After Arth and Woh Lamhe, Mahesh Bhatt and Parveen Babi's rocky relationship finds another life in Ranjish Hi Sahi

Ranjish Hi Sahi is the latest attempt to recreate the tumultuous ’love story’ of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and actress Parveen Babi, a clinical schizophrenic who died a lonely, premature death on 20 January, 2005.

This is the third attempt to recreate the stormy relationship and two too many, in my opinion. A fourth film on the same subject was announced in Tamil last year, with actress Revathi as the director. The producer Sharat Chandra had claimed that Shabana Azmi , who starred in Arth, the first and the only laudable recreation of the Babi-Bhatt relationship, was on board as a consultant.

However, when I asked Azmi about the Tamil version of Arth, she denied being any part of it. “I believe an important film such as Arth has said what it had to say. If anything, it only shows how timeless a cult film can be."

Are there any areas in the original that Azmi thinks can be modified? “The only change that can be made is I think in the portrayal of the Other Woman ( Smita Patil ), whose character can be more rounded. I wish the makers all the best."

Azmi considers Arth the single-most important  film of her career. “Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth remains a milestone in my career. I continue to meet women who say that it was a transformative experience for them, and gave them tremendous strength.”

The story of an abandoned wife who scratches and claws her way back to the surface has Shabana Azmi in one of Indian cinema’s finest performances. The bold strokes of feminism in the storytelling never seem painted on.

Bhatt once said to me, “Arth came into my life after a string of duds. These included Vishwasghat and Lahu Ke Do Rang, which were fairly big-budgeted commercial films. Arth was a personal statement on the man-woman relationship that shattered the belief of the traditional power centres within our film industry that only a certain kind of formula works at the box office."

Did Bhatt ever expect the film to become so iconic? “I made Arth on the firm belief that any work which originates from a filmmaker’s heart inevitably connects with the aam junta. And it hit home in ways that shocked the industry, but not me. I remember India won the Cricket World Cup on the very day when Arth (1983) was declared a hit. I remember I was at the Plaza cinema in Delhi watching the film on the Friday when it was released. We were tense, since this was not the kind of entertainment the public was used to. The scene where the deserted wife Shabana Azmi rejects her husband Kulbhushan Kharbanda, and walks away from him got a standing ovation from the so-called front-benchers at this hardcore mass-entertainment theatre. I knew then and there that our film was a hit.”

Bhatt denied that Arth had precipitated Babi’s mental illness, although one of her very close friends corroborated the belief  that Babi was deeply and irreversibly wounded by the film. “People said Parveen Babi was emotionally affected because I had cannibalised my relationship with her in Arth. But Parveen was genetically predisposed towards mental illness. To say that Arth was responsible for her breakdown was absurd. I wasn’t affected by accusations of cannibalising my life for the screen. How can the truth hurt the filmmaker?”

Arth changed the course of Bhatt’s career. “It was because of Arth that Rajshri’s Saaraansh, Rajendra Kumar’s Naam, and Mudra Videotech’s Janam came my way. I think Arth worked so well because it was an honest film. It was an autobiographical film. The film’s emotional truth was sourced from my life’s welters and wounds. I think the audience connected with my honesty. Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil gave their very best to the film. Their rivalry was more a public perception than a reality.”

Arth was the first film on the Babi-Bhatt relationship. Then we had Woh Lamhe in 2006, with Shiny Ahuja and Kangana Ranaut playing Bhatt and Babi respectively.

The experience of playing Babi left Ranaut shaken. In an interview with me in 2006, she shared her trauma. “I had become so close to her that I had begun to feel her desolation and loneliness. I know what she went through. In this ruthless industry, you are all alone. And intense love always brings intense suffering. There may be happy love stories. Parveen didn’t have one. Some day, I hope to have a happy love story.”

Ranaut admitted she was scared to approach Babi. “The one thing I could connect with was her mood swings. I have them too. As one woman, I can connect to the pain of another. Like Sana, I do get angry. But only once in six months. And then all hell breaks loose. I don’t throw things around only because I live alone, and I know I’ll have to clean up the mess. More than moody, I’m practical. I withdraw in myself. I can understand Parveen’s pain. For a single girl with no godfather, this industry is a terrible place to be in. When I play a character, I’ve to do everything a character asks me to do. A role comes in a package. I was so taken up by my character that I actually began to hallucinate. I could feel a ghost hovering near me. I could feel people trying to kill me. It doesn’t take much to psyche yourself into believing in your character’s beliefs. All this was very harmful for my mind. Let me tell you Woh Lamhe was far more traumatic than Gangster (her debut film). Earlier, I saw Parveen Babi as just another actress. But now, when I see her face anywhere, I feel I’m part of her. And she’s part of my being. Because I’ve lived her life.”

Woh Lamhe came and bombed, and it seemed like that was the end of the Babi story. But Bhatt is now back with the show Ranjish Hi Sahi, that stars Tahir Raj Bhasin as Shankar [modelled on Mahesh Bhatt>, Amala Paul as Amna Parvez [modelled on Parveen Babi>, and Amrita Puri as Anju, Shankar’s wife.

Ranjish Hi Sahi is streaming on Voot Select.