Winning several accolades, Madhur Bhandarkar is a filmmaker who is known for making realistic cinema. One of the reasons, the director can understand the pulse of the common man is because of his humble background. Before tasting success with films like Chandni Bar, Page 3, and Fashion, the filmmaker revealed that he used to do odd jobs in Mumbai and later, even abroad, before returning to the country and starting off as an assistant director.
In a recent interview with Pinkvilla, the filmmaker confessed that he used to be a delivery boy when his family was undergoing a bad phase financially and how he used to deliver cassettes to everyone, from slums to plush societies to Bollywood personas. Some circumstances came in our (lower middle-class) family that we went far below the poverty line. I couldn’t afford to go to school also, and I failed too. So, I started doing odd jobs at a young age. At that time, in 1983-84, video cassettes just came into trend, and I felt it can be a business. So, I would buy cassettes for Rs. 10 at one place and sell them at Rs. 30 to others. I first started as a delivery boy in 1982. For three to four months, I would deliver cassettes for others before I started my own business. Money started coming in, I would deliver cassettes to all houses.”
He elaborated, “I started on a bicycle and later I got a scooter. For three years, I delivered cassettes to all sorts of people– sex workers, girls from beer bars, the underworld, at skyscrapers and bungalows as well as jhuggi jhopris, and to Bollywood people, to police. I delivered cassettes to Subash Ghai, Raj Sippi, and Mithun Chakraborty’s houses. Mithun Da is so proud of me and says he can’t believe I am the same kid who delivered cassettes to me. His wife was a very gracious lady, and whenever I needed money, she gave me advance payments. I got a lot of love from that home.”
For the uninitiated, after the era of cassettes ended, Madhur switched to doing odd jobs and later shifted to Dubai to live with his sister. Soon after, he returned to the city to become an assistant in Bollywood films.
After making films like Fashion, Heroine, and other female oriented subjects, Madhur Bhandarkar recently directed the Tamannaah Bhatia starrer Babli Bouncer.
