20 Years Of Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai

20 Years  Of  Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai, Subhash K Jha Looks  Back

1. Director Goldie Behl and Abhishek Bachchan were  family friends  in  the true  sense   of  the  term. The Bachchan patriarch was close  to  Goldie’s father filmmaker Ramesh Behl . Behl Sr and Bachchan Sr  together made  movies like Kasme Vade and Pukar. Ramesh Behl also produced   the superhit Jawani Diwani with Jaya Bachchan in  the lead. So it  was natural that Abhishek play the  lead in Ramesh Behl’s son Goldie’s directorial debut.
2. Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai(BISKH)  though not without merit,  flopped . I warned Abhishek against doing films with friends. Here’s what he had said:  “It’s okay. These , Goldie, Rohan Sippy(son of Ramesh Sippy), Gurudev Bhalla are guys I grew  up with. Goldie  and I  working together is  natural. I will  work with him as long as he wants.” Abhishek rationalized his personal choices  overlapping with his professionalism. Abhishek did  another film the super-hero saga Drona with Goldie Behl 7 years later. It was an even bigger disaster than BISKH.
3. BISKH was  the  story  a  boy from Varanasi  named Suraj and his corruption in and by the  city.   It  was  the first  of many films that Rani Mukerjee and Abhishek did together. Rani played Pooja who epitomized  innocence and  unconditional love.The two, Abhishek and  Rani  became  very close friends and there  were rumours of  a relationship between them.I am not saying anything.  But  after his  breakup with Karisma Kapoor, the  only  woman Abhishek was  serious about was Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Not that he was  a saint  in the interim.
4. It was  the other other  heroine in BISKH the gorgeous Sushmita Sen ,playing the worldly-wise Lara, who grabbed all the headlines  without even trying to. At that  time I was  a very close friend  of both Abhishek and Sushmita and hoped they  would become  a real-life  couple. Instead Abhishek made Sushmita his  ‘Didi’ and she  was  fine with it. When  he  married Aishwarya,  ‘Didi’ was thrilled.  “I’m so, so happy for my brother Abhishek, and Ash who has been a colleague and a friend for many years. We’ve virtually grown up together in the industry. Today, when she’s finally taking the plunge, I feel she deserves to be happy. She’s a wonderful person.It was while we were shooting Goldie Behl’s Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai that Abhishek adopted me as his sister… Or shall I say, I adopted him as my brother. He was very awkward about shooting with me in any other capacity, so I quickly suggested he make me his sister. Since then, he has called me Didi. And I love that. Today, when my brother is engaged and ready to take the plunge, I feel six feet tall. He’s a lovely guy and deserves happiness.” This was  Sushmita’s reaction   when her “brother”  was engaged to her beauty-pageant  rival Aishwarya.
5. Jackie Shroff played the  arch villain  in BISKH . His character Naved Ali  a  media baron who  dreams  of  becoming the   prime minister pre–empted a certain television journalist of this millennium whose power and  arrogance spread  fast. Says Abhishek, “I had to hero-worship Jackie Uncle.  That was easy to do. He  is  intrinsically  magnetic.”
6. BISKH was  not a bad  film. It  was  way too ambitious  for its own  good.  Recalls Abhishek, “When  I  look back  on it I feel proud  of  it, and my association with Goldie  and his  sister Sristi. They are  family. BISKH may not have worked  . But that didn’t deter us from teaming up again for Drona where Ma (Jaya Bachchan) played  my mom.Flop or not, I  am  proud  of BISKH and  Drona.”
7. During the  shooting of BISKH Abhishek got  into a  spat with a  press photographer. The Delhi police arrested two  members  of the  film’s team. Recalling the incident Abhishek had said, “In my heart, I knew I had done nothing wrong, so why was I dragged into the ugly incident? Ironically, when we went back to Delhi two months later, the same gentleman from the press who accused me of roughing him up, was our PRO for Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai. He even apologized for the incident.”Calm and non-judgmental, Abhishek says he’s in the film industry to act, not react to controversies and rumours. To anyone who asks me which side of the bed I sleep on, my answer is: none of your business!”

Full Cast of the Movie: