As Sanjay Leela Bhansali makes his web series debut with the extravagant, larger-than-life Netflix show Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, the filmmaker reminisced about his humble beginnings and how his love for art and cinema began with his father. He also spoke about how he couldn’t fulfil his father’s last wish of listening to the song, “Hayo Rabba.”
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s father, Navin Bhansali, was a producer who never found success. His last film, Jahazi Lootera, failed at the box office. A fantasy action film directed by Aakkoo and starring Anwar Hussain, Shashikala, Maruti Rao, and P Jairaj, the film was a non-starter. In an interview to New York Times, Bhansali remembered that on his deathbed, his father had a peculiar request — he wanted to listen to the song ‘Hayo Rabba’ that was sung by Reshma. The director said that Reshma was known for her ‘raw, untrained’ voice and after India’s Partition, she stayed in Pakistan where the Bhansali family had their roots too.
When SLB returned with the song’s cassette, his father was unconscious and soon went into a coma. By expressing his deep heart moment of his father’s last wish, Bhansali said, “I had no place to play ‘Hayo Rabba,’ and my mother kept saying, Play “Hayo Rabba”! The reason for choosing this particular song, according to him, was his father’s wish to connect with his roots. “Life is so fascinating,” he said. “Can films ever capture this?”
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Getting emotional, Bhansali recalled a moment from his childhood when he was about 6 and his father took him to a film set. He shared how facilitating it was and realised, “I don’t want to be on the cricket ground, I don’t want to be in school, I don’t want to be anywhere. I want to be here. This is my place.”
While the 8-episode series HeeraMandi: The Diamond Bazaar released on May 1 across 190 countries, Bhansali’s Love & War, starring Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal, is scheduled to release this year.
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