Farah and Sanjay's Jhalak reunion

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Shruti

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Posted: 18 years ago

Farah and Sanjay's Jhalak reunion
By: Subhash K Jha
September 12, 2006

Farah Khan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Sanjay Bhansali and Farah Khan have revived their mutual friendship on the sets of Sony's Jhalak Dikhlaa Jaa.

Says Sanjay emotionally, "Farah and I started off together in 1942: A Love Story. We had the privilege of visually creating R D Burman's last melodies. That will always remain among the best work we've done in the last 14 years. Ever since we've always got along very well. We did have a long cold war between us. But now we're even more comfortable with each other."

Good old days

Says Farah, "One of the best things about Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa is I get to spend time with Sanjay. We laugh a lot. I've jokingly told the Sony people
they'd have to re-do my contract. I'm only looking after Sanjay the whole day.

When we meet up we keep going back to our good old days. We didn't speak to each other for seven to eight years. The more you love
a person the more he can hurt you. In between, he had become quite an
angry young man. Now he's just an emotional old man."

Sassy Shetty

Talking about Shetty, Farah says, Shilpa too "I'm working with for the first time. I had done an ad with her. But never choreographed a dance. We're having so much fun. For Sony, Sanjay is this great personality. For me he's just good old Sanjay. And I get to have his mom's daal-dhokli again. I've missed Sanjay.

It was so stupid for us to have fought. We were both insecure earlier. Now we're happier and able to laugh at life."

Jhalak's USP

Khan says that the way she judges contestants has changed with this dance show.

"On Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa he's become like what I used to be on Indian Idol — emotional and giving marks generously. I've become like Sonu Niigaam from Indian Idol, hawk-eyed and very stern. The nice thing about this show is that the contestants are non-dancers and still surprising us with their dancing skills."

Adds Khan further, "Ajay Jadeja, Mahesh Manjrekar, Sanjeev Kapoor and Mona Singh are very delightful. And Sweta Salve is heroine material. And the judges are the USP. All three of us know about song and dance. All three of us are the best in our fields. Shilpa is looking so glamorous. She makes Sanjay and me look like her country cousins," adds Khan.

Why did the Sanjay-Farah dosti suffer?

Both were choreography assistants to Vidhu Vinod Chopra during 1942: A Love Story. While Farah was to be billed as the choreographer, Sanjay was credited as the director of songs. Somewhere the line dividing the two fledgling technicians' job got blurred. And Sanjay felt he was being sidelined in all the publicity and marketing. This created a rift between the two friends. The fact that mutual 'friends' insisted on adding fuel to fire only added to the problems.