Mahesh Bhatt didn’t have a script during Arth, recalls Shabana Azmi: ‘He was going through a personal crisis’

Arth was inspired by Mahesh Bhatt's affair with actor Parveen Babi. The movie starred Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil and Kulbhushan Kharbanda.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | Updated: October 20, 2024 07:12 PM IST

3 min read

Shabana Azmi talks about shooting for Arth without a script. (Photo: IMDb)

Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth, which was inspired by the director’s extramarital relationship with Parveen Babi, became a massive success upon its release in 1982. The film starred Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Smita Patil, and Raj Kiran, but initially, the project didn’t have a script as such, Shabana recalled in a recent interview.

Speaking during a session at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival on Saturday, Shabana Azmi shared, “Mahesh Bhatt was going through a personal crisis. We didn’t have a script, we had a story idea, and as we were shooting it went along, it was all very ad hoc. I would wear my clothes and turn up on sets. But there was something inside him. It was like he would press a button and immediately I would start, the experience was amazing.”

She added, “For instance, if he would give me a difficult scene to do, and expected me to do it right away, I would say, ‘I can’t do it’, he would say, ‘Artificial conflict is not allowed, we don’t have time, you better do it.”

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Speaking to Filmfare, Mahesh Bhatt had earlier shared, “Arth dug into my own wounds, my life burns. I had the audacity to use that as fuel. The emotional truth has been sourced from my life. In my 20s, I had a fairytale romance with my first wife Kiran. I was madly in love with her. Aashiqui had echoes of that. Soon we were married. I became a father at 21. Through the course of time, I fell into a relationship with India’s top actor, Parveen Babi. The relationship took its toll on me.”

He added, “Parveen was reduced to a rubble. It was experiencing death at close range. The fires of that and the pain of abandoning my first wife, whom I loved dearly, was part of my emotional tank. So I thought let me make one film my way, as I see it. And not fit or fall in line with market tastes. Let me make movies about the silences we keep hearing in conversations, beneath the spoken word. That’s where Arth came from.”

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