‘Pardes’ (1997) is one of the finest films of Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) in the ’90s, where he played the ambitious, bubbly guy, despite being a foster son of Amrish Puri, who was an NRI from the US. Back then, the role of SRK as Arjun Saagar received critical acclaim, which helped the film earn Rs. 22 Crore gross and became a blockbuster at the box office. Not only that, ‘Pardes’ also emerged as the fourth highest grossing film in 1997.
But have you ever heard of this SRK’s film named ‘Shikhar’? No right? Before the release of ‘Pardes’, Subhash Ghai was all geared up for ‘Shikhar’. That’s what we learnt recently from the veteran director himself. Delivering one of the most legendary films in the ’90s, the ‘Yaadein’ (2001) director had always been recognised as the evergreen filmmaker in the industry. For over four decades of his career span, the 78-year-old director has collaborated with several A-lister stars in Bollywood like Rajesh Khanna, Sharmila Tagore, Rajinikanth, Shantrughan Sinha, Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor, etc.
Nevertheless, coming to the topic of ‘Shikhar’, in a recent interview with ANI, he shared that Shah Rukh Khan and Jackie Shroff were already cast in for the film. Even the mahurat was held in Haryana, but unfortunately the shooting did not take off. While talking about the film, the director went down the memory lane and revealed that ‘Shikhar’ had a backdrop. “We had done our mahurat and even recorded a few songs for it.” Ghai shared, “However, we had to shelve the film due to budgetary issues incurred after ‘Trimurti’ (1995) failure, so we thought of making a small film and eventually Pardes happened.”
After shelving ‘Shikhar’, the ‘Taal’ director treated fans with ‘Pardes’. The film was arguably the most cherished film for Mahima Chaudhary as she made her big debut, that too with Subhash Ghai and Shah Rukh Khan and luckily it was a super-hit.
