As 78-year-old veteran filmmaker, producer and writer Mahesh Bhatt called time and dialled out of the director's space, Monojit Lahiri—a childhood buddy and close Bhatt-watcher—attempts to trace the life and times of a colourful maverick, a genuine agent provocateur who personally and professionally lives the term… iconoclasm!

From Arth and Saaransh to Aashiqui and Murder, Monojit Lahiri traces the fearless journey of Mahesh Bhatt—the iconoclast who redefined Bollywood through emotional honesty, personal truth, and cinematic rebellion.  

Just a brief flashback.

The 70s and 80s found Bollywood celebrating the star system with all cylinders firing! Song, dance, romance, fights, dramabazi, dialoguebazi, Salim-Javed-bazi… fired the screen, scene and mass audience's imagination, full-on. Sure, there was also the parallel and art-house cinema delighting the small, discriminating, evolved audience, but the clout and charisma of the towering inferno, his Angry Young Man image, violence-without-apology persona seduced the junta in a fashion seldom witnessed before.

A Rebellious Young Director Arrives

It was in this hugely masala-filled backdrop that a young Mahesh Bhatt gate-crashed into the promised land. Interning with A-lister director Raj Khosla, Bhatt, forever cocky and rebellious, one fine day decided that he had learnt all that there was to learn and was ready to go solo.

He pulled the trigger on his debut film, Manzilen Aur Bhi Hain. Dealing with a hugely non-conventional and controversial subject (a prostitute living with two men, pregnant and confused about whose child she was carrying), it got the wigs of the Censor Board members to turn grey in a flash! A long, acrimonious battle between Bhatt and the establishment followed. Finally, when the film was allowed to see the light of day, it was so heavily censored that any resemblance to the original was a coincidence!

However, his assistantship with director Khosla swept no popularity polls nor invited the slightest critical acclaim. During a conversation with me at that time, Mahesh candidly confided that he felt deeply pressurised because:

“The industry was forever seeing me as someone with great potential, someone who is on the verge of cracking it. Wasn't I the great Raj Khosla's assistant? Didn't I show great promise? Wasn't I praised by the unit for my contribution to the Khosla films? Confused, vulnerable, impressionable, I found myself suddenly in no-man's land. I desperately tried to live up to their perception and vision of my so-called promise, but the more I tried, the more I flopped. So one day, I pulled back, went deep into myself and wrote a story that really wrote itself—Arth. It emerged from my very being, scripted in blood, with unfiltered passion and honesty. One from the heart, dictated by the soul.”

Arth and the Birth of Honest Cinema

Arth marked a landmark in the Bollywood of that time and stamped his signature style. In the la-di-da films of that era, Arth came as a culture shock to audiences. Brutally honest and emotionally charged, it touched parts of the heart, mind and soul where, earlier on, trespassers were prosecuted! It was cathartic, like undergoing surgery without anaesthesia, but in the end, healing and magically fulfilling.

Raw emotional storytelling, shamelessly autobiographical, transparent and committed to creating realistic indie cinema—that was Bhatt's calling card. Exploring psychological pain, torment, anguish, human flaws, personal truth through life's real experiences, failed relationships, inner demons, extramarital relationships, alcoholism, mental illness and transgender lives—subjects that were taboo—slammed his frames in sledgehammer fashion.

Thinking audiences didn't know what hit them, and ambushed as they were by a cinema that offered truth 24 times per second.

Saaransh, Daddy and a New Cinematic Language

Solidly proving that neither glam, stars, fancy locations nor big budgets spell success, Bhatt demonstrated repeatedly—in his early work—that imagination, experience and observation, powered by emotional honesty and the ability to engage, enrich and even empower audiences with narratives they could relate to at a personal level, was the key.

His cinema was also novel because, apart from staying away from populist mainstream fare, his material bore no resemblance to either the Benegal art-house stuff or the Hrishikesh Mukherjee middle-of-the-road offering. In that fashion, Bhatt was a true pathbreaker of a cinema that provoked audiences to think and feel with their heart and mind beyond hollow visual treats.

Be it Saaransh, Daddy, Naam or, later, Zakhm, Bhatt turned on the heat to attract an audience base who delightedly offered both eyeballs and footfalls.  

Aashiqui and Reinventing Mainstream Romance

Since change is the only constant, Bhatt, moving with the times and adapting to new needs, transitioned to embrace other formats.

Aashiqui—with huge echoes of his own life—offered a brand of content high on melody, music and romance targeted mostly at the kids, a true-blue Valentine to Youngistan. Introducing newcomers as leading players along with new voices, the music took the world by storm, as did the film, unleashing celebrations galore.

Even today, decades later, Dheere Dheere, Nazar Ke Samne and other gems remain evergreen songs. 

Murder, Reinvention and the Audience Shift

Soon, fearless adventurer that he was forever, pounding paths and invading subject angles fear to tread, Bhatt zoomed into the titillating space with Murder! Shocking and thrilling audiences out of their skins, it created a huge stir, scandalising the puritans and viagarising the repressed and suppressed sections of the masses to rocket the film into another stratosphere, branding Emraan Hashmi Mr Kisser for life!

Other films celebrating the joys of the flesh followed, creating a new genre, delighting large sections of the audience who specialised in wet dreams!

Around that time, while having a chat, I enquired about what had happened to the Mahesh Bhatt of Arth, Daddy and Saaransh. He smiled. “Waqt waqt ki baat hai, yaar. That was then. This is now—a completely different time, with audience profiles changed beyond recognition. The age group, taste, exposure, expectations, impatience and choices are all at their disposal. It's an open market now, and we need to constantly provide new, exciting, unique products to lure them our way. Like the great Billy Wilder once famously said: If you're looking for art, go to Picasso. If you desire entertainment, this way please. I am quite clear about what I am doing. Win some, lose some. Part of the game. Love me, hate me, don't ignore me!”

The Legacy of Mahesh Bhatt

At the end of the day, each generation will connect with Mahesh Bhatt in its own personal fashion. The 70s and 80s lot will salute his heart-rendering slings and arrows delivered from the heart, unfiltered. The following generations will rock to his utterly melodious romantic musicals—Aashiqui, Dil Hai Ki Maanta Nahin. The later lot will be suitably aroused by his clever dedication to raging hormones!

I have deliberately not commented on his Parveen Babi phase, activism, Osho, etc., because that takes away from the focus of the narrative.

While this generation knows him more as superstar Alia Bhatt's father than for his colourful personality and the extraordinary life that he lived to the full, along with his gift of communicating—with matchless passion, power and purpose—the hidden guilt, secrets, desires, regrets and sins we all harbour, Mahesh Bhatt as director may have announced his expiry date…but his legacy—Arth, Zakhm, Aashiqui and Murder—will forever stay with us.

So, for him, it really is… No If, Only Bhatt!  

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