Born on 20 September 1948, the director who made a spectrum of films ranging from the truly great (Saaransh, Arth, Naam, Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin, Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke) to the truly awful (Junoon, Tadipaar, Sadak 2), just turned 76.
He was a fan of Sridevi's unbeatable work ethic and praised her often in print - she was unquestionably the biggest star-actor he ever worked with. Bhatt mostly worked with Indian actors, not Bollywood stars--if you follow Indian cinema, you already know if this distinction. Bhatt's preference of picking up stage and theatre actors, the art house characters over box-office superstars is well-known. Sanjay Dutt wandered into his movies on occasion, Aamir Khan did two films, but really, we remember the brooding dramas with Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher and the like, more than his comedies and hits. His commercial films were mostly... tepid. He worked with Shahrukh Khan and Juhi Chawla in Duplicate but... its hardly great cinema.
He never worked with Amitabh Bachchan or Jeetendra, just one film with Rishi Kapoor in 1978, and Hema Malini in 1982... from all quotes from film rags at the time, commercial cinema stars were not of his liking... or of his budget.
The film with Sridevi was truly a rarity. Sridevi had just turned 30 and had her fill of dancing around pots and pans, yearning to work on something a bit more serious-albeit commercially viable. As she famously said, she wanted to work in good films, not boring ones; shutting out any hopes of art house directors to even approach her. Gumrah was the chosen subject in the early 1990s with famed producer Yash Johar. In the oeuvre of films of Bhatt, to be brutally honest Gumrah lands somewhere fairly in the middle. Of the experience, Sridevi said it was good, Karan Johar (the producer's son) said the leading lady's performance was out of this world and Sanjay Dutt said he was nervous working with the great Sridevi. As he should have been!
There's a rather shocking clip online of Mahesh Bhatt announcing on reality TV the horrific news of Sridevi's untimely death - the reaction of the audience, the sigh and tears are recorded for posterity.
In the winter of his life, as we look back on the director, we'll remember his great films more than his controversies, his quotes and his innumerable feuds. Fortunately, he never had one with Sridevi.
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