When an angry Sushmita Sen told Mahesh Bhatt 'You can't insult me' at the mahurat of Dastak

Sushmita Sen

For Sushmita Sen, a career in acting was never a part of the plan. Shortly after winning the Miss Universe title in 1994, she built a home and life in Los Angeles for three years. She was financially independent at a young age. She had a career in modelling sorted, perhaps looking at entrepreneurship thereafter.

It was while she was visiting her parents in Delhi at one point time that filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt called her to meet, since he happened to be in the city. She told him over the phone, "If it's for a role, I'm not interested. I can't lie. It'll show on camera." Bhatt insisted they have coffee, nonetheless. They met and he told her a few things flatly, "You don't have to act. You have to play yourself, that is Sushmita Sen. Also, when did I say you're a good actor, I'm a damn good director."

The film he had in mind was about a Miss Universe getting stalked, which became Dastak (1996), a big-budget production, shot in Seychelles, Switzerland… It was the only film Sen planned to act in. She had thought she'd do this one film, and that's it.

Without any prep - no dialogue coaches, workshops, acting instructor - she was, right away, called in for the film's mahurat. She recalls, "I had mugged up my lines. I came out of the [vanity] van, and there were 40 media persons lined up for the shot. Bhatt Saab said, ‘Let them watch. It's after all Miss Universe's mahurat. Before I was to give my shot, he changed my entire scene.

"It became about a woman dealing with a man lunching at a morgue, from whom she has to collect a dead body. I was 22. No acting experience. For two years, I'd been professionally trained to be a lady. Here, I was to show aggression, that I don't understand, throwing my earrings at the morgue man. I wasn't getting it right. Bhatt Saab began to tell [brother-partner] Mukesh, ‘Yeh kisko leke aaye ho? She doesn't know anything!"

It's at this point she broke. She told Bhatt off, "I told you I can't act. I'm done. You can't insult me, in front of all these people." There was a showdown. Bhatt retorted, "That's the anger [I was looking for]. Now show it in the film."

"This is where Bhatt Saab is Bhatt Saab," Sushmita recalled. That wasn't all. The posse of 'media folk' around her were actually junior artistes, brought in, holding cameras, pretending to be press.

From thereon, Dastak got almost entirely shot with her first takes, given how raw she was, as a performer, and how she might start looking fake during too many retakes.