Well, if we had asked the senior filmmaker Pahlaj Nihalani You would have got the scoop yesterday while we were working on that story. Anyway, we don’t believe in withholding things as long as they are true.
So this is news that needs to be told.
Long back in 1993, Nihalani signed up Abhishek Kapoor (who wrote ‘Kai Po Che’, ‘Rock On’, ‘Kedarnath‘, ‘Fitoor’) as the protagonist in one of his films. the film was Rohit Shetty as 3rd AD (Assistant Director) and Kuku Kohli (Aruna Irani’s husband) as director. The film was full of 11 reels, consisting of 4 songs, when suddenly one day the team was shocked to learn that the lead lady of the film had become pregnant. Pahlaj tells us that the girl had a boyfriend in Hong Kong and requests him to release her from the ongoing film. The girl’s mother also offered to compensate Pahlaj for the loss as she imagined that he would replace her daughter with someone else.
But Pahlaj asked her to be comfortable. However, he asked them if the girl could somehow manage to complete her part as he would manipulate a bit and quickly shoot her remaining part in 20 – 21 days. The mother politely declines Pahlaj’s offer and shares with him that her daughter’s boyfriend has decided that he will soon marry her and her parents were against their daughter-in-law being in films.
Pahlaj says, “It was me who changed Gattu’s name to Abhishek, which he now uses in films. Naturally, he was very excited about the film that he was doing with me as his Very powerful role. The film was titled ‘Ek Aur Kohinoor’ and this would have been my next after Govinda-Chunky Pandey’s hit, ‘Aankhen’. There was a time when ‘Aankhen’ and ‘Ek Aur Kohinoor’ were shot together I can’t tell you that the heroine’s name came after going away from the film world but she was a new face.”
But the stage that was set for ‘Ek Aur Kohinoor’ was filled with smoke. Pahlaj decided to postpone the film as any further proceedings that would involve a reshoot would add up to the cost big time.
As a result, Pahlaj and Gattu were definitely disappointed. Same goes for the rest of the cast – Raj Babbar Sadashiv Amrapurkar among others. But who can beat destiny?
So now you know, if you happen to stumble in some corner of the internet that ‘Ek Aur Kohinoor’ just completed reels 10 – 11, why did it happen.
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