Subhash Ghai On Nepotism Debate: The Public Decides, They Don't Care If You're A Star Kid Or Not

Recently, filmmaker Subhash Ghai was in the limelight owing to Mahima Chaudhry's statements that she was bullied by him in 1997 after making her Bollywood debut with Pardes. While speaking to a leading daily, Subhash Ghai shared his stand on the nepotism debate, and said that the public is the real judge, and they don't care if the actor/actress is a star kid or not.

He told HT, "That debate was there when I entered films in 1965 too. The Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, BR Chopra family... but people like Dharmendra, Sunil Dutt came, Rajendra Kumar aaya na? These stars were also popular. The essence is that the judges are the audience, who are strangers. They are not individuals. The public decides, they don't care if you are a star kid or not."

He further added, "Initial attraction is there. 'Kisi ke bachhe ko dekhne jaate hain 'yeh toh apne baap ki tarah lagta hai, chalo dekhne chalet hain.' One-two films can work on the name. You see, only 20 percent of children from the film business are successful. Actors like Ashay Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, also came from outside. I never thought about this, when I was working with actors such as Jackie Shroff and Minaakshi Sheshadri. Aaj kal kya ho gaya hai, we have started looking at things with a different perspective."

In the same interview, Ghai also spoke about Mahima Chaudhry, and said that the media should forget about the whole controversy. He further called Mahima 'bacchi', and said that she might have given such a controversial statement out of excitement.

He further revealed that last year, Mahima had come to his film institute as a guest lecturer a couple of times, and they are constantly in touch with each other. The Pardes director also asserted that someone must have provoked Mahima to say such things about him.