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Father's Day Special: I'm Always Willing to be Bullied By Her - Mahesh and Alia Bhatt Get Candid
When we meet this father-daughter duo in their Khar office, they come across as buddies - bickering and bantering like besties. They might not agree with each other on anything but that is hardly a reason not to have a crackling camaraderie. Alia Bhatt (23) and Mahesh Bhatt (67) have never let generation gap get the better of them. For Daddy Bhatt, his princess is an equal, whom he is visibly proud of (naturally!). “You cannot help feeling proud of a child who scrapes a soul and turns her guts inside out,” he puts it strikingly. He isn't a preachy father but quite early on in life he taught his little girl how to face failure - Massive success is the best revenge, she beams about her father’s pearls of wisdom. As Udta Punjab released to fantabulous reviews yesterday, it looks that her 'bolt-from-the-blue' flop Shaandaar is a thing of the past. The duo talk to Pinkvilla in an exclusive interview about Mahesh-ji being a liberal-possessive-protective parent, dealing with difference of opinion and what is their most cherished moment till date. Here's how we rolled:
There is a good age gap between you and your father. I have friends who say generation gap is a big issue for them. Do you have to say the same?
Mahesh Bhatt: Yeah she is older than me!
Alia Bhatt: I am not older than you! Yeah, may be when I was 4 or 5 years old but that any child would face. He is also the kind of person who can speak to you irrespective of age. He will talk like an equal.
(To Mahesh) You had Alia when you were 45 and had Pooja, Rahul and Shaheen before. Do you feel you had enough experience by the time Alia was born?
See every child is unique. Never was a child like that and never will be a child like this. Reducing children to a generic type is tyranny of man. What makes Pooja so distinct are her unique attributes, what makes Alia distinct is her way of interpreting life. So when I look at them, they are so diverse. Of course the hands on job of looking after them was always done by their mother but I think they have always represented the time they came in. The time frame in which they bloomed and grew up is something that is etched in my memory.
(To Mahesh) What kind of a father are you? Possessive, Protective, Liberal or all of that?
Alia: All of that (smirks).
Mahesh: What did you say?
Alia: I said all of it.
Mahesh: I think she said it.
(To Alia) Are you more of a daddy's girl?
Alia: Yeah we all have been. I think the kind of family setting that we live in, we are very close to each other and we have favourites when we want them. There are days when my sister is my favourite, sometimes my sister is my dad's favourite. It is all according to our want and need. I think that shows the balance between the four of us. There are days when I am daddy's girl, there are days when my sister and me are ganging up against my mother; it depends on the day.
(To Mahesh) Alia started off very early in her career. What was the advice that you gave her when she was making her debut?
Mahesh: I would never insult her by giving her advises. I only told her that this is an unforgiving business. It opens its arms in the discovering phase, takes you to the peaks, applauds you but every time they clap at you, they find a way to pull you down. This is the business that worships success and hates failure. And if you want to belong to the entertainment world then you must never be a part of it, you should be on the edge. If you are on the edge, then you will really be in the heart of it. This was really the advice but she... the first autograph she gave me was after she heard from some reliable sources that her movie was a smash-hit. That is when she wrote to me 'Thank you Daddy for not helping me at all during the making of SOTY'. I think we disrespect our children while imposing our fears and limitations on them. Life is the only teacher and if they fall, they will get up and learn, like the parents did. There is always a paranoid on children of parents that create boundaries and limits in the psychic of the children, especially when the children are daring. I never give her advise in her personal or professional life. I only discuss with her of what I understand individually about the business. But I only share. I don't ask her to follow it. That is her privilege to implement or not.
(To Alia) Quite early on in your career, you received a lot of unnecessary flak. Did you ever feel like going and talking to your father about it?
Alia: A joke cannot be referred to a flak. Never in my sane or conscious mind will I ever feel upset about it. Hence there was no room for me to go to my father and say 'Why did this happen to me?'. In fact, I never had any issue with it and a part of my popularity increased only because of this. So why would I have an issue with it?
(To Mahesh) When she started off she was seen as a chickflick actress and no one could think of her as the daughter of the man behind Arth and Zakham. Did you help her decide on what projects should she take up?
Mahesh: No I did do nothing. The choices are her own. She has walked this path on her own two feet and got where ever she is right now. She is a part of the mainstream Bollywood movies and she worked with a reputed production house and with a director who is successful. She got a launch of which dreams are made of and I think she had a huge fan following immediately after SOTY. Even though many thought she was just a pretty face, the children, whom you cannot fool, started taking to her when she had just made her first appearance. Suddenly at airport, she used to be mobbed, and I discovered that children are far more intelligent than the elders and well-acclaimed critics who are the czars and the czarinas, of cultures. The tastemakers who have the keys to decide who is good and who is not. Thank God we have children and we are in the twitter age that the arrogance is stripped and battered to pulp.
You both are strong minded and opinionated. How do you deal with difference of opinion?
