THE MESSIAH OF HOPE OR PROPHET OF DOOM ?

Ali Peter John

There is a very strong and hot wave of anger blowing all over the film industry and one of the names flying and burning in this “gram hawa”is Mahesh Bhatt. I don’t want to go into the details of the controversy over the suicide (?)of Sushant Singh Rajput as enough and more has been said and made of it by the media and especially the social media. I just want to say a few things I know about my old friend Mahesh Bhatt,who is one of the names everyone is talking about ever since June 14 ,the day Sushant was found dead in his apartment in Bandra.
There are stories about how Mahesh Bhatt was one of those who pushed and pressurised Sushant to do what he should not have done (and there are stories about people who are now opining that it was not a suicide but murder). If you ask me, I am not surprised in the least to know the part Mahesh is supposed or alleged to have played in this tragic story……

I know Mahesh Bhatt since the time he was one of the assistants of the renowned director Raj Khosla he was supposed to be a genius, but was an alcoholic at a very young age. I saw him as a director during the time he directed a film like “Manzilein Aur Bhi Hai “which was based on a bold subject that was way ahead of its time.The censors had banned the film, there was a hue and cry in the media of the time and there were protest meetings addressed by leading personalities like K.A.Abbas, R.K.Karanjia and some leading lawyers. The reactions to the film saw the first signs of Mahesh Bhatt loving it to bask in the light of controversy. His next film, “Vishwasghaat “with Sanjeev Kumar in his first double role and Shabana Azmi was also a film that raked up a controversy, but it was not taken as strongly as Mahesh’s film, but he bounced back into controversy when he made “Arth “which he said was based on his own life then. He was married to Kiran and later had a roaring affair with Parveen Babi .He had Shabana playing the role of the wife and Smita Patil playing the other woman. He made statements like “I sell my own wounds “and other wild statements that helped him to be in the limelight and make the film do very well and even earn critical acclaim. He reached some kind of stardom with “Saaransh” in which he introduced the twenty eight year old Anupam kher as a sixty-four year old father who fights for the ashes of his dead son.Fame followed him and so did his controvesial stories….

It was during the making of”Saaransh”
that he showed signs of facing a mental turmoil which took its toll on him and he sometimes fainted during the shooting and there was a doctor (Anil Mehra)who had to be ready to treat Mahesh every time there was a need to. Half way through the making of”Saaransh”
Mahesh fell in love with the young actress of the film, Soni Razdan and soon after the film was released, he got converted to be a Muslim, took the name Afzal and married Soni. Alia is the product of the marriage. Mahesh had two children from Kiran, Pooja and Rahul

He gave his daughter Pooja her first break in “Daddy “with Anupam in the title role, another film he said which was inspired by his own life.It was during the time “Daddy “was being made or around that time that Mahesh created a sensation. He had kissed Pooja, his own daughter smack on her lips and even had the gumption of getting the photograph of a father kissing his daughter on her lips on the cover of the leading magazine, “The Illustrated Weekly of India ” which was edited by Pritish Nandi who was his friend, who when he was asked why he published that photograph in a magazine that was known to be a family magazine, had said ,”my magazine is for my friends and no one can ask me what I do with it “Mahesh had gone one step further and had said, “I love Pooja and I would like to marry her “.

The next time,Mahesh made a film called “Naajayaaz”(bastard)and he came up with another shocker in the same magazine which read “I am a bastard “a statement that not only made his family, especially his sisters angry and who decided not to have any relations with him,but also the readers of the magazine who were in a state of shock and many complained to management of the Times Of India which published the magazine.

Mahesh had become a well known director and took advantage of his position and did not pay his actors the kind of money they were paid by others. He had not paid Anupam any money for ten long years because he felt Anupam should have been grateful to him for the break in “Saaransh “and when Anupam told him that he had enough and wanted to be paid, Mahesh stopped casting him in any of his films.

At one stage ,I was so impressed by some of the things he said that I without asking my editor asked him to write a column for”Screen ” every week and he did till my management got a whiff of what was being written by Mahesh and asked my editor to stop his column.

He had even made his giving up his drinking and later giving up direction as a way of garnering publicity for himself. “No more direction and no more drinking for Mahesh Bhatt “, He announced in his boisterous manner

He used the recent happening in Indian politics to make his own enlightened comments and in one of his interviews with an international channel,he called Modi a “fascist ” together with his friend Javed Akhtar.

The sordid story of his affair with Parveen Babi has still not been forgotten. He started off by being her mentor and slowly the mentor took another avataar which was said to be one of the reasons why Parveen’s life and career ended in her being found dead in her apartment in Juhu three days after she had died with her once so very beautiful face and body being highly decomposed.

His association with Osho and later with U.G.krishnamurthy was also a subject that was discussed in the media for a very long time .

