Aamir Khan disliked me touching his hair, wanted Mahesh Bhatt to intervene during Ghulam: Mita Vashisht on Bollywood’s ‘caste system’

Mita didn’t appreciate Aamir telling her how to perform a scene and expressed her feelings to the actor freely. “There was a scene in the film in which he would take out money and give it to me. So he was telling me that when I do this, you do this. I said, ‘No. You do what you have to do, I will do what I have to do.’ He said, ‘How will I know what you are going to do?’ and I told him, ‘See me and react.’ He wanted everything to be fixed in advance and I was like, ‘Why should you tell me what to do?,'” she said.

Using another scene as an example, Mita discussed the caste system prevalent in Hindi cinema, which is still there today, and how commercial stars perceive themselves as superior. She said, “In another scene, I am talking to him when I reached out and ruffled his hair. So, the first time I ruffled his hair, he didn’t like it. I immediately understood his mindset that, ‘Hath kaise laga dia mujh (How did she touch me?)’ He looked at Mahesh questioning my gesture but Mahesh took my side and said, ‘I don’t know what she did but it was beautiful.’ There was a difference between commercial actors and art cinema actors, especially during those days.” Mita also expressed that Aamir might not have felt bad about her touching his hair if she too was a commercial actor.

Mita revealed that work on Ghulam stopped for 1.5 years the incident as it was believed that Aamir’s brand value was not high enough, and the film saw many changes. By the time the film revived, Pooja Bhatt had left acting, and Rani Mukerji joined as the lead actor. Mahesh Bhatt also left direction, and Vikram Bhatt took his place.

After the change of cast, Aamir and Mita had to reshoot the scene where she ruffles his hair, but this time Mita stopped herself from doing so because she was wary of Aamir Khan’s reaction. She said, “I had that niggle from the last shoot. So, this time when we were performing that scene I didn’t touch his hair and Aamir kept waiting. He later asked me, ‘You didn’t do that?’ I told him that he felt bad last time so this time, I avoided it, and he immediately said, ‘No, no, please do it.'”