When actor Abhishek Bachchan made his Bollywood debut with the film ‘Refugee’ (2000), the eyes of Indian film fans were on him. After all, he was the son of Amitabh Bachchan, the ‘superstar’ of Hindi films. Abhishek’s first film may have been a flop, but he gradually made his place in the industry. But did you know that Abhishek’s debut was originally going to be with a film directed by Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, who made ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’?
Now Rakesh has told that Abhishek Bachchan was going to debut with his first film ‘Samjhauta Express’. But this film was stopped just a few months before it was to start, which broke his heart. Rakesh told that at that time people in the industry felt that this film was very risky.
How did Samjhauta Express get stuck…
In an interview given on Shiv Talwar’s YouTube channel, Rakesh Omprakash Mehra told that the industry felt that the story he had written for ‘Samjhauta Express’ was like ‘playing with fire’ because Abhishek Bachchan was going to play the role of a Pakistani terrorist in this film.
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Rakesh said, “Samjhauta Express, which I wrote with Kamlesh Pandey, was going to be the first film of mine and Abhishek Bachchan. We worked on it for a year and Abhishek used to keep a diary in which he used to write every day what his character was thinking. It was going very well, but as the market said, it was a very sensitive subject.”
Rakesh told that Abhishek’s character in his film was filled with hatred for India because in the story his father was shown to be trapped in false charges of terrorism. Abhishek’s character enters India to free his father from jail and becomes friends with a police officer, who eventually kills him. His body is found in Samjhauta Express.
Rakesh said, ‘As long as there are deep trenches of hatred between our two countries, we will keep filling them with the dead bodies of our children. But we will never be able to bridge it. Only through love can a bridge be built.’ He further said that his film was stopped just 3 months before the shoot. In anger, he took away all the script material and look tests of the actors that he had collected for the film and set them on fire.
Amitabh said this on the script of ‘Samjhauta Express’
Some time ago, Abhishek Bachchan also mentioned this film in an interview with Galatta Plus. Abhishek had told that no director was ready to launch him and everyone was saying ‘We cannot take the responsibility of launching you’. In such a situation, Rakesh wrote this script.
Abhishek had said, ‘When the script was ready, we took it to dad to pitch it… We narrated the entire script and then there was silence. My father looked at us and said- ‘Children, this is a rubbish script, get out.’ Eventually, Abhishek debuted with J.P. Dutta’s ‘Refugee’ and worked with Rakesh in ‘Delhi 6’.
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)