His daughter Pooja seemed to be following in his footsteps and created shock waves of her own.She too made shocking statements which made headlines. Her making films with Pakistani actors and shooting and attending functions and premieres in Pakistan came up for heavy criticism. However, she did the most shocking things when she first got photographed in the nude with her body painted, a photo session done by my late friend Jagdish Mali .She next took my young and new photographer R.Krishna with her to a lonely spot on the highway and lay down on the road without any clothes and asked Krishna to shoot. It is an experience Krishna who is now a cinematographer in the South can not forget.

And he made a comeback as a director with”Sadak 2″ without remembering the statement about his quitting direction. He has his favourite actor Sanjay Dutt (Mahesh had made it a point to stand by Sanjay during his bad times when he was arrested for his involvement in the bomb blast in Mumbai)and both his daughters, Pooja and Alia .It was for the role of the second hero in this film that Mahesh and Mukesh were said to have approached Sushant and Sushant had turned down the offer and the Bhatt brothers according to the stories making the rounds had not forgotten that “humiliation”by Sushant. Could this be the reason why Mukesh made a statement saying that he knew that Sushant was going to end up “like Parveen Babi “?and was this also the reason why Mahesh has been mentioned in almost every second report or story about Sushant’s suicide (?)The police and others are also looking at the relationship or association between Mahesh and Sushant’s former (?)girlfriend Rhea Chakravarty and the intimate pictures showing Mahesh and Rhea in pictures that can raise hackles in even the minds of people who know nothing about this whole sordid saga controversy or
” kaand “as a section of the Hindi media calls it .Mahesh’s film “Sadak 2″has almost been completed, but the pandemic has put an halt to the progress of the film .And under the circumstances today, created by Mahesh, Mukesh and the other big names, I am worried and wonder what will happen to Mahesh and his “baby” as he loves to call all his films .

PS years ago, Suraj Sanim,a close friend and one time writer of some films directed by Mahesh told me a very interesting (?)story about Mahesh and his words still ring in my ears even though he died years ago. Suraj who Mahesh did not give any assignments after he had found young and new writers who could flatter his ego had said,”you know, Ali how Mahesh manages to create all those controversial stories ? Every morning when he sits on his toilet seat he spends a lot of time imagining situations which he would have to face. He creates situations in which particular questions would be asked and he prepare his controversial and shocking answers accordingly “. I wonder what Suraj Sanim would have to say about the exploits of Mahesh today, when he is seventy years old

THE” CORRUPTION ” OF MR.BHATT

He had made a reputation for himself as a maker of enlightened and meaningful cinema which was a kind of slice of life cinema. But there was no money in this kind of cinema, but he continued with his contribution to good and even great cinema. He was in a class of his own….

Gulshan Kumar had established his music company in Mumbai. He had a unique idea of having a music bank in which he kept the songs of new composers,singers and lyricists. He was fired with the ambition to produce Hindi films based on the music in his bank…..

He talked about his idea to some of the people he knew in the industry. Mukesh Bhatt ,the younger brother of Mahesh was one of them. He had worked as the secretary of stars like Vinod Khanna, Smita Patil and Deepti Naval.When he heard of Gulshan Kumar’s idea, he took more interest in it .Gulshan asked him to request Mahesh( on his behalf)to see if he could make a film on any of the ten song he had in his bank. Gulshan also told Mukesh that he would pay Mahesh ten lakhs of rupees to direct the film.

Mukesh met Mahesh and told him about the idea and also convinced him that he would never be paid ten lakhs to direct the kind of films he was making….

Mahesh finally fell for the idea and got his writers to work on a script whose idea he gave them. Nadeem-Sharvan were the composers and Sameer was the lycrists of all the songs. Mahesh got a new team of actors in Rahul Roy and Anu Agarwal who was an internationally known model.The film was completed in less than three months and it turned out to be one of the biggest hits.

Mahesh was flooded with many new offers and Mukesh was the man who worked out all details of the films Mahesh decided to make. A new Mahesh Bhatt was taking his big steps in the industry…..

He had once told me that he would not buy a car and would walk to the studios and would not wear shoes and would not have any office. He believed that all these luxuries would take him away from the realities of life, which he believed was very essential to be a good director….

I saw the big change in the new Mahesh. He had a team of three good writers, Javed Siddiqui, Robin Bhatt, the step-brother of Mahesh and Mukesh and Sujit Sen. Mahesh had a room in a hotel called “The Villa “in Santacruz where the writers worked like they were attending office from morning to evening and sometimes even till late in the night. Mahesh sometimes gave cassettes of old English and films made in other languages from different parts of the world. He asked these brilliant writers to either blatantly copy those films or take ideas that could suit the making of a Hindi film. The writers had to follow his guidelines because they were paid well and didn’t have to work very hard. This kind of working continued for a long time…..

The Mahesh who had talked about being closed to the realities of life had now gone far away .He was the brain and the boss behind Vishesh Films, named after the son of Mukesh they had a new office on the Juhu-Ville Parle Road and have now shifted to a posh office on Linking Road and Mahesh travels in some of the best cars and wears shoes to go with his new image.

Aise bhi hota hai jab paisa bolta hai