Subhash Ghai is a legendary filmmaker who has delivered some of the biggest hits in Bollywood and even experimented with unexpected star casts and storylines. Be it Khalnayak where Sanjay Dutt chose to don the cap of a villain to Saudagar where two legends - Dilip Kumar and Raj Kumar shared the screen space. It was a task deemed impossible by many in Bollywood but his determination paid off and history was created.
Subhash Ghai decided to open acting school
After a successful stint as a filmmaker, Ghai decided to do something different. First, he thought of coming up with a studio like Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt. However, later on, he thought to come up with a private school dedicated to acting and filmmaking as in India such institutions, especially the top-class ones are very less.
He intended to come up with a top-class institute and that is why visited 30 plus such institutes of filmmaking and acting so that a syllabus at par with the international standard could be designed. He took help from big names in the film industry like Shyam Benegal, Shabana Azmi, and Shekhar Kapoor.
But forming the institute Whistling Woods and then keeping it running has been quite challenging for Subhash Ghai. Sharing about the problems he faced, the Karz director said in a recent interview, “At that time during 2000 in India the courses were memory-based whereas in the West most of the acting courses were skill-based. At that time I was planning to develop the school in Panvel. When the news came out ek mantri ne hame bulaya aur kaha ki aap kyun nahi hamari film city mein school banate.”
Ghai was told by the government of Maharashtra’s minister that having the school in the Film City will also help the people coming to the Film City. Ghai liked this idea and decided to come up with Whistling Woods in the Film City. The minister suggested that the project will be in partnership with the government.
Whistling Woods got stuck in between government proceedings
The famous filmmaker had plans to build a college building, hostel area, research institute, and production house and was allowed to use the land on 20 acres. Accordingly, he spent around 25 crores to develop Whistling Woods’ infrastructure.
However, someone filed a complaint that the allocation of land and the project was not done properly by the minister. That is when the project got stuck although most of the important infrastructure was developed in the 5-acre area. Ghai said that every government that came promised to support but when technical things came in between the government stepped back. Things got solved when the BJP government came into power as they offered fresh allotment of 5 plus acres of land and in return asked for rent so that the institute could continue to run.
Although the problem is not solved completely, still to some extent it has given relief to Subhash Ghai who was struggling for more than two decades to run Whistling Woods in the way he wanted.