Bollywood Flashback: When Nadeem-Shravan decided to never work with Kajol, courtesy Tanuja!

In our Hindi film industry, many times the creator turns out to be the destructor.  The story of Amjad Khan and Salim – Javed is well known to everyone, where the writer duo were the key reasons for Amjad Khan to get the iconic role of Gabbar Singh in the movie Sholay. Later, due to some differences and misunderstandings, both were seen bad mouthing about the debutant villain, after which Amjad Khan had sworn never to work with the ace writers. There are several such incidents related to the ego clash between the hero-director, hero-heroine, heroine-director, hero-music director, director-music director and so on. Along with all these incidents, there was one such incident which was related to a music director and an actress. It all began when the top music director duo Nadeem-Shravan agreed to compose for the movie Bekhudi starring debutante Kajol.

Nadeem-Shravan started their film career way back in the late 70s era with a Bhojpuri film Dangal, after which they struggled for almost a decade by doing low budget Hindi films. They found their deserved success with the release of Aashiqui in 1990. The massive success of Aashiqui was supported by the success of many more films like Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin, Saajan, Phool Aur Kaante, Sadak, Deewana and others. Within a year’s span Nadeem-Shravan were at the top and at that time were approached to do a musical love story Bekhudi. This movie starred yesteryear’s actress Tanuja’s daughter Kajol and Sharmila Tagore’s son Saif Ali Khan. Nadeem-Shravan agreed to do this movie as this was their first film where big star kids were getting launched. They composed some fantastic songs, but in between Saif Ali Khan was replaced by Kamal Sadanah. This movie was special for the music directors, especially Nadeem who started promoting Kajol to many producers. He used to praise Kajol’s work and wanted some big producers to sign her before the release of Bekhudi. Nadeem used his connections and due to his strong recommendation, Kajol got Baazigar.  Nadeem was like a mentor to her and Kajol was a star even before her first release. The next movie Nadeem recommended her was for Rang and in order to discuss about this movie he went to Kajol’s house to meet her. Kajol was getting ready thus Nadeem was asked to wait. The moment Nadeem entered into the living room of Kajol, he saw her mother Tanuja playing cards with her friends. Nadeem greeted her and in return Tanuja totally ignored him. Nadeem waited there for a long time and in that whole span, Tanuja was so busy in her own world that she never looked at Nadeem nor did she gave any importance to him. As per Nadeem, he was not even offered a glass of water and was treated like an unwanted person. This behavior of Tanuja infuriated Nadeem and he walked out of Kajol’s house by saying that henceforth he will never give music for any of Kajol’s film. Nadeem felt that Tanuja was not happy with his support to Kajol and her career thus she insulted him. Kajol tried hard to get in touch with Nadeem and sort out the misunderstanding, but it was too late as the composer got another debutante, Divya Bharti signed for Rang and after that never ever worked with Kajol. This news spread like a fire and it worked against Kajol as Nadeem-Shravan were huge at that time. But just like Amjad Khan, Kajol also survived and managed to create her own space in the big world of Hindi cinema.

Fun Facts –
Nadeem-hravan were signed to compose music of Baazigar but later opted out due to creative differences. The makers signed Anu Malik who won Filmfare award for this movie.

Before the success of Aashiqui, Nadeem-Shravan gave music for many small films like Maine Jeena Seekh Liya, Apradhi Kaun, Vikram Betaal, Solah Satra and many more including some B-grade horror films like Cheekh and Khooni Mahal.

Saif Ali Khan had some financial issues with the producer of Bekhudi due to which he was replaced by Kamal Sadanah. Saif shot some key scenes and songs for the movie.

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