F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b

The honeymoon is not only over but it seems it has left bitter aftertaste too! With Khalid Mohamed and so many mean bones in his body, any outing will surely get acidic! To be honest, we love his writing. Its Mean Mohamed Steet!It would be killer only if he could keep his personal agenda out of his writing! 

Now to REWIND. Vikram Bhatt & Khalid Mohamed (KM), the two came together to start aslibaat.com after Khalid Mohamed was fired from Hindustan Times (HT). Reason – recession. cost cut down. Asli reason – Rumour is Big B pulled all the possible big strings to get KM out because he and his family was under continous attack from Madhu Mottu & Under Honey’s Hat (KM’s popular gossip column), almost everyday, in HT’s Cafe supplement.

On the other hand, Vikram Bhatt, once the next big thing, lost it and how. Delivered duds after duds, more than a dozen in a row and had stars runing far far away from him with every new release. When KM was with HT, Vikram started writing a weekly column for HT Cafe. Wrote some great cover stories too, on the weird ways of the place called Bollywood. Unlike others, completely candid and unpretentious! Loved it! But when KM was sacked, VB was also out.

With Aslibaat.com going on track, VB was suppose to produce KM’s next film titled Rutba, based on the story of his stepbrother Hukam Singh. But because of some differences, both decided to go separate ways. Now KM is out of aslibaat also.

KM went back to Passionforcinema.com where he had started a blog diary sometime back. In the post titled Question of my Rutba, he wrote….

Towards the end of last year, there came an opportunity to finally narrate the Hukam Singh story as a film. The script was demanding, many of its scenes like confessionals to a church father. I was satisfied with the result, my producer Vikram Bhatt wasn’t. He rightly pointed out that it was far too internalised. I agreed. After four more drafts, both he and I were gung-ho. We had done it.

Then it came to the casting, the music, the basic essentials. That was on. Then there were snafus which are often inevitable in the process of filmmaking. Rutba was ‘routed’ as Mid-day put it, the intro said that the film had been shelved.

You can read the full post here. And reacting to the reports in media, Vikram Bhatt wrote on his blog….

Also in today’s newspaper Khalid Mohamed says that he is not making ‘Rutba’ for my company because he is tired of waiting for the film to start and that I was interfering in the script and the music of his film. I can only laugh at that comment and luckily I said nothing in response but what I did not say was that I was the only one in the entire film industry who was willing to make a film with him and with me gone Khalid Mohamed has lost his last chance to make a film. I feel really sad for him and the person that he his and would wish for him to find peace and happiness that eludes him. He says that he was the one who opted out of making the film; I will grant him that last scrap of self-respect that he is clamoring for with that statement though I have his e-mails that say quite another story. Let it be.

Cant find the full post by Vikram but the interesting bit is quoted here. BTW, VB was referring to this report in Mid-day.

Now Vikram Bhatt plans to continues his aslibaat without KM and KM has started a new blog. The link is http://khalidsspot.blogspot.com/.