Bollywood Directors Have Their Daggers Out

“Even if the most successful director like Sanjay Bhansali comes to me and says that I have got a film with Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan and others all together and says please make this film, I won’t make it still.”

That’s veteran filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra taking a potshot at his former assistant Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Bhansali assisted Chopra on such films as Parinda and 1942 A Love Story.
Soon after, Chopra offered him Kareeb to direct. But Bhansali chose to cut off the apron strings and direct a script he’d himself written - Khamoshi.

The fact that Bhansali was hailed as the finest filmmaking talent in India after delivering whopping successes like Devdas and Black is sure to have peeved off his mentor.

The fact that Amitabh Bachchan - whom Chopra had been courting to work with him for years - happily agreed to feature in Black for Bhansali, is believed to have added to Chopra’s bitterness.

The traditional Guru-Shishya (teacher-student) relationship has often been a fractured one in Bollywood.

Ram Gopal Varma seems to have made a habit of it. After sacking him from his pet-project RGV Ke Sholay, Ramu is said to have got former blue-eyed boy Mohit Ahlawat thrown out of his only solo project.

Mohit, of course, joins the long list of actors whom Ramu first loved, then promoted and finally rejected because of creative differences. Former victims include actors Manoj Bajpai, Vivek Oberoi, Antara Malli and Randeep Hooda.

Rarely have filmmakers managed to rise above ego clashes.

One man who chooses the tactful way out is Karan Johar. His soured relationships with directors he launched, Soham and Nikhil Advani, filled tabloid pages for months.

But Karan, ever the charming one, knows how to come out smiling even when he’s hiding a dagger behind him.

“Of course there’s bad blood but one has to rise above it and one is mature enough to leave it behind and move on. Personally, I think anyone who leaves me is his loss,” he says.

If everyone adopted that attitude, perhaps we would be spared the washing of dirty linen in public. But wait! what would life in Bollywood be without that. Sorry, keep it coming guys!

Report: ibnlive.com