Mani Ratnam, Bobby Bedi part ways

Director Mani Ratnam has decided not to work in any film produced by Bobby Bedi any more. The fall-out between the soft-spoken filmmaker and the producer was building up for a while right through the making of Guru. "But things came to a flashpoint at the premiere of Guru in Toronto when Mani and his family were rather shabbily treated. Bobby Bedi apparently refused to pay the fare for Mani's son Nanda to attend the premiere. Mani is too polite to retaliate. He took the humiliation quietly. But swore never to work with Bedi again." Adds the source, "Even Vishal Bhardawaj was far from happy about the way Bedi behaved during Maqbool and decided never to work with Bedi again." As for Mani he has already called off two projects-the earlier Mahabharat and more recently Lajjo-with Bobby Bedi, and is working towards forgetting the ugly experience.

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Lajjo News With Pics

The Mani Ratnam-Aamir Khan combo sounded lethal when it was announced over a year ago. And now it is learnt that the twain may never meet. After gathering dust for the longest time, Mani Ratnam's ambitious film, Lajjo, has been scrapped.The film’s would-be producer Bobby Bedi maintains, "The film has not been shelved and we are going to shoot the film at some point." However, our sources confirm that the film has been done away with. The problem started with Kareena opting out and Aamir getting busy with his other films including his directorial debut, Taare Zameen Par. However, producer Bobby Bedi has been citing other reasons for the oh-so-long delay. The film didn't hit the floors in December last year for reasons best known to the filmmaker. A source close to Ratnam says, "The film is definitely not happening. Even the actors have got busy with other projects." According to an insider on the project, “Bobby Bedi was aware that bringing two hot-headed personalities together would be difficult. He had spoken to them separately about the possibility of creative differences and requested each one of them to be mutually respectful of each other’s responsibilities.” So far, so good. Problems started with Mani Ratnam paying more attention to Guru and Lajjo, which was supposed to go on the floors last October, had to be postponed to this year. Since the film is set in Rajasthan, Bedi and Ratnam wanted to shoot the entire film around winter in a non-stop schedule. The shoot was expected to begin in mid-October this year. It is learnt that the screenplay was ready but Ratnam was not willing to get it scanned by the usually nitpicking Aamir Khan. And obviously, Khan wouldn’t go further unless he was shown the screenplay. Another problem: Mani Ratnam needed a dialogue writer because he is not well versed in Hindi. “Mani sir wanted someone absolutely fluent in Urdu since Lajjo is a period love story. He zeroed in on Gulzar saab. But Gulzar saab made it clear that he would not brook any kind of interference. Even if Mani sir had convinced Gulzar saab, Bedi was worried that he would end up handling three diverse temperaments.”  says a source.Mani Ratnam is extremely unhappy about the fate of the film. Sources indicate that even Aamir Khan wasn't too happy with the final script. This led Khan to work on his home production, Taare Zameen Par followed by Kajri, the Hindi remake of Tamil super hit Ghajini. "There were major differences on the script and other aspects. As a result the film never got started," adds a reliable source.