Mahesh Bhatt has often turned to his own life for stories. After making his debut in the 1970s, the filmmaker came into the spotlight in the 1980s with ‘Arth’, a semi-autobiographical film that drew from his troubled marriage and extramarital relationship. At a time when his career was struggling and his personal life was equally turbulent, Mahesh began looking inward for inspiration. Over the years, several of his films would feature characters and situations rooted in his own experiences.One of the most personal among them was ‘Zakhm’, which explored Mahesh’s childhood and his complicated relationship with his parents. The film drew from his experience of growing up with an absentee Hindu father, Nanabhai Bhatt, and his Shia Muslim mother, Shirin Mohammed Ali, who was married to another man and was hesitant to openly embrace her identity. However, while Mahesh explored his relationship with his father through cinema, another deeply personal chapter of his life remained off screen — his strained relationship with his own son, Rahul Bhatt.Rahul was born in the early 1980s, towards the end of Mahesh’s marriage to his first wife, Kiran. According to Rahul’s account in S Hussain Zaidi’s book ‘Headley and I’, Mahesh initially wanted to name his son ‘Mohammed Bhatt’, as a way of carrying forward his mother’s legacy. However, his mother and wife convinced him to choose a more “secular” name.Years later, Rahul described himself as a “b*stard child” in the book, despite the fact that his parents were legally married. He felt that Mahesh had failed to fulfil the responsibilities that came with being a father and believed this made him a “super b*stard child.”For Rahul, the distance from his father began when he was very young. He felt ignored as a child and blamed Mahesh’s “unholy alliances” for the way his mother was treated. Even during some of the most difficult periods of his adult life, including the controversy surrounding his association with David Headley following the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Rahul remained reluctant to turn to his father.Yet, Mahesh recognised a painful similarity between their lives. “You and I do have one thing in common. A childhood without a father,” he told Rahul in the same book.Mahesh himself had grown up without the conventional presence of a father. He was born to film producer Nanabhai Bhatt and Shirin Mohammed Ali, a Shia Muslim woman. His parents were not married, while Nanabhai had another family with his wife Hemlata. Mahesh recalled that his father would visit their home occasionally but never stayed for long.“My father did not live with us. When he came home, he never took off his shoes – he wouldn’t be staying,” Mahesh once told The Times of India.Nanabhai did provide for Mahesh and his siblings’ education and contributed towards household expenses, but Mahesh continued to resent the fact that his father never publicly acknowledged his mother as his wife. That absence left a lasting impression on him.Speaking to Hindustan Times in 2018, Mahesh admitted that his childhood had left him without a clear understanding of fatherhood. “I have no worthwhile memories of my father, therefore no idea of what a father’s role should be,” he said.In some ways, that uncertainty followed Mahesh into his own parenting. He had two children, Pooja and Rahul, with Kiran, but his marriage eventually fell apart. Mahesh left the family when Rahul was only around three years old, leaving Kiran to raise the children largely on her own.Rahul later admitted that he was “never very attached to Mr Bhatt.” His experience of fatherhood closely mirrored Mahesh’s own childhood in one crucial way — his father was physically absent. Mahesh would visit roughly once a week, and even those appearances became less frequent as his career gained momentum towards the late 1980s and early 1990s.The circumstances of Mahesh’s parents had been very different. Although his father and mother were not legally married, Mahesh believed their relationship was genuine. He saw their love as a bond that had “legitimacy in the heart.” Rahul, however, could not view his own parents’ relationship in the same way. By the time he was born, Mahesh and Kiran’s marriage was already deeply troubled.Rahul grew up hearing about Mahesh’s affair with actress Parveen Babi, which had taken place before his birth. Mahesh’s alcoholism further damaged his marriage to Kiran, with frequent arguments creating an environment that Rahul experienced even as a young child. Mahesh Bhatt later had an extra-marital affair with Soni Razdan and eventually married her.Like his father before him, Rahul became deeply attached to his mother while growing increasingly distant from his father. Although Mahesh continued to financially support Kiran and their children, his absence became a source of resentment. As Rahul grew older, he increasingly felt that his father was simply “never around.”“I was trying to love him like a son should love his father. At least, he could have tried too,” Rahul said.The disappointment eventually turned into anger, which Rahul carried well into adulthood.Both father and son also grew up dealing with circumstances that made them feel different from those around them. Mahesh has spoken about the stigma attached to his family background and how his mother’s relationship with his father was kept hidden.Speaking to BBC Hindi, he recalled, “My entire family hid that my father hadn’t declared my mother to be his wife. It was a stigma that I lived with. I never quite understood it. On the one hand, we are told to be truthful, and on the other, this truth about my life is being hidden. When I would speak about my background in public, I would get scolded,” he said.Rahul did not face the same social circumstances, since his parents were married when he was born. His struggles, however, were deeply personal. He was bullied over his weight and felt isolated from other children. Recalling his childhood in an interview with Hindi Rush, Rahul said, “People would make fun of me, my mother. And I was very angry about it. They would say that my father has left my mother.”The experiences left both Mahesh and Rahul fiercely protective of their mothers, while their fathers became associated with the pain and circumstances they had been forced to navigate.Mahesh has also acknowledged the role he played in Rahul’s emotional struggles. Speaking to Hindustan Times, he admitted, “There was a wound there… I left home when he was around three and he felt I had abandoned the family for another woman. And this was a grievance I couldn’t deny because it was true.”
