The untold story: Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Alia Bhatt's connection runs deep

If fate had willed, Alia Bhatt’s first film co-star would have been Aditya Narayan, singer Udit Narayan’s talented son, who is now a multi-tasker. Aditya started his career as a child actor. He played Salman Khan’s son in  Jab Pyar Kissise Hota Hai. Aditya was all set to play the lead in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali at the age of 10, with none other than Alia Bhatt as his co-star.   That’s right! Bhansali made a love story about child marriage entitled    Hamari Jaan Ho Tum.  It was based on Rabindranath Tagore’s short story  Samapti  which was also the source material for    Uphaar  where Jaya Bhaduri played the child bride. Bhansali had auditioned scores of children for the two leads and had zeroed in on Aditya and Alia. “They were magical together. Both natural-born actors aged 9 and 10 and raring to go. But we couldn’t make the film. Now it’s too late. I can never find my perfect leads to play the child bride and child groom,” says Bhansali. Incidentally, the title song of  Hamari Jaan HoTum  composed by Bhansali showed up in his  Saawariya  where Alia’s beau Ranbir Kapoor made his debut. Hamari Jaan Ho Tum  is not the only Alia starrer that Bhansali had to shelve. Two years ago he was all set to make  Inshallah  with Alia and Salman Khan. This project was unceremoniously dropped due to excessive interference from Mr. Khan. Among other things, Salman wanted Sushmita Sen and Daisy Shah to be part of  Inshallah. Another project that Bhansali dropped was  Bajirao Mastani  with Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan. Sanjay Leela Bhansali(SLB) was always destined to work together. But it never happened. They came close to working together on several occasions. Right after the success    Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, SLB decided to make Devdas with Kareena Kapoor as Paro and Madhuri Dixit as Chandramukhi. Kareena’s costumes were ready. But then overnight SLB changed his mind and signed Aishwarya instead. Kareena felt betrayed and humiliated. I’d like to think I played a hand in the patch-up. Then, I was very close to SLB and Kareena. I called them both to the airport to receive me. They smiled at one another. The ice melted. All three of us were soon yapping together incessantly for the rest of the evening. Soon after SLB wanted to make a film on Mahatma Gandhi’s troubled relationship with his son Harilal. “What do you think of Kareena as Kasturba?” SLB asked me one day. I was all for it. That project was taken over by Anil Kapoor who produced the film with Akshaye Khanna as Harilal. After this, Kareena was signed to play Mastani opposite Salman’s Bajirao. I was there at the photo shoot and Kareena looked stunning with Salman. This project was ruined by Salman when he quickly got in touch with Priyadarshan and offered himself and Kareena as a pair of Priyan’s Kyun Ki… To this day we don’t know why Salman ruined the exclusivity of the Bajirao Mastani pair. After this SLB wanted to work with Kareena in    Black. But Mr. Bachchan vetoed the idea. Then came Ram Leela which SLB wanted to do with Ranveer and Kareena. But he wanted Kareena to give him a very large number of dates which she was not ready to commit to. “During the time Sanjay wants I can do three films,” she reasoned with me. Deepika Padukone stepped in and Ranveer fell in love with her. Just think. If Kareena had not opted out of Ram Leela Ranveer would not have fallen in love with Deepika. This is one love story that owes a debt to Kareena and her infinite fiascoes with SLB.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He’s been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.