Akbar Khan’s Haadsaa was not built like a typical Bollywood release. The actor-director has recalled how he shot it piece by piece, whenever financing arrived, until the film finally took shape five years later—and how it gave Smita Patil one of her most against-type roles.
Casting against the village-girl image
Khan remembers Smita Patil as an artist with an instinctive understanding of the human soul. Yet he felt films like Manthan, Bhoomika, Aakrosh and Chakra had kept her largely in sarees and village attire, as an oppressed woman or a rebel.
For Haadsaa, he wanted something different: a high-society woman who is schizophrenic, married to an impotent husband, and required to swing from normal to raving in a single shot. He has said he considered Shabana Azmi before choosing Smita, and that Vinod Khanna may have put her name forward.
Her preparation was internal. Khan says she would imbibe the character—its vulnerability, sensuality, fears and darkness—and then deliver every nuance. Her father, Shivaji Rao Patil, reportedly called it one of her best performances at a trial.
Why the film took five years
The delay was financial. Khan, then an assistant director to Mohan Bijlani and his older brother Feroz Khan, had almost no money. He started with Rs 35,000 from a friend’s father, Manubhai Desai, shot the first reel, and used that reel to raise more funding.
NN Sippy had been keen to produce the film, but Sippy was busy with Fakira and a Subhash Ghai project, so Haadsaa went on the back burner. The result was a stop-start production that still looked seamless on screen.
- The image change: Smita Patil moved from village roles to a glamorous, volatile character.
- The financing: Khan made the first reel with Rs 35,000 and raised money reel by reel.
- The buzz: He believes the preview conversation helped her land Namak Halal and Shakti.
A Marine Drive memory, and a lost film
Khan also recalls a real-time shoot on Marine Drive, with Smita chasing him through Bombay traffic while yelling from a car. The scene caused a bottleneck, and he says he stood transfixed by her performance.
His memories are also tied to loss. A later film, Mr Aashiq with Smita Patil and Parveen Babi, stalled when Parveen had a breakdown. After Smita’s death, director Tanvir Ahmed used sequences of both actors from that project in Aakarshan, which also starred Sonu Walia and Khan.
The tragedy was personal, too: his sister Dilshad lost her husband on 10 December, and Smita died three days later, in a bitter Kashmir winter.
Source: Filmfare