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Dawood Ibrahim’s sister wordlessly displayed her power, casually had a Mumbai street cleared: Apoorva Lakhia recalls Haseena Parkar

Approva Lakhia said as he was late to his meeting with Haseena Parkar, which is when he discovered how powerful she was.

Haseena Parkar made Apoorva Lakhia wait. (Photo: IMDb)

Director Apoorva Lakhia, best known for having helmed films such as Shootout at Lokhandwala, Zanjeer, and Haseena Parkar, recently recalled his meeting with the formidable subject of the latter. He recalled being late to their meeting, and how she displayed her power wordlessly. Apoorva said that she had the street outside the meeting spot cleared for him, and then made him wait for two hours.

In an interview with Friday Talkies, Apoorva shared what inspired him to consider making a film on the life of Haseena Parkar, the sister of Dawood Ibrahim. He said, “Haseena Parkar was good fun because I got to spend a lot of time with aapa. Actually what happened is, Sameer Antulay, their cousin, came to me and said, ‘Bhai ke upar ek picture banani hai‘. I said, ‘I have made a lot of movies on gangsters; I think I’m done’. Because of all the films I had made, people started to believe I was a bhai myself. But I kept being offered gangster films. However, because of these films, I became friendly with both crooks and cops.”

He added, “While speaking with Sameer, I understood the relationship Haseena aapa and Dawood had. I said, ‘Instead of Dawood bhai, I would like to meet aapa. At that time, I didn’t know she was called aapa. I said I want to meet Haseena Parkar because her life seems very interesting.”

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Recalling his meeting with her, Apoorva shared, “She set up a meeting with me in Malad because I refused to meet her in any dangerous area. I am a Gujarati, I get scared. On top of that, my mother was concerned. She had fixed the meeting for 6 pm, but I was shooting for Zanjeer and I wrapped it up at 8:30 pm, and then I left for Malad. Their guys were standing there and as soon as they spotted my car, they cleared the entire traffic for me. Such is their power.”

“Sameer kept calling me. Aapa’s bodyguard was there. He had scars of bullet shots all over his body. He asked me: ‘Do yo know who you have made wait?’ I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I finally went to meet her. There was a small cabin and the curtains had the Indian Tricolour. It was a very small one-bedroom apartment. There was a sofa, I sat on it and about 20 other people were gathered around. She didn’t come out for as long as I had made her wait. I made her wait for two hours, so she made me wait for two hours. I went to sleep. I was tired,” said the filmmaker.

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Haseena finally met him. Apoorva said, “She has an aura. I really liked her. She was very powerful, but very nice. We shot for the film in Mumbai, but she couldn’t see it. She died much before that. That film had an unfortunate production. The producer fought with Jayantilal Gada. He didn’t release it abroad. It was a great film, I didn’t even take my salary for that film. I was really upset for what the producer did.”

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Haseena Parkar starred Shraddha Kapoor in the lead role. The film, however, didn’t fare well at the box office and collected just Rs 9 crore.

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