In the opening scene of Pooja Bhatt’s film debut Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin (1991), Anupam Kher, who plays her father (also her Daddy in her ’89 television debut) says, ‘For your naughtiness I will eat a papad and you will get a jhapad.’ A flustered Pooja runs on the deck of her father’s ship and jumps into the sea.
Her grand entry into cinema is through the exit door.
She leaves even before she can be gainfully established. This trope of leaving abruptly has defined her career throughout.
She recently returned in Bombay Begums (2021) after a twenty-year gap saying, ‘Relevance is a bitch’ in a recent Film Companion interview.