Karan Johar says he was ‘traumatised’ in meetings with Adar Poonawalla ahead of Dharma deal: ‘I had no idea what was happening’

Also read – ‘Bullied Karan Johar a lot in school,’ admits Nikkhil Advani: ‘Today he can bully all of us’

He continued, “I have to say this, and I’m probably not going to come across as very clever when I do. But it’s just the way I want to come across as. I was traumatised in so many of those meetings. I am a creative artist. What is a ‘put’, what is a ‘call’, what is an ‘exit’? He kept saying, ‘I will drag and you will tag’, and I was like, I know what ‘drag’ is in a totally different way, and I know what ‘tag’ is from the price tag that I pay in a retail store. I know what ‘put’ and ‘call’ is in a very different way, but I had no idea what was happening when those Excel sheets would come in front of me.”

Karan said that to his surprise, the deal was finalised mostly over Zoom calls. “I have to tell you, the dynamism displayed by Adar was almost inspirational to me. We cracked the major part of this deal on a Zoom call. He was a superstar. He had a few questions which had to be answered, and then he was like, ‘Where do we sign’. We’d been deliberating for one and a half years, and then he comes in, sweeping us off our collective feet, and I was like, ‘This is probably how I would’ve loved to do business if I could afford to’.”

Karan explained that the primary reason behind the partnership was to take Dharma to the next level, where they could fund their own projects without outside support. He said that he wants to ‘chase’ the mid-budget films because that’s where the bigger profits lie.