Mahesh Bhatt on having Hindu, Muslim parents: How am I suppose to separate my DNA?

First Published Sep 20, 2020, 11:15 AM IST

Mahesh Bhatt once opened about being a son of Hindu father and Muslim mother in a throwback interview, read details

Mahesh Bhatt's controversial life has always been the center of attention. Be his alleged love affairs or bold shocking statements, he is always in the news. His personal life has caught the most attention than his filmy career, be it his spoiled relationship with son Rahul Bhatt or kissing his own daughter Pooja Bhatt for a magazine cover, he had always turned heads with some or the other controversy.
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Once Mahesh Bhatt spoke about having a Muslim Mother and Hindu father in a throwback interview and his views about the same. According to the reports he was quoted saying,"I felt it was a privilege that I came from such a rich background. I had the best of both worlds."
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He was further quoted, "My mother was a Shia Muslim, while my father was a janoi-clad man. He never pretended to be secular. What's very interesting, both (father and mother) retained their individual faiths. They were madly in love but neither indulged in the farce of wanting to do things the other way"
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For the Communalism Combat magzine Rediff further quoted him, "My mother always wore this big tikka, and saree -- she liked that kind of thing. But, at the same time, I could see that there was something she was hiding. She felt that her minority status would perhaps interfere with our day-to-day lives. She was a little embarrassed when I flaunted my Muslim roots."
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MaheshBhatt had said in the same interview when asked baout Sunil Dutt's courage to challenge things back in time he was quoted, "It's like me, how can you, or I, separate my Muslim DNA from my Hindu DNA! You'd have to kill me! Or call me an aberration and put me into quarantine. It's so sad, when we make films like this, which are nothing but human documents of great affection and concern for the social environment, we have to run to politicians and bureaucrats."
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"It makes you feel like a leper, having made something that you have experienced. It's your experience, and I don't give a tinker's damn what people say. This is what I have experienced. And the job of a writer and a film-maker is to present the truth as he or she has felt it, without fear," he added.
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