We are a conservative Marwari family with origins from Kuchaman in Rajasthan, but I am born and brought up in Mumbai. My grandfather Tarachand Barjatya started as a distributor of films even before 1947 and then turned producer in the 60s that my father took up. I have two uncles (my father’s older and younger brothers) and so I had the luxury of being brought up by three fathers. I remember going to school in Prep for the first time and being asked, ‘What is your father’s name?’ I didn’t know who to name because for me, all three of them were my fathers. And that’s the security that comes out in my films. I saw my father as a producer struggle with his directors, who would not be able to give him the passion he wanted as a filmmaker, and I wanted to give him that one film that he could be proud of as a producer. It was my good fortune that I worked as assistant to Mr Mahesh Bhatt in Saaransh when I was 19 and that taught me filmmaking. He told me, ‘If you want to make a film, start writing’, and that’s when I started writing my films. While Rajshri Productions had made hit films in the past, this was a low phase as video tapes had come in, that badly affected the business of family-oriented films as families would sit at home and watch them on video. I then made my first film Maine Pyar Kiya in which we put all the money we had and that became a big hit. -
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