As Gangubai Kathiawadi nears release, here are some unknown facts from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film

As Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi is gearing up for its February release, here are some unknown facts about Bhansali’s 10th, and according to him, his best work to date.

1. Gangubai Kathiawadi is based on a crime story from S Hussain Zaidi’s Mafia Queens Of Bombay. Bhansali bought the rights of the story based on the life and crimes of female gangster Gangubai, the dreaded female crimelord who is known as ‘The Madame Of Kamathipura’, while Vishal Bhardwaj bought the rights to the story on another female gangster. Bhardwaj wanted to make a film based on Zaidi’s account of Ashraf Khan alias Sapna, the gangster whose only mission in life is to eliminate her husband’s killer Dawood.

2. Bhardwaj’s Sapna Bhabhi with Deepika Padukone in the eponymous role was shelved. Deepika was very keen to play Gangubai Kathiawadi. Having worked in three spectacularly successful films with Bhansali she thought doing his next film would be a breeze. But Bhansali decided against casting Padukone for this very reason: he wanted a break.

3. Bhansali has on several occasions told me Gangubai Kathiawadi is his best work to date. It gave him a chance to walk down memory lane, stroll again in those lanes, bylanes and roads of Kamathipura where he spent his childhood. In fact the film was shot two streets away from where Bhansali lived during his growing years.

4. Alia Bhatt who desperately needs a hit after her two super-disasters Kalank (produced by her foster-father Karan Johar) and Sadak 2 (directed by her biological father Mahesh Bhatt)—there’s only so far that nepotism can go– has given the performance of her lifetime in Gangubai K. There are two key meltdown sequences where Bhansali had made Alia pull out all stops. No glycerine used. None needed. A National award is predicted for Alia.

5. Though Gangubai Kathiawadi is extremely violent at heart there is no visual violence in the film. No shootouts, no gunfights, no blood baths. Alia’s Gangubai doesn’t fire one bullet. She doesn’t need it. Her eyes fire all the salvos. Ankhiyon se goli marey….

6.  TV star Shantanu Maheshwari who plays Alia Bhatt’s romantic lead actually has a negative role. He plays Gangubai’s boyfriend from her teen years when she was not Gangubai but an innocent village girl whom her boyfriend seduces and then sells to a brothel. Maheshwari didn’t hesitate for a second before saying yes to the grey role. His logic was, for a Bhansali film he would do anything.

7. The other big surprise of Gangubai Kathiawadi is Ajay Devgn. In an extended guest appearance as gangster Karim Lala, Devgn blows the screen to bits with his implosive histrionics. This is his most accomplished performance since Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Both were supposed to come together for Bajirao Mastani. But Devgn was already committed to do a similar character in _Tanhaji_ .

8. Huma Qureshi’s item song is composed by the director Bhansali himself. Huma’s dancing skills will be the talk of the town. So impressed was the director by Huma’s dedication and dancing skills that he signed her as one of the protagonists in his webseries Heeramandi for Netflix. But that’s another story.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.