Do you remember the 1991 Rishi Kapoor-starrer Henna? It was a romance drama, which was produced and directed by Randhir Kapoor. The film was planned and started by Raj Kapoor, but he passed away before its production began. That’s when Randhir took charge of its direction. It is considered Raj Kapoor’s last film. Henna proved to be a commercial and critical success, but that’s not all. It was even India’s submission for the Academy Award For Best Foreign Language Film. Do you know the film’s brilliant dialogues were penned by the Pakistani writer Haseena Moin? Reportedly, she also had a role to play in the film’s casting.
When Raj Kapoor was working on Henna, he met Haseena Moin. It is said that she had written the film’s dialogues, but refused to take any credit. Raj Kapoor was then forced to put the name of screenwriter Jainendra Jain in the credits.
When Haseena was writing dialogues for the film, she told Raj Kapoor about Zeba Bakhtiar, who was then a popular TV actress in Pakistan. According to media reports, Raj Kapoor initially wanted to take Pakistani pop star Nazia Hassan for the lead role in the film. Nazia refused to work in the movie because she wanted to focus on singing. After seeing Zeba’s work, Raj Kapoor made up his mind to cast her as the female lead in the film. Initially, it was also planned that Rajiv Kapoor will be playing the male lead. Owing to Rishi Kapoor’s stardom at that time, his name was finalised, instead of Rajiv.
Raj Kapoor passed away before he could finalise Zeba’s casting. When Randhir Kapoor came to know the whole story, he contacted Zeba through Haseena Moin. He invited Zeba to India for an audition. Both Randhir and Rishi were impressed by her talent and decided to cast her in the film.
Henna released on June 28, 1991, and was a hit. It is said that at that time the film was made on a budget of Rs 4 crore, and it made a box office collection of Rs 12 crore worldwide.
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