Dholakia wanted salty snowfall at Film City for Lamhaa

It could have turned into a serious tu-tu-main-main between the producer and director who wanted to recreate the snow-capped Kashmiri Mountains in Film City on the day that Bipasha Basu resumed shooting at Film City for Lamhaa. According to a source Bipasha had to do a tough action scene on the location depicting the zigzagging streets of Kashmir in Film City. And Dholakia wanted snow…not authentic snow. But the kind created for cinema with salt. Says Dholakia, ”It’s a well-known fact that the salt effect to create snow on screen is far more effective than real snow which tends to obstruct the camera (Sanjay Leela Bhansali shot all the snow-scaped scenes in Black with simulated snow). So yes I ordered salt for the scenes with Bipasha.” Apparently, a truck of salt was ordered to create snow at Film City. But producer Bunty Walia put his foot down. Says Bunty, ”Yes I stopped the truck with salt because I was against the snow idea. See, how do we match the real snow in Kashmir with the artificial snow when we return to Kashmir in January and in any case how can we be sure it’d be snowing in Kashmir when we return there? How would we ensure continuity with the scenes we shoot on Film City?” Reluctantly and not too happily Dholakia shot without his truckload of snow. Says the director, “It’s very important to return to Kashmir at any cost. I need to take my cast and crew to shoot the Dal Lake. That cannot be recreated in Film City. Happily for me Sanju, Bipasha and Kunal Kapoor agree with me. So we’ll return to Kashmir to capture as much authenticity as possible.”