By Mahesh Bhatt
“If my mama and papa had not seen this image on a cassette jacket and gone to see the first day first show in Muzaffarpur, I wouldn’t have been born,” said a young air hostess to me on a flight one day. “While Rahul Roy sang ‘Mein Duniya Bhoola Doonga’, dad plucked up the courage to hold mom’s hand and proposed to her,” she said with a sparkle in her eye.
‘Love Makes Life Live’ was the tag line of one of the biggest musical hits of Hindi cinema… Aashiqui. The narrative of this film, which I had pulled of my own life, had resulted in the birth of this beautiful young girl. That really made my day! The plane seemed to soar a little higher just on my feelings alone!
Our journey through movie-making history is defined by certain images which become classics because they play in our memory years after they first appeared. Our hunger for enduring love and beauty is occasionally captured quite by accident in a visual, which reflects this yearning, by us filmmakers.
One such accident happened when we stumbled upon the iconic image of a couple under a coat, presumably kissing. Twenty three years ago, it electrified the landscape of that time, and you can still see the glimmer of its afterglow on the backs of auto rickshaws in Mumbai city today. But the Gangotri of this gigantic musical hit of all times was Gulshan Kumar.
“Your name is Mahesh and I am a devotee of Lord Shiva. My heart tells me that if you and I team up to make a musical love story with eight or nine songs, we will set the nation ablaze,” he said. “Trust me, I will promote the film so well that it will reach every heart in every home.”
I could see him already seeing the future as a concrete reality playing out in front of his eyes. To him, this was not just some fluffy dream. I could see the steely resolve to turn this into a living reality, which he did in the only way he could. He broke every law of marketing in the book, and made Aashiqui an iconic brand.
This made me realise that if you can dream it, you can do it. Fade in 22 years later, the dream is the same, the dreamers have changed. “Let’s make Aashiqui 2. I have this belief that if Vishesh Films and T-Series team up under your guidance, we can re-create history sir,” said Bhushan Kumar, with that familiar glitter of conviction in his eyes.
And Aashiqui 2 was born. I was aware from the very beginning that the high standards that Aashiqui had set would be an albatross around our neck and to outshine what Gulshan Kumar and I had achieved together would be a formidable task. But when Shagufta Rafique came up with the heartbreaking narrative of ‘grown-up’ love, I suddenly felt that we perhaps had the beginnings of a worthy contender to the first-born. And when Mohit Suri gave this film soul, with great music sourced from three super talented music directors, I could smell the scent of roses everywhere.
“Now hand the baton to me and see how I outrun Aashiqui,” said Bhushan Kumar to me after watching a preview of the eight songs in the film. If I had even one per cent of scepticism towards his claim, it was blown to smithereens just two days after the promo was let loose into the global arena of scrutiny. On the eve of Holi, just as dusk was creeping in, I went for my usual evening walk by Juhu beach. As I rounded a corner, I was suddenly waylaid by eight or 10 enthused young men in their late teens. “Sir, great song, Aashiqui 2 super hit hogi!” they said and mimicked the image of the boy and the girl under the coat and laughed.
The writing was on the wall. Bhushan Kumar had proved that he was his father’s son after all. He had delivered what he had promised in just two days. I get the feeling that this is just the beginning. The beginning of something good.
