Mahesh Bhatt’s relationship with his son Rahul Bhatt has often been shaped by a painful similarity in their childhood. Both grew up without a father being a constant presence in their lives, and years later, Rahul realized that Mahesh had repeated some of the same patterns he resented in his father.

Rahul was born in the early 1980s, when Mahesh was married to Kiran. However, the filmmaker separated from Kiran when Rahul was just three years old. So Rahul was raised by his mother, while Mahesh’s work kept him away from home for long periods of time. In the book of S Hussain Zaidi Hadley and IRahul said he was “never very attached to Mr Bhatt” and felt his father “never lived up to the responsibilities of a father that come with having children”.

He went further, describing himself as a “super b*stard child”. Although Mahesh and Kiran were legally married, Rahul felt that his father’s absence had left him with the same sense of abandonment that Mahesh himself had experienced growing up.

Mahesh had a complicated childhood. He was born to filmmaker Nanabhai Bhatt and Shireen Muhammad Ali, a Shia Muslim woman. Nanabhai had another family with his wife Hemalta and did not live with Mahesh, his mother and his siblings.

talking with Times of IndiaMahesh once recalled, “My father didn’t live with us. He never took off his shoes when he came home – he wouldn’t.”

In a 2018 interview with Hindustan TimesHe admits that this has left him without a clear idea of ​​fatherhood. “I have no meaningful memories of my father, so no idea of ​​what a father’s role should be,” he said.

This absence became part of the complex equation between Mahesh and Rahul. Mahesh helped Kiran and their children financially, but Rahul wanted more. He wanted his father around.

“I was trying to love him like a son should love his father. At least, he could have tried,” Rahul said.

Mahesh later admitted that his son had a valid complaint. talking with Hindustan TimesShe said, “There was a wound… I left home when he was about three years old and he felt I had left the family for another woman. And that was a complaint I couldn’t deny because it was true.”

Rahul also spoke about being bullied about his weight and the comments he heard about his parents. Recalling those Hindi Rush years, she said, “People used to make fun of me, my mother. And I was very angry about it. They used to say that my father had abandoned my mother.”

After this, father and son tried to mend their relationship. Their relationship remains complicated, but the two reunite after years apart.

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