Dil Se starring Manisha Koirala and Shah Rukh Khan completed 24 years of its release today. The first Hindi movie of Mani Ratnam was not a big superhit but continues to be included in the list of cult classics and is one of the top-rated movies of SRK and Manisha.
Apart from the story which was a bit hatke, it was the epic union of SRK, Manisha, Gulzar, AR Rahman, and that exceptional number sung by Lata Mangeshkar; everything about Dil Se was special.
But, there are many more stories related to the movie that took place behind the scene and are equally interesting.
Controlling SRK was a big challenge
As always Shah Rukh was fully charged when he was roped into essay the lead role in Dil Se. During one of his interviews Mani Ratnam said that while it was fantastic to work with the big Bollywood superstar as he was thorough and ready to do anything for a movie, the biggest challenge was to control his enthusiasm. The helmer said that SRK is an actor who can go to any lengths and even take dangerous risks for a movie and that is why he needs to be controlled.
Apart from controlling the bubbling enthusiasm of the Badshah of Bollywood, Mani Ratnam’s biggest challenge was the pink tea in Ladakh that is prepared using milk of Yak.
Mani Ratnam Settled his score with HMV with Dil Se
The famous song from the movie, Chaiyya Chaiyya picturized on Malaika Arora and SRK and choreographed by Farah Khan was later on used in Inside Man, a Hollywood movie. However, there is a Backstreet Boys connection to this incident. The book Conversations with Mani penned by Baradwaj Rangan says that post-Dil Se, the filmmaker made another movie Alaipayuthey. The movie had a scene in which the lead actor was shown listening to a particular song using his headphones. For this portion, the Bombay director used the Backstreet Boys song and even retained it during editing. The music for Alaipayuthey was done by HMV which had the copyrights of the Backstreet Boys.
But when the team of Mani Ratnam officially asked permission from HMV to use the song in the movie, they demanded a huge amount of Rs 1 crore. Instead of giving the money, Mani Ratnam developed an original piece. But a few years later when the makers of Inside Man wanted to use Chaiyya Chaiyya in their movie, HMV agreed to give it free of cost however, Mani Ratnam quoted Rs 1 crore for giving the permission and HMV had no other option but to pay the hefty amount.