For over five decades, Mahesh Bhatt has worn many hats — filmmaker, producer, mentor and one of Hindi cinema’s most fearless storytellers. As he turns producer for the play Wo Subah Hum Hi Se Aayegi, the filmmaker reflects on theatre feeling more truthful than cinema today, the need for artistes to resist playing safe, and Sadak 2 being his final directorial.

For a filmmaker who built his career on emotionally raw cinema, it is perhaps fitting that Bhatt now finds himself gravitating towards theatre. Producing Wo Subah Hum Hi Se Aayegi has reignited his belief in what he calls storytelling in its purest form.

“Theatre is the mother of all storytelling. At this stage of my life, I find myself drawn more to essentials, to the bare bones of truth. Theatre strips away all the machinery. There are no retakes, no visual effects, no AI. All that remains is a naked, trembling encounter between the performer and the audience. In this age, information floods us like a tsunami and truth is slipping out of our fingers. Everything is curated. Even our so-called wounds are curated and varnished. Theatre is one place you need to go to when you’ve lost your path,” Bhatt says.

When asked if filmmakers today are playing it safe creatively in the age of algorithms and box office pressures, Bhatt, known for films such as Arth (1982), Saaransh (1984) Naam (1986) and Aashiqii (1990), disagrees. “We did have Main Vaapas Aaunga. It’s stunning. It’s an act of rebellion by the filmmaker. I may have stopped making movies, but the thirst to make stories that listen to the beat of the human heart still exists in the industry,” he shares.

He is careful to clarify that his criticism is not directed at a younger generation of filmmakers. Instead, he believes they are often pressurized into chasing immediate success. “One of the greatest challenges of these times is how to avoid massification. Most of the young filmmakers I see have enormous fire in them, but they want to be successful like yesterday! So, you cut yourself. You prune yourself. I am not cynical about young people. The audience has the latitude and the bandwidth to oscillate between different kinds of cinema. Yes, some films may not move the needle immediately. But there are movies that are judged by how they survive the passage of time. Time is the only critic,” he explains.

Bhatt recalls a remark by acclaimed Hollywood filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola that has stayed with him. “‘If art doesn’t have the audacity to take risks, then it is not art.’ There is an entrenched belief in the marketplace, which they hurl at you every hour, that only tentpole movies — films that cater to the lowest common denominator and testosterone — will work. They have their place. But they cannot be the only stories we tell. I would say that, having played on both sides, having oscillated between intensely personal movies and hardcore commercial films, I found success on both sides,” he mentions.

Despite a career spanning over five decades, Bhatt says he has no desire to dictate how history remembers him. Recalling a recent event in Delhi centred around a retrospective on Indian cinema, he says, “I was invited because the organizers felt I was a force that spoke to India in the ’80s and ’90s, and India spoke to me. Then you discover there was Mehboob Khan before you, Guru Dutt, and so many filmmakers before Independence. You realize you’re just another brick in the wall. You are not a monument. You’re lucky if you make certain films that connect with the hearts of the people living in your time. Some endure; some sink. We like to believe our work becomes monumental, but memory is the first casualty. Just as I choose how I remember people, they will choose how they remember me. And how the world chooses to remember me is their privilege,” he ends.

Sahir Ludhianvi’s iconic poem Woh Subah Kabhi To Aayegi spoke about revolting against oppression and creating a tomorrow shaped by equality. That hope forms the backbone of Wo Subah Hum Hi Se Aayegi, a play presented by Mahesh Bhatt that follows a young man navigating a changing India in the early 1990s.

While the filmmaker built an enduring career in movies, he has also produced several plays. What has it taught him? That theatre remains the country’s richest talent pool, even if it doesn’t receive the respect it deserves. 

On a call with mid-day, Bhatt expressed his disappointment as he said, “The problem is that theatre has become a springboard to films and television. There are people like Naseeruddin Shah and Makarand Deshpande for whom theatre is an end in itself, but for many others, it’s merely a means to an end. That’s unfortunate because this is where you discover writers and actors.”

The director insisted that the country’s attitude towards the art form needs to change. Drawing comparisons with the West, he noted, “A Broadway play gets as much respect and coverage as a film. We haven’t built that culture in India. There are successful plays here, but they don’t offer the recognition that films, streaming, or television do.”

Theatre also allows a censorship-free domain for artistes. Even as Bhatt agreed on the point, he noted that art forms will almost always face resistance. His films serve as an example.

“Arth [1982] was criticized, Zakhm [1998] had problems with the Censor Board. There has never been absolute freedom under any regime, irrespective of ideology. Every age has had this tug-of-war between the creative force and institutions that seek to regulate thought.”