‘Saroj Khan didn’t like me, working with her traumatised me, says Karan Johar: ‘She was scary, made me run for my life’

“At that time, the costume dada was my biggest ally,” Karan recalled, adding, “Manish would come in the morning, hand over the clothes, and leave. I was the costume assistant, and Pam aunty was deeply involved in the process. She would make the clothes and oversee everything, and I would help her. She was completely on top of things.”

Trouble arose when a last-minute demand was made for red scarves for the dancers during the now-iconic ‘Shaava’ step. “We just didn’t have enough cloth. The little red fabric I could find was only enough to go in one hand because there were so many dancers,” he said.

Realising the impracticality of fulfilling the request on such short notice, Karan tried to think on his feet. “To save the situation, I went to Jojo—Saroj ji’s assistant—and very cleverly suggested that it would look stylish if the dancers put one hand in their pocket and held the scarf in the other. I said otherwise it might look ‘Yamma Yamma.’ He thought it was a great idea.”

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However, the plan unravelled quickly. “Saroj ji came and said, ‘Okay, show me.’ She immediately asked, ‘Where is the other hand?’ When her assistant explained the idea, she lost it.”

What followed, Karan Johar says, was sheer panic. “She caught hold of me—literally pushed me—and said, ‘Go wherever you have to. Go to Goregaon, bring the red cloth, or I will not shoot.’ I remember running on the streets of Goregaon with the costume dada, desperately looking for red satin cloth. I was scared for my life. I was traumatised. She was terrifying.”

Despite his fear, Karan was quick to acknowledge Saroj Khan’s brilliance. “She was scary, but she was the best,” he said candidly. “She didn’t like me at all. She was just unhappy with me.”

Recalling another moment from “Tujhe Dekha Toh Yeh Jaana Sanam”, Karan admitted his tendency to offer unsolicited opinions. “There was a montage shot where I gave both Shah Rukh and Kajol dungarees. She looked at them and said, ‘Yeh baba baby banke kyun aaye hain?’ I answered back. She was horrified,” he laughed. “She’d be like, ‘Yeh kyun bolta rehta hai?’ because I was always giving my two cents.”

He added that Aditya Chopra would often shoot him a warning look. “Adi would just look at me like, ‘Why are you opening your mouth?’ I really didn’t know better back then.”