Adman Prahlad Kakkar began his journey in advertising, he was an assistant director to Shyam Benegal for his films like ‘Ankur’, ‘Manthan’, and ‘Bhumika’. In a recent interview, he spoke about the experience of working with the director. ‘Ankur’ starred Shabana Azmi and Prahlad recalled how he was smitten by her. He also revealed that Shabana was just 19 at that point. He said during a chat with Vickey Lalwani when asked if he was smitten by her, “When we were shooting ‘Ankur’. Everyone was smitten by her, at least I was. We were 40 guys and she was the only woman on the unit. Everyone had a crush on her. She was a very attractive 19 year old girl. Everyone used to stand in line to pamper her. She broke her toe once and it became my duty to dress the toe. That toe, till today is called ‘private property of Prahlad Kakkar,’ the long second toe on her right foot.”
When enquired if Shabana was smitten by someone, he said, “She was too focused on her own work. She had a crush on Shyam Benegal. All actress have crushes on their directors. He uses that to get performance out of his characters. It goes beyond liking, it’s not lust or something. The most important part is trust between the actor and director. There’s complete trust. They will blindly do what you ask. For example, if she’s told to remove her clothes and stand, she won’t even ask why? The problem today is you start doing ‘sauda’ with your actors. They ask, ‘does the script require?’. But the more important part is trust. As an director you will only make an actor do something if the script requires, not because it’s commercially viable.” ‘Ankur’ won three National Film Awards. Shabana had won the National award for Best Actress for the film.
