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Mahesh Bhatt recently sat down with Arbaaz Khan and spoke about his childhood, when he felt stigmatised as an “illegitimate child.” The Zakhm director shared that he was born to a Muslim mother, Shirin Mohammad Ali, who concealed her identity, as they lived a Hindu area. All she wanted, he said, was to be accepted by Mahesh’s father, Nanabhai Bhatt, who was a Hindu man. But since he was already married and had a family of his own, he never gave his mother her due.
When Mahesh told his father about his mother’s last wish, he refused to come along to the shia kabristan. “I told him that she told me that she would be like to be buried where her mother’s buried in the shia kabristan. I looked at his face and his face went white. And he said (with folded hands) mujhe maaf kar de beta, mera mazhab mujhe vahan jaane ki permission nahi deta (Forgive me son, my faith does not allow me to go there). That broke my heart,” Mahesh shared.
The Arth director said that he did not feel any anger in that moment, and told his father, “I said ‘main toh beta hun, mujhe toh jana padega jaise unhone kaha hai. Woh right toh uparwala bhi deny nahi kar sakta mujhe (I said, ‘I am her son, I will have to go and do what she has said. Even God cannot deny me that right).”
Bhatt concluded that his father was a “prisoner of his own upbringing,” but this episode “scarred” him for life. “My eyes still well up with tears,” he shared emotionally. Bhatt’s 1998 film Zakhm was loosely based on his childhood. His daughter Pooja Bhatt played the character based on his mother.
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