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oi-Swikriti Srivastava
Three years ago, today (February 24), one of the most iconic actresses of the Hindi film industry Sridevi breathed her last, and left a void which no one can ever fill. On her third death anniversary, producer Manoj Desai who bankrolled Khuda Gawah featuring Amitabh Bachchan and Sridevi in the lead roles, reminisced about the golden days when the film hit the theatres and how moviegoers went berserk over Sridevi and Big B.
While speaking to TOI, Manoj Desai said, “Amit ji was as usual excellent and the more I say about him, the less it will be. Coming to Sridevi, she was a craze and talent that no heroine of today will ever match. Not just in ‘Khuda Gawah’, almost in every film of hers people threw soft drink bottles when she appeared on screen and of course the noise created by the whistles and claps was so deafening that you could hardly hear anything.”
Speaking about Sridevi, he further said that she was a perfectionist. She often asked for more takes, and as a producer, it made him angry, but now he understands her involvement in the film.
In 2013, while speaking to a leading daily, Manoj Desai had confirmed that he was working on the sequel of Khuda Gawah. When asked why it never happened, he said that he wanted Amitabh Bachchan and Sridevi to play parents in the sequel, and they would have a daughter in the story which would have been played by someone younger.
“I had even spoken to Sridevi about it. But samay nikal gaya and before we culminated, she passed away. Amit ji and I were standing there when Boney Kapoor looked at Sridevi’s mortal remains and said: You went away, the ‘Khuda Gawah’ sequel could not be made. I used to call her ‘Didi’. It was a personal loss,” said Desai with a heavy heart.
