30 years of Mohra: Rajiv Rai reveals, “I shot for 10-15 days with Divya Bharti, I had to reshoot with Raveena Tandon” 30 : Bollywood News

30 years of Mohra: Rajiv Rai reveals, “I shot for 10-15 days with Divya Bharti, I had to reshoot with Raveena Tandon”

By Subhash K. Jha -

July 3, 2024 - 12:30 PM IST

Filmmaker Rajiv Rai has helmed a number of successful masala action films. One among them is Mohra, which recently completed 30 years. The film was a crime saga starring Aksay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Raveena Tandon and Naseeruddin Shah. As the film completes three decades, Rajiv Rai looks back at the film in an interview.

30 years of Mohra: Rajiv Rai reveals, “I shot for 10-15 days with Divya Bharti, I had to reshoot with Raveena Tandon”

Rajiv, your former business partner Shabbir Boxwallah is quoted saying that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Sridevi were offered the female lead in Mohra before Raveena Tandon. Is this true?

Oh God NO!!! Where did this pop up from?? I had non-star male heroes, why would I even think of BIG star heroines? Of course, Raveena was a name no doubt but Sridevi was out of my league. Raveena was never hesitant! Why would she be? I finalised her in one meeting, and she was extremely courteous & behaved extremely professionally throughout!

Were all your actors in Mohra your first choices?

Divya Bharti died; she was my first choice. Suniel (Shetty) and Akshay (Kumar) were my first choice. Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah) was absolutely my top choice. I first thought of him and then the others and all the villains you see in the film. I introduced Divya Bharti, don't forget that, in Vishwatma and that was Divya lip-syncing ‘Saath Samundar Paar’ and she became a star, and I wasn't sure about taking her in the next film. I was a bit reluctant, and she didn't want to leave the film and unfortunately, sadly and everybody, the whole industry was very disheartened, and we are still that we lost a great actress and a star.

You actually shot with Divya Bharti for Mohra?

Yes, I shot 10-15 days with her. I had to reshoot with Raveena Tandon but again, Raveena was my first choice considering that Divya wasn't there. I mean, Raveena wasn't the first choice as such but yes, after Divya left us, I mean, that was my first choice, okay.

If you had to change anything in Mohra, what would it be?

Actually, honestly speaking Subhash, once the film is done, you move on to the next film and you never think whether it's flopped or whether it's done well or whether it's done average. You do not contemplate, or you don't kind of live in the past here going back. You don't kind of try and feel sorry for yourself or the film. I wish I would have done that.

Did you ever imagine Mohra would so well?

Yes, during those days these actors were fairly new. So, I never imagined the film to do so well, but you know I'm an aggressive filmmaker. I give it my best shot. You know it's like when I'm on the field, I want to hit a sixer. I mean that's my thinking. My film may flop. You know I don't say that I'm sure about what I'm doing. It could be a hit or a miss because when you're making a film you're taking a big risk. Every story is a risk. The songs you record are a risk. So, you never know where it's going, whether the audiences will accept it or not. In any case, I never thought it would turn out to be a film that people would remember. I never did imagine, but I did hope that the film would do really well. Otherwise, why would I spend so much time and money? So, I was internally kind of confident, but at the same time I was scared.

Hard to believe Mohra is 30 years old?

Yes, can you believe it! Well, it looks like thirty years of Mohra. It looks like as if it was yesterday, I mean I can't imagine thirty years have gone by so quickly. I can remember everything vividly the way we shot it and planned it and executed it and it was for me more of a sort of…

Experimental?

I won't use the word experimental, but more of a film where I was kind of making a commercial sort of a masala film with action and songs and emotions and drama and story and suspense. I tried putting everything in there, but when I say experimental, I mean it didn't have a very saleable star cast at that time. It wasn't a big star cast film, though it was a multi-starrer and is considered a multi-starrer, but for me it was more like… okay, let's make a film with some sort of newcomers or people that are not in the top-tier of actors and try to make a successful film with kind of with the people that haven't yet given big hits.

You know, of course, Naseeruddin Shah was one of the backbones of the film and Raveena Tandon was experienced, but Sunil was fairly new. Akshay was still kind of struggling with his career and I was also trying… I always kind of like to do films that don't have a very popular star cast. So, as you know other notable directors who worked with say Salman Khan or Shahrukh Khan or Aamir Khan or Hrithik Roshan or Ajay Devgn or whatever.

Mohra’s music by Viju Shah was a huge USP?

Obviously, the audience remembers the music and it is the highlight, but I believe the film was good in all departments if you ask me truthfully. It was technically well shot. It had a very good lineup of villains. It had very good music. It had a sort of very interesting storyline and something different and so I always do try my best to create something for the audiences that is a bit different to something that's already come.

Viju Shah smashed it out of the park

Yes, that is very true. ‘Mast Mast’, ‘Tip Tip Barsa Paani’ …, all the songs were good. ‘Na Kajre Ki Dhaar’, then ‘Subah Se Lekhe Sham Tak’, then you know, it had a proper music bonanza, you know, it had a bouquet of songs that were excellent. It is one of my best soundtracks and Viju's best tracks. I'm very indebted to Viju, he's my, you know, best friend, my brother.

And we are, as they say, brothers in crime, we do music together and we try always to do something good, something interesting, something different and something modern, you know, and at the same time which has an Indian sort of a touch. I won't say classical touch but a melody, Indian melody mixed with a lot of electronics and sounds that people don't normally usually hear and to do that takes a lot of hard work. So, yes, Viju was, yeah, he did a great job, no doubt. I mean, he was the hero of the film, let's put it that way.

Where do you place Mohra and your repertoire? Is it your most successful film?

I think Tridev, Mohra and Gupt, all three very successful and so is Vishwatma. So for me, I won't judge my four or five successful films that I've done, but of course Mohra, I still kind of think could be, I would say it's my on the top of the list. But then when I think about Tridev, then I get confused and sometimes when I think about Gupt, I get confused there also because the music was different there.

Mohra definitely stands out

So, with Mohra, I would say because it had a bit of everything and it had very strong music, very strong action and it had a lot of energy. So, I do place it as one of my top films or my top film. I could kind of say it, but I wouldn't want to say it because it'd be unfair to the other films.

Also Read: EXCLUSIVE: Chandan Roy Sanyal on working with Raveena Tandon in Patna Shuklla, “Had seen Mohra, Andaz Apna Apna when I was in school”