When Sanjay Leela Bhansali spoke about living in a chawl: ‘Had no paint on the walls, no space to breathe’

In a rare interview to Film Companion in 2019–the filmmaker has become increasingly media-shy in recent years–Bhansali was asked about his idea of beauty, and how he has tapped into it time and again. He said that it can all be traced back to his poor childhood, growing up in a chawl.

“Where does this hunger for beauty come from?” he was asked. Bhansali replied, “From the lack of beauty in my growing years, in my formative years. We lived in a very poor house. We had no paint on the walls. Mom was a wonderful dancer, so she would dance in that small (space). We didn’t have good clothes to wear. So, there were a lot of things that I felt deprived of as a child, and my mind was always a filmmaker’s mind. When I was sitting and doing homework as a child, I would wonder what colour should the wall be. My mind was preoccupied with finding beauty in that lack of beauty, or lack of space. My sets are humungous because of that. We were all crammed into… Almost breathing onto each other.”

He said that he now finds himself in a place of privilege, but can still sympathise with fellow artists who create from a sense of angst. Citing the example of Lata Mangeshkar, he said, “Now, I can arrange for the kind of funds for the films I want to. But I feel deprivation is a very important part of any artist, a pure artist, a true artist, to find expression. It’s only when you crave for it, and when you call for it from deep inside your soul, and find that one line that Lata mai sang in that song… And you realise, where did her music come from? Deprivation. It came from a lot of angst, which singers today don’t go through. I want to find beauty, not in the sense of plastic beauty or snowcapped mountains or daffodils, that’s not beauty for me. I want to find beauty in that little thread of a shawl that a weaver has woven, and to put that on an artist and let that thread be.”

Bhansali also revealed that his writing partner, Prakash Ranjit Kapadia, was his neighbour at the chawl they grew up in, but somehow they never knew each other until they made Devdas together. “I am blessed. I feel that all that I was deprived of as a child in terms of not being able to get a paint brush on my wall, God has blessed me with as much paint as I want,” he said.

Known for films such as Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Black, Guzaarish, Bajirao Mastani, Padmaavat and others, Gangubai Kathiawadi marks Bhansali’s return to the big screen after four years. He is also developing a streaming series for Netflix, titled Heeramandi.