Ab jaggu dada ne ek scene ke liye 61 takes diye the ...

Ali Peter John

Those days, Jackie Shrof had just became a star and was busy signing films left, right and centre without thinking about the subjects or his roles in the films. He had signed twelve films only with Anil Kapoor as his co- star even though he knew Anil had the better role in all those films and he openly called Anil "Baap" and said he would never come up to the high standards of Anil's acting. But , he even did other films in which he was the only hero, And Mahesh Bhatt's" KAASH":was one of them and to his good fortune, he had the gorgeous Dimple Kapadia as his leading lady. The film was about a husband and wife and the ups and downs in their marital life which ends in a bitter battle in court.

Mahesh was aware about the limitations of Jackie as an actor and yet he decided to shoot the most difficult scene in a court for the muhurat scene even though Jackie kept asking him not to "punish" him like that, but Mahesh who was also riding high was determined to shoot the court scene first

A court set was erected at the Mehboob Studio and a crowd had gathered to watch the first shot. The dialogue Jackie had to speak in the dock of the court was given to him a day before , but he had apparently not gone through them as was seen from the way he was fumbling with his lines.

He kept trying to get his lines right but nothing was working for him and Mahesh was not willing to give up and kept prodding Jackie to do his best.

It was nearing lunch time and Jackie had given a record number of 60 re- takes. He kept screaming , even crying and looking up at nothing as if he was asking God to help him. At one stage, he begged of Mahesh to let him give up the film as he just couldn't do the scene and speak the lines given to him, but Mahesh stuck to his guns and I could hear a lightman saying, " ye Mahesh Bhatt Jaggu Dada ko actor banakar rahega".

And the sixty second take given by Jackie was okayed by Mahesh. Jackie bowed and touched the ground and embraced Mahesh and there were sweets distributed all over the floor of the studio and Mahesh called for pack up for the day.

To this day, Jackie's performance in KAASH has been one of his best and he gives all the credit for it to Mahesh Bhatt but says that he would not do films with Mahesh because he says " Baap log ke saath kaam karna thoda thoda marne jaisa hai apun ke jaise maamuli actor ke liye"