This director once faced poverty, sold lampshades at traffic signals, died before finishing his biggest film, he was…
By Mallika Mehzabeen
Copyright india
Bollywood had so many talented filmmakers who today with the right technology would have left behind big names in the industry. Today we are going to discuss one such filmmaker who passed away at the age of 46. He had many stories left to tell and several films yet to complete including his biggest project at the time titled Dus. If you are wondering who this man was then he was the iconic filmmaker Mukul Anand.
Mukul Anands father was a Chartered Accountant. However when Anand was young his father severely fell ill and as a result Mukul had to step up. Though he dreamed of filmmaking he had to put those ambitions on hold due to his family’s financial struggles. Instead he started making and selling lampshades at the traffic signals on Bandra Linking Road in Mumbai earning Rs 25 per piece.
“When I came out of school I realised I wanted to get into films. But there was no scope since my family was in a bad state and I couldn’t become a struggler at that time” he told Rediff adding “It was a very bad phase and I can never forget it. I was happy I could put to use some of the skills I’d developed to feed my family.”
Later Mukul entered the film industry where he worked as an assistant with Chetan Anand and Vijay Anand. He also assisted Ravi Tandon the father of actor Raveena Tandon.
Mukuls career breakthrough came when he did three films with Amitabh Bachchan as the lead star: Agneepath (1990) Hum (1991) and finally Khud Gawah (1992). All three movies were huge hits. The films cemented Mukul Anand’s reputation as a remarkable director renowned for his grand scale and technical mastery.
Mukul also worked with Anil Kapoor Jackie Shroff and Shah Rukh Khan in Trimurti (1995). Though the movie was a flop Mukul refused to give up and instead gave his attention to his most ambitious project at the time — Dus.
Set against the backdrop of the escalating India-Pakistan conflict the film featured Salman Khan Sanjay Dutt (marking his first major comeback after prison) Shilpa Shetty Raveena Tandon (playing a terrorist) and Rahul Dev Burman in his debut role.
However sadly Mukul passed away while filming Dus. He suffered a cardiac arrest.
