When Salim Khan was offered role of Bajirao... in the 50's

Ranveer Singh playing Bajirao is one of the finest performances in the last decade. The role belonged to him. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been trying to make Bajirao Mastani for over a decade. When he first wanted to make the film, he saw only Salman Khan as Bajirao. But there have been other makers before him who wanted to make a film on the love story of the Maratha warrior and Mastani. In fact, a film called Mastani (1995) was directed by Dhirubhai Desai and starred Agha, Manhar Desai and Nigar Sultana. Salman Khan’s father, writer Salim Khan, was approached in the ’50s to essay the role of Bajirao in a title role to be directed by Marathi writer-director Vishram Bedekar, who has directed films like Do Bhai (1961), Rustom Sohrab (1963) and Ek Nanhi Munni Ladki Thi (1970).

Khan confirms that Vishram had approached him to play Bajirao in a film of the same name, “Before Vishram approached me, I had done a couple of small roles. He couldn’t engage any big star to act in his film as the actor playing Bajirao had to shave his hair completely. I was a newcomer. I would have cut my head for the role (laughs)! It was a big break for me so I met them for an interview for the role. In those days, there were no auditions. I went to Vishram’s Worli residence. He liked me and offered me the main lead. The script had not been finalised neither were the heroines. As Vishram was making a proposal, it turned out to be an expensive film, being a costume period drama, which wouldn't recover the cost with a newcomer playing the Bajirao, so the idea was dropped.”

Khan acted in 20 odd films after that before finally giving it up voluntarily to purse an extremely successful career in script writing.

Bhansali’s film has been adapted from NS Inamdar’s novel Rau and is a fictionalised romance-drama that encapsulates the 20-year reign of the Maratha warrior Bajirao and his relationship with his second wife Mastani. By a strange twist of fate, almost 50 years later, Khan’s son Salman was offered to play the main lead in Bajirao Mastani. “When Sanjay (Leela Bhansali) wanted to make that film with Salman. I had advised him to ask one of Vishram’s (as he had died by then) family members if they could give him that script. Vishram was a sensible, educated man, who had directed some films earlier and had done a lot of research on it and it was a complete script. I told Sanjay one of the family members might have it, but he had to drop the idea as there was some problem finding the family.”

Khan says that he plans to watch Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani now that it’s released, “Yes, maybe tomorrow or the day after, I will watch the film at a trial.”