Mahesh: I don't. I wanted to wear a black shirt and look good for this interview. But she said c'mon now, don't wear black because you look very good. What she actually meant was 'I don't have the time to wait till you go and change your shirt'.
Alia: That is not what I meant. I just asked why do you have to change because this is a print interview.
Mahesh: I thought it is a television interview and I could look good. And black could be my brand.
Alia: But this can also be your brand. Whatever you wear becomes my brand.
Mahesh: See, now I am always willing to be bullied by her.
Alia: He is just pretending to be like this.
Mahesh: On Father's Day we do what babies say!
Alia: I think we agree to disagree.
Mahesh: I don't have a fix point. I just have views like others.
Alia: Just keep quiet. That is not true. We don't have major disagreements.
Mahesh: I know I am a limited flawed human being. And in that space I look at life in my own way realizing the radical view.
(Alia tries to take his picture while he sits with his leg up on the table. Mahesh Bhatt doesn't allow).
Mahesh: See this is what I am saying.
Alia: No, I agree with him
(To Alia) What is that one quality that you have taken on from your dad?
Alia: I think I have taken his will power. He has tremendous will power. I don't have that the way he has but I have inherited the most of it. He can say he will give up something and he does that. Like he gave up alcohol and he hasn't touched it since 28 years, he gave up aloo (potatoes), cigarettes, film direction. Apart from film direction, all for good reasons and for his own betterment and I have that same will power. I realized that when I started working. I can not do this or that. Like for instance, people ask how can you not eat when there is so much on the table. But I have that will power and I get that from him.
(To Mahesh) What was your role in making sure that Alia has a healthy relation with her step-sister Pooja?
Mahesh: I don't have a handbook from which I read out rules of engagement. I think she is a fairly evolved child. She is sensitive and bright. She is far more intelligent than what people think she is. She has a gut level and her heart understands much more than she communicates because her job is to act and not talk. A job should move and stir people which she has done. You cannot find this kind of success without touching the huge population of this country. There is something real in you because you can fool intellectuals but not children. They are very difficult to fool.
(To Alia) Do you ever annoy your dad?
Alia: I don't think so. He doesn't get annoyed. He is very chilled out.
Mahesh: I don't get annoyed. I don't have 'thus far no further' view of life. I only tell her that if she gets carried away during shooting, while doing a reckless stunt, then she will cause herself a physical harm. Like the other day, she was sitting on the chair and playing the back rest. I was like 'be careful don't hurt yourself'. That is the parent instinct which works. So I ask her to be cautious because your body is your tool with which you earn your living. So you should preserve it and save it. Don't get carried away by the silly moments. Like she suffered some burns while shooting for a show. She was wearing a synthetic material. Some unimaginable harm could have happened to her. We were not annoyed but we were concerned that her enthusiasm to excel at times gets the better off her and the minimum precautions which need to be taken are not. As a parent, that is when I get annoyed.
(To Alia) How is the equation between your mentor Karan and your dad?
Alia: Karan has known my father way before I debuted in his movie.
Mahesh: I don't need to have an equation with him. Why do I need to have it?
Alia: No but you have known him.
Mahesh: I am not a very social person but I have worked with his father and he was a little boy then. It just happened that he approached Alia, when she was in school, and wanted her to be a part of his movie. And what I was happy was that she didn't get it in a platter. She had to audition and go through various tests. Only when she qualified, she got the role. I think he was protective. You never easily trust a person with your child when you don't get an instinct that they are as protective of his or her well being as you are. Not that I have sat down and spoken to him. But after 2 States, he told me she is a star now. He is fairly concerned about her and there is a mentor in him. The joy for a maker to create talent in his backyard and see it bloom is a gratifying emotion. He is as gratified about her success as I am. Though I am the biological father, he is in the space of entertainment, he is her mentor. I am only happy that she got a spring bone which was as effective as his. Though I do feel a little jealous when I am supposed to have dinner with her and when I reach before time, she is leaving. When I ask her where are you going, we were to have dinner together, she says I have to visit Karan's place. My heart falls from here (points his face) to the ground and I pretend to be okay. Then I go into my room and have a desolate meal!
Alia: Papa you were supposed to come at 8. You postponed it by an hour. I had to go meet his dog.
Mahesh: I did complaint to your mumma this afternoon that Alia...
Alia: Did you tell her that you delayed the time? And that you were to come at 8 and instead you came at 9.
Mahesh: I told her. Look she promised to eat with me but she left. And she said c'mon papa... But I can use this manufacture pain and rage against her and manipulate her.
Alia: Clearly!
(To Alia) When you get upset, do you speak up about it with your father?
In fact, because I started shooting for SOTY, I had a major panic attack and it was in this office he said, 'Where are you come here' and I was like 'I don't know papa.. something is happening'. Then he called me and I came into the office where he was sitting with 5 other people. Emraan was also there, Hashmi, and he made me stand there and talk about my feeling. He said this feeling is never going to leave you. This will happen before every film and you have to own up to it every single time. I started talking what I was thinking and then I started crying. First I thought, he is such a mean man making me talk in front of so many people. But then the minute I did it, I felt better. Then I thought his ways are odd, but they land you in a better position.
