Mahesh Bhatt and Pooja Bhatt are coming together for a podcast on addiction. The father-daughter duo, who has been quite vocal about their battle with alcoholism, will sit down for an unfiltered chat on Maine Dil Se Kaha. In an exclusive interview with Zoom, Pooja spoke about the new podcast, their sobriety, journeys and more.
As a part of Mahesh Bhatt’s birthday celebration, actor Imran Zahid has announced a new podcast entitled Maine Dil Se Kaha, hosted by Mahesh Bhatt and Pooja Bhatt. Imran, a longtime Mahesh Bhatt admirer, will produce the podcast. Pooja Bhatt exclusively speaks to Zoom on the Bhatts’ new adventure.
Pooja, what brought on Maine Dil Se Kaha?
We either own our story or it owns us. Only when we gather the courage to own our history, own our legacy, are we able to write a brave new ending to our story. This is true for us as individuals, as a community, as a country. I was 17 years old when I made my first film, Daddy. The story of Daddy was very unusual. A 17-year-old girl saves her father from an addiction to alcohol and gives him salvation. Life is so ironical that I didn’t know that the same 17-year-old girl, who made a place in the hearts of people in her first film, would pass away at the age of 44. And she would have to battle addiction and save herself like she saved her father in the film, Daddy.
All this wouldn’t have been possible if my father hadn’t sent me a message. And the message was very simple. ‘Pooja, if you love me, then love yourself because I live in you.’ This message changed my life. My father never asked me to quit alcohol. But this message gave me salvation and a new beginning. It’s been eight years since I haven’t touched a single drop of alcohol.
It is brave of you to admit this?
I say this to people screaming and I share it because I want this word shame, which is associated with alcoholism, addiction. I want to erase this word shame. Alcoholism and addiction are not a moral weakness. It’s not a moral failing. Everyone has a different chemistry. And I think in our society, a man gets the opportunity to face his addictions and frailties. Talk about it. Go and heal yourself. Recover. And then society calls them back into the fray with a lot of love and respect.
What was the decisive reason for you to agree to this podcast?
Women who hide and lie and drink, how will they open up and recover? That’s why I thought it was very important that if we do a show where Bhatt and I dissect our own frailties and addictive personalities. And tell people how we came out of that darkness. It was important that both the male and female perspectives were presented to people. Because it’s not just a man’s property. It’s not just a woman’s property.
The podcast will address addiction from both perspectives?
That’s right. I said from my heart that there will be a very unfiltered, open-hearted dialogue with various guests, professionals and common people who face and fight this battle every day, because I believe that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety.
Then what is it?
The opposite of addiction is communication. We have somewhere become entangled with each other in this society and have developed an addiction to perfection. We all present ourselves to the audience through curated photographs, curated cuts and PR machinery, but heroes or heroines or role models are those who present their frailties to the people, who openly reveal their wounds to the world, so I felt that when I took this decision that I have to quit drinking, I have to be the best version of me, because as Bhatt sahab had told me in that message that if I love him then I need to love myself, and the only way I could love myself was first by removing alcohol from my life, and the day I took that one small step, then the whole nature inspired me and gave me a lot.