When
Mahesh Bhatt
made ‘
Arth
‘, rumours were rife that the film was largely inspired from ‘
Silsila
‘. The film dealt with an extra-marital affair where Kulbhushan Kharbanda who was married to
Shabana Azmi
, leaves her as he’s having an extra-marital affair with
Smita Patil
. People said that the film was inspired from
Yash Chopra
‘s ‘Silsila’, which is memorable today, because of its casting coup, as it had
Amitabh Bachchan
,
Jaya Bachchan
and
Rekha
.
‘Silsila’ had released in 1981 while ‘Arth’ released in 1982.
In a recent interview, Mahesh Bhatt has denied speculations of ‘Arth’ being inspired from ‘Silsila’ and infact, has slammed the Yash Chopra movie for being unrealistic. The film-maker said during a chat with Radio Nasha, “I made Arth taking an inspiration from my own experiences. I had never criticised Silsila as such. Arth was mostly an experiment. Because my first four films that I made were flops and I made those films as per the market’s demands. But, unfortunately none of them worked. So, when it was almost like the end of my career, I thought why not take a risk before leaving. I thought of making a film in my style. Luckily, I found a producer who was willing to take the risk.”
He further added how people called him a flop director as Chopra was making this film at such a big scale with such a cast. “When I was making it people told me that you are a flop director and you are making such a film! Yash Chopra has a big banner and he is making a film with Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bhaduri and Rekha. I said let him make. What I want to say is that you don’t have an extramarital affair to go and dance in tulip gardens. Its a secret relationship where the feeling is of guilt. I was so sure about it because I have experienced it myself. When you put a little bit of realness in your film, then audiences relate to it better and sense the truth,” he added.