Mahesh: If any actor can stand up and say this is how vulnerable I feel, it requires courage. If acting has got connection to anything then it is courage. Courage isn't to climb a mountain, but it is to own up to your feelings, see your own inadequacies and realizing you are just another human being like anybody else. When you are successful it feels good, when you fail it hurts. She had the most low phase when she tasted failure after four successes and I always knew that one day she would fail because we all have to fail. I failed and tasted success, so she had to succeed and taste failure. When she saw that, it hits up like a bolt from the blue. But I think she did a marvellous job of facing it. She took off her own. The only thing that awaited her was a big gift that was a quote framed which read - 'Massive success is the only revenge'.
Alia: 'The best revenge is massive success'.
Mahesh: What happened after that was Kapoor and Sons. And then she asked me 'Well now?' (laughs).
(To Mahesh) In 2012 Alia made her debut. In just 4 years, she is one of the industry's top actresses who has picked smart roles. You must be really proud of her...
Mahesh: Don't I know that. My brand has been re-positioned because of her. (Alia kisses dad and says we won. A message of Udta Punjab being cleared with only one cut reached her.)
(Alia cuts in with a happy scream)
Alia: We won!
Mahesh: We won? What did they say?
Alia: Only one cut!
Mahesh: (Whistles and calls out to Mukesh Bhatt). Only one cut, that is fantastic.
(Mukesh Bhatt enters the room. Alia and Mahesh tells him about the Bombay High Court's judgement. 'Only one cut', Mahesh says and Mukesh exclaims fantastic. Alia gets up and hugs Mukesh Bhatt and shrieks - 'We won chachu'. Mahesh Bhatt starts banging table and celebrating.)
Alia: Sorry!
Mahesh: It is part of the interview.
(I repeat the question)
Mahesh: You cannot help feeling proud of a child who scrapes a soul, turns her guts inside out and connects with the girl who is violated in Highway. You cannot help but marvel the girl who has the guts to reinvent herself like a chameleon when she is just getting slotted as 'a very pretty face' who has doned the covers of Vogue Magazine and others. Even in Humpty Sharma... I loved her and her song. I went for the media event where she was going to sing live. She had called me for it. It was a rare thing. She never calls me for it. I went there and saw her mesmerize the Mumbai media. They are the most pathetic, boring, most disgusting bunch of people. To stir them and move them isn't an easy task. Because they are born dead. And to resurrect them is no ordinary achievement. When I saw her doing that I thought she is a born entertainer. There was a side to her that isn't there on the screen. I was awestruck by her. I cannot help being proud of that. And then suddenly when you see her do Udta Punjab and empathize with the girl who comes and works as a migrant labourer from Jharkhand and becomes addicted to drugs, is not an easy job. 15 key lady actresses had turned the role down. I think she takes her work seriously but doesn't take herself seriously. And I hope she doesn't take herself seriously. We are parents who keep her very real in the world. Her mother keeps me sane as well. Even her sister. She is blessed that she doesn't have a fan club of hers at home. Because when you are in this business, the home becomes a fan club and that is where the child loses his compass to navigate herself or himself here. Success can be intoxicating. I always keep telling her a person who has seen success after a film, should be seen as a bomb blast victim.
(To Alia) Any message you want to give your Papa this Father's Day?
Alia: Since we are doing this interview today, I think it is kind of a metaphor the way our life is right now where I feel like my work is my biggest love in my life, has actually brought a beautiful relationship out of me and my father. I think many girls, humans would be envying the kind of support I have in a film wizard like my father, I think many people would be yearning for that. To come back to your first question, I never got time to spend with him because he was working and he had to do that to support the family but I think the kind of time and attention that I get from him now, he has made up for all the time I didn't get with him in childhood. Even then he used to play snakes and ladder with me.
Mahesh: I loved seeing her fail when she used to get dunked by the snake.
Alia: I am really thankful to the life I have right now. I don't have a message for him because I send him a message everyday. But yeah I will not ditch him for dinners again next time, I promised.
Mahesh: That worked!
(To both) Any father-daughter moment that has stayed with you both?
Mahesh: For me when she stood up in Berlin (Highway was premiered at the Berlin Film Festival), I wished the camera was a little closer. She connected with her roots. Her great grand mother had begun her journey under Hitler, her great grandfather used to run an underground newspaper and they had to run away from Berlin to escape the torment by the regime. And when she stood there and spoke about the spirit of Highway, dealing with oppressive forces and dealing with tyranny of man against man. The way she conducted herself for a 21-year-old made me feel very proud. This is the stuff that dreams are made of. She was at that time a little more than a star. I wish fathers have the intelligence and humility to listen to their kids, especially girls because life gives priceless lessons to them which if they don't hear, it could be their loss. Listen to you kids, they are the voice of God and if you listen with your heart, you would be enriched beyond imagination.
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