Sanjay Leela Bhansali changed Aishwarya Rai’s attire in Devdas climax at last minute, demanded two saris so he could set the pallu afire: ‘If one burns…’ 

Hearing Sanjay’s vision, Neeta immediately asked if she could leave to source the saree. She said, “This was all happening at Goregaon’s studio. We didn’t have mobiles at the time; we only had pagers. In front of me, he called Aishwarya and Kirron Kher to ask if they had two such identical puja sarees. All this time, I kept asking him if I could leave. They soon realised nobody had it. By this time, it was 10:30 at night. Sanjay asked me if he could shoot the next day. I said, ‘Of course and left the studio.'”

Neeta revealed that after much convincing, a cloth vendor agreed to open his shop at midnight for her to pick the material for the saree. She said, “He came at 12-12:30 to open the shop. I got the fabric, and since I had already called my embroidery team, they had already started stitching the borders. We finished the sarees at 6 in the morning, and I reached the set at 9:30 when the shooting began.”

Devdas was Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s third film. It featured in the Out of Competition section at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the most expensive Indian film ever made at the time, with a budget of Rs 500 million. It film was hailed by the audience in India and was a major commercial success, emerging as the highest-grossing Indian film of the year.