When Yash Johar joked about the expenses on Amitabh Bachchan’s Agneepath: ‘Meri pitayi kar rahe hain’

When Yash Johar’s Dharma Productions produced the 1990 film Agneepath with Amitabh Bachchan in the lead role, the actor and the producer were both desperate for a hit. Yash Johar had been around in the film industry for a few decades by then and even his film production company had been around for almost a decade but they were yet to experience a big hit. But, despite all of that, Yash Johar had a jovial attitude and his sense of humour could always make people laugh.

In a recent interview with Rajshri Unplugged, actor Rohini Hattangadi recalled the time when she was working in Agneepath and producer Yash Johar took a dig at himself. Rohini recalled that in the process of trying to age a prop on the set, one of the crew members was hitting the prop with a stick and as they continued to do it, the prop looked a little older and shabby, as the scene demanded. During the process, a child actor asked Yash why this was being done and Yash, in his own style, answered, “Bete, yeh meri pitayi kar rahe hain (It feels like they are hitting me).” Yash joked that the crew had first painted the prop and had then aged it so as a producer, both things were adding up in his cost.

ALSO READ | When Shah Rukh Khan called Yash Johar, said he would work in a film directed by son Karan Johar: ‘Yeh pagal ho gaya hai’

Story continues below this ad

Agneepath, also starring Mithun Chakraborty and Danny Denzongpa, earned Big B a National Film Award but wasn’t a box office success. Years later, Karan Johar remade the film with Hrithik Roshan and Sanjay Dutt, and this turned out to be a box office success.

Karan Johar often speaks about his late father’s sense of humour. During a recent episode of Koffee with Karan, he spoke about his father’s reaction after he insisted on buying a painting worth Rs 5 lakh. “My father was a very simple man and I asked him for Rs 5 lakh to buy an artwork from Raza. And he was like ‘Rs 5 lakh? There’s art for Rs 5 lakh?’” Karan described the artwork, and revealed how his father reacted to it. “My father has said, and I don’t want to say exactly what he said and he said it in Punjabi. But he said, ‘Yeh toh setting vale bhi kar skate hain, iske maine Rs 5 lakh kyu diye (Even set designers could’ve made this, why have I paid Rs 5 lakh for this)?”