From Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra to Ashutosh Gowariker and Vikram Bhatt, female assistant directors are no longer a rare sight in the studios. But the one point that nobody has mentioned about late filmmaker Prakash Mehra (who died recently in Mumbai after multiple organ failure) is that he was one of the first directors to take on a female assistant. And it was a Bengali girl called Poornima Bhattacharya.

This was in 1989 when maybe only a Shyam Benegal would be seen encouraging a girl in the directorial department. In mainstream cinema, it was Prakash Mehra who had Poornima assist him through many films, including Jaadugar and Zindagi Ek Juaa. Even more astonishingly, in an era when a female’s presence in a filmmaker’s team raised eyebrows, Prakash Mehra had a clean, above-board and completely professional equation with his female assistant director Poornima.

He was hot-tempered and his word was law. “But he was such a kind man,” remembers Poornima. The lady never saw the temper at its flaring best.

It’s not as if Prakash Mehra was a saint. Although married with three sons, he had one of the longest and most-written-about liaisons with an actress called Padmini Kapila. In fact, it was pretty much an open affair. Padmini used to be in and out of Sumeet, the dubbing-cum-preview theatre in Juhu where Mehra operated from. The actress got good supporting roles in his big films and everybody treated her as the mistress of Sumeet theatre.

Prakash Mehra was at his successful best when Padmini was a part of his life, much to attractive wife Neera’s discomfiture. Strangely, the superstitious film industry whispered that once he parted ways with Padmini, he lost his Midas touch at the box office. And Prakash Mehra could never go back to a warm, loving relationship with Neera either, since she soon fell seriously ill and was in a coma for years before finally slipping away from this world.

Prakash Mehra may be known for the fantastic combination he made with Amitabh Bachchan, right from Zanjeer which was the starting point for the actor’s superstardom. What is not remembered is that he was progressive enough to have a female director called Pasha Jung make a TV film for him called Mr Shrimati which starred Jaaved Jaaferi. But Prakash Mehra’s image as the immensely successful filmmaker who launched Amitabh Bachchan’s angry young man screen persona was so strong that his gentler side, the encouragement he gave young women like Poornima and Pasha, went unrecorded.

The passing away of Prakash Mehra truly marks the end of a chapter when filmmakers were friendly, approachable and colourful, and had the guts to call the shots.

Today, it’s the stars who make the rules. You’ve got to hear all that’s been happening to a huge Rs 60- crore film called Blue to know just how much weight actors can throw around with impunity. Sanjay Dutt has sheepishly renounced politics (after flopping in UP) and has magnanimously allotted dates to his film producers who have gone back to fawning on him. But it is politics of a different kind that Sanju is still playing. Miffed that the director gave Akshay Kumar preference over him, Dutt has put Blue on the waiting list. The mood is distinctly blue since the film cannot be completed without Sanjay Dutt’s precious dates and he’s in no mood to part with any for this film.

When a director gets stomped all over by one star, the others quickly follow suit. One hears that Katrina Kaif who is otherwise reputed to be professionalism personified, threw the mother of all tantrums during a shooting schedule of Blue in a hotel in Powai. The inside buzz is that Katrina was paid a bomb for a special appearance and her lines and role in the film were clearly stipulated when she agreed to go on board. But during this shoot, she realised that her role had been extended and she was given extra lines which hinted that she was paired opposite Zayed Khan. Kat would have none of it. She wasn’t going to mouth lines she hadn’t been paid for and the schedule went kaput!

Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor Movie Mag International