stereotyped because of your gender? 
Bollywood has been a man-dominated world, so I know this happens at times. But thankfully, I don’t crave for respect from the industry. I’m just happy doing what I’m doing. But to address your question, it’s true that a female director tends to make films that concentrate on female-related concerns and as a result, they get branded. I think this is pretty much true for other professions too. I, for one, look at myself as an actor who turned into a producer before directing films and then I became a production designer too. How are you going to slot me in terms of my gender?

Would you call yourself an independent filmmaker?
As far as the funding for a film goes, I don’t take any help from the so-called Bhatt camp. I raise money on my own. But when it comes to seeking advice on something, I turn to both my uncle (Mukesh Bhatt) as well as my dad (Mahesh Bhatt). Having said that, getting funds is never easy. You have to keep telling people all that your film will boast of, the budget that you have in mind and of course, the profit you’re looking at making. At times, you have to credit yourself a bit more and forget all the bad reviews your movies got (laughs). Or else, you’ll never make a film again.

As a filmmaker, how do you go about differentiating between mainstream and non-mainstream films?
Not very long ago, there was a clear demarcation between arthouse cinema and commercial cinema. But over the last few years, we’ve seen the two streams merge into one. Lines between the two are blurring at a rapid pace. A film today can have the best of both worlds as well as the worst of both worlds.

In such a scenario, what role does a film festival play?
A film festival can do a lot of things; it can change the way cinema is perceived. But then again, a film festival can’t afford to be elitist; it’s something we’ve seen take place with literary fests. A film festival has to embrace the common people and make him/her part of the process. A common person should be able to walk in and watch something he/she wouldn’t otherwise. In this way, smaller films can get the space that they deserve and the appreciation they are eventually going to earn.

And what about these small films not getting a commercial release?
Today, releasing a film is an art form in itself. The most common argument put forward is this: we only offer what the public wants. What this means is that the market is wide open for what the consumer demands. It may be sad, but that’s how commerce works. A lot of money is invested in making a film, let alone the money spent on advertising and publicity. If the cinema owners are taking a risk, expecting returns is quite natural. And because of these harsh realities, it’s important that we make a start with a regular film festival — if not a separate event. Here we can have a discourse and a filmmaker can tell aspiring film students that it’s not enough to just have a dream or a script. Things can get messy here.

Bollywood is getting increasingly bold nowadays…
We tend to believe that boldness is all about skin show; it’s not. Boldness has a lot to do with our thoughts. Jism released around a decade ago and it opened a Pandora’s box for us. We had a female protagonist (Bipasha Basu) tell us that the human body understands lust, not love. And if you remember, there weren’t many scenes showing skin in that film. After this film, we’ve seen a spate of bold films where the female character isn’t afraid of speaking her mind. She doesn’t have to prance around in a bikini to put forth her point of view.

Do you think your father is going to direct another film?
His book, A Taste of Life, which talks about the last days of UG Krishnamurti, is too relevant to not be transformed into a film. You can put all his films on one side and then put this book on another — it’s that good. I keep telling him that there’s one more film left in him and it has to be this book. But he keeps saying that he can’t go through the grind again.

Does Alia (Bhatt) approach you for your guidance?
She doesn’t need anyone’s guidance. We should go to her for guidance (laughs). She isn’t just a pretty face; she’s someone who’s very sorted and has a sensitive side to her. And she was clear about one thing: she wanted to be a star and she is one today.