Mahesh Bhatt
had made a film called ‘
Zakhm
‘ starring
Pooja Bhatt
,
Ajay Devgn
and Sonali Bendre. For those not in the know, Pooja’s character in the film was based on Mahesh Bhatt’s mother who was
Muslim
named
Shirin
, but in love with a Gujarati man, Nanabhai Bhatt. During an interview with ETimes, Pooja had told us that she was wearing her grandmom’s saree and mangalsutra during the song ‘Gali Mein Aaj Chand Nikla’.
“The privilege of playing my grandmother – that was her personal saree I was wearing in the song. It is something I will always be grateful to my father for. The ‘mangalsutra’ I wore in the film also belonged to my grandmother Shirin. And the set of our home was a replica of the home my father grew up in as a boy,” she said.
Here’s recalling an old chat where Mahesh Bhatt had revealed that his mother was quite scared when he gave Muslim names to his daughters –
Shaheen Bhatt
and
Alia Bhatt
. In an old interview, he had said, “I had the best of both worlds. My mother was a Shia Muslim, while my father was a janoi-clad man. He never pretended to be secular. What’s very interesting, both (father and mother) retained their individual faiths. They were madly in love but neither indulged in the farce of wanting to do things the other way.”
This was amidst the 1992 communal riots in Mumbai. Recalling the scenario that time, Bhatt added, “My mother always wore this big tika, and saree – she liked that kind of thing. But, at the same time, I could see that there was something she was hiding. She felt that her minority status would perhaps interfere with our day-to-day lives. She was a little embarrassed when I flaunted my Muslim roots… when I came to know about it. Yes, she was a little embarrassed about it. She was worried about me during the communal riots in 1992. She was worried when we named my little girls — because my second wife (
Soni Razdan
) liked those names – Shaheen and Alia. Both are Muslim names. Everybody was worried in 1992. What was going to happen?”
Alia and Shaheen are Mahesh Bhatt’s daughter with his second wife Soni Razdan. He first wife was Lorraine Bright who later became Kiran Bhatt. Pooja and Rahul Bhatt are his children with Kiran.
