Bahu

Shakti Samanta stated "My directorial debut happened quite by chance. Vrajendra Gaur was making Kasturi starring Nimmi and Sajjan for Sargam Pictures. I was assisting him on a salary of Rs 300 a month and the condition that the day I got a chance to make my own film I would quit the job. One day, a couple of young men, nephews of a prominent eye-specialist in Punjab, came across to the office. With a generous settlement from their uncle they had landed in Mumbai, bought 30 cars and put them on the roads. Each car was fetching them Rs 30 a day which amounted to a handsome Rs 900 a month. They wanted to make a film and wondered how much it would cost them. Those days you could shoot 3-4 days for as little as Rs 1000. Delighted, they asked Vrajendraji to direct the film for them. Since he was already committed to Kasturi and couldn't take on any other project till it was released, he passed the offer to me. His only condition was that he'd write the story and dialogue. That's how I came to direct my first social for PR Films. Considering that it starred Usha Kiron and Karan Dewan, the film didn't fare too badly. Bahu ran for six weeks at Mumbai's Liberty cinema."