Mansoor Ali Khan’s Josh featuring Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai as siblings which turns 24 on June 9, was the director’s last film. Thereafter, he quit the film industry and moved to calm Coonoor.
In a throwback interview Mansoor admitted to this writer that Josh was inspired by Robert Wise’s 1961 musical. “But I found something missing in West Side Story . It got away with those shortcomings because of the music. Josh took too long to make. It got delayed because of a certain superstar. I will give you a hundred points for guessing who that was.I lost the plot. I rewrote many scenes.”
Mansoor admitted Josh was not a pleasant experience for him. “Totally not. It was nightmare. I returned the money for the two other films that I had signed. But that’s not why I quit filmmaking. I wanted Aamir to do the role Chandrachur Singh did. But Aamir wanted to do Shah Rukh Khan’s role. Everybody wanted to do that role including Kajol. When I offered her Aishwarya Rai’s role she said she wanted to do Shah Rukh’s role.”
Aishwarya didn’t look anything like SRK’s twin sister in Josh. Explained Mansoor, “They were not identical twins. My producer Ratan Jain asked me if a boy and a girl can be twins. In our film, it’s always either two boys or two girls as twins.”
In an interview just before the release of Josh this writer told Shah Rukh that casting Aishwarya Rai as his twin sister sounded strange.
Shah Rukh replied, “Why? You shouldn’t think like Dara Singh. I remember seeing an old programme of Tabassum where she said Dara Singh refused to costar with her because they had played siblings in another film. Since we started shooting for Josh both Aishwarya and I have matured as performers, especially her. Recently she has become the no.1 girl after Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Taal. She’s done films with Akshaye Khanna and Salman Khan. So when she does a film with me or Aamir audiences would expect her to be romantically paired opposite us. Do you know Kajol was supposed to do Aishwarya’s role? But everyone was vehemently opposed to the idea. After doing two hugely successful films as the romantic lead Kajol as my sister was unthinkable. Basically, she, Aishwarya, was chosen because everyone wanted to sign her. She has the central role in Josh. Kajol of course wanted to play my role.”
For Mansoor Ali Khan’s Josh, Shah Rukh Khan turned singer in the song ‘Apun bola tu meri Laila’ which was filmed on SRK and Aishwarya Rai.
Director Mansoor Ali Khan wanted both SRK and Aishwarya to sing for themselves on screen. No power on earth could convince Aishwarya. Her lines were voiced by Hema Sardesai who said, “The challenge for me was to match my voice with Aishwarya Rai. She wasn’t singing for herself. I was singing for her. But Shah Rukh Khan was singing for himself. Composer Anu Malik told me to just follow my gut feeling. Luckily it turned out well.”
Recalling his only tryst with playback Shah Rukh had said, “I can’t sing. I never would have done Apun bola. But it was just a few lines and not real singing.”
