Veteran filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali didn’t have a glossy childhood. In fact, it was quite the contrary. His father was Naveen Bhansali, a producer, who never tasted success in the film industry. Due to this, his father turned to alcoholism and this changed the dynamics in his house. Recalling his late father, Bhansali said he was a violent man and an alcoholic.

In a previous conversation on Rendezvous with Simi Garewal, Sanjay Leela Bhansali revealed how his father’s alcoholism pushed his mother to take charge of the house. “There were financial problems, and things started deteriorating, and he took solace in alcohol. Ever since I was born, I saw him drink. We saw a lot of violence growing up. We only saw anguish and bitterness against life growing up.”  Bhansali added, “He was a violent man. He never whipped us, but that’s how we felt as kids. He was a broken man. I had seen him sitting with his drink at 4:30 in the morning and talking to his dog.”

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The filmmaker revealed that his father was a ‘dominating’ and ‘overpowering’ man, which scared him as a child. He added, “There were moneylenders who were always at the house. We would be looked down upon at social gatherings like weddings because my father would be drunk.” Bhansali always had a strained relationship with his father. He never earned his father’s validation.

 

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During the conversation, the ‘Padmaavat’ maker shared his father’s last words. “I asked him one day before he died, ‘Dad, whom do you love more, me or Bela?’ He said, ‘Obviously, I love Bela a lot.’” Talking about his father’s death, the filmmaker said, “He died of cirrhosis. My mother and him didn’t get along, but in the dying moment, he came out of the state of coma and stretched out his hand to my mother. It was one moment of reaching out and holding, and he was gone. I realized my mother sacrificed 22 years of her life for this one moment.”

In a previous interview with The Hollywood Reporter India, Bhansali recalled that ‘Devdas’ was influenced by his father’s alcohol addiction. “So, all that cinema that comes out of Devdas is a tribute to that alcohol bottle my father cherished. And then I have every film as a subtext. From that subtext comes the natural expression. It is not, here is a story of a spy who goes here and does this, and then there was action, and there was beautiful dialogue. No, no, no. It is personal cinema.”

Also Read: Alia, Ranbir & Vicky celebrate Bhansali’s 62nd birthday on set

On the work front, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s last was ‘Heeramandi’ which marked his first-ever web series. Moving ahead, the filmmaker is working on ‘Love and War’ with Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, and Vicky Kaushal.