‘Shekhar Kapur abandoned project with Shah Rukh Khan when Hollywood came calling’: Tigmanshu Dhulia recalls making ‘ghatiya chai’ for SRK

In the same interview, Tigmanshu recalled how he made terrible tea for Shah Rukh when he visited Shekhar’s Mumbai residence. “Shekhar ji ne kaha, ‘Chai bana de yar.’ Pehli bar maine microwave dekha hota kya hai. Main aapko ’94 ki baat bata raha hu. Phir bhi bahut hi ghatiya si chai maine Shah Rukh ko pilayi thi (Shekhar asked me to make tea. I saw a microwave for the first time. This was 1994. I made a terrible tea for Shah Rukh),” said Tigmanshu.

Shekhar said that Shekhar also started another film, Major Saab, after Maut Se Jo Darte Nahi got shelved. It starred Jackie Shroff and Juhi Chawla; Anu Malik had even recorded the music before the project was shelved. Shekhar began working on a film called Ta Ra Rum Pum, in which Tigmanshu and other assistant directors auditioned Preity Zinta, who had not made her debut by then. It was an AR Rahman musical on the lines of the John Travolta-starrer Grease (1978). But Shekhar stopped production of that film too and went to Hollywood instead, where he worked with Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth, 1997) and Heath Ledger (The Four Feathers, 2002) in their early days.

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“If he was getting to do The Four Feathers outside of India after the global acclaim of Bandit Queen, he wanted to utilise it. That won’t happen with a Hindi film,” added Tigmanshu. He clarified that he didn’t feel bad as an Assistant Director despite the multiple shelved projects. “Assistant ke liye thodi ek director zindagi jeeta hai. Apne liye jeeta hai (A director doesn’t live his life for his assistant, but for himself). I don’t have any regrets. I admire Shekhar Kapur a lot. I’ve learnt a lot from him. The amount of time I’ve spent with him is more than enough, whether the film gets made or not. I was a very proud Assistant Director. I still say it with pride today that I was Shekhar Kapur’s Assistant Director,” said Tigmanshu.