Anupam Kher says he ‘cried, cursed’ Mahesh Bhatt after finding out Sanjeev Kumar has replaced him in Saaransh: ‘I felt betrayed’

He said, “After Saaransh, I signed 57 films within one week… People ask me why I agreed to play an elderly man at that stage in my career, but I’d do it again. That film established me as an actor… I think at that time, Mahesh Bhatt was going through a journey. He’d made Arth, and he wanted to make this next. And because I’d been thrown out of the film 10 days before shooting and replaced by Sanjeev Kumar, I did it with a vengeance.”

He elaborated, “I had been rehearsing and preparing to play that old man for six months. I used to go out wearing dhotis and kurtas, I used to observe old people, I would use a walking stick. We were supposed to begin shooting on January 1, and on December 20, my friend told me that he’d heard a rumour at Rajshri Productions that I wasn’t doing that film anymore.” He called up Mahesh Bhatt, who casually told him that the studio doesn’t want a newcomer, they want an established actor instead.

Anupam said that he felt betrayed, and he packed his belongings to leave Mumbai for good, but before leaving, he decided to pay Mahesh Bhatt a final visit. “I took the cab to his house, and I walked up the stairs. He praised me for taking the news sportingly, but I told him to look out of his window and see the car that was standing there. It had all my belongings, and I told him that before leaving, I wanted to tell him what a fraud he is… I wanted to make final climactic statement, and I told him that as a Brahmin man, I was cursing him.”

Mahesh Bhatt was impressed, and he called up Rajshri and told them that only Anupam would do the film.