It was a black Tuesday for one of Hindi cinema’s most prolific and biggest banners — Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. The company, which was started by the superhit filmmaker’s father, Yash Johar, in 1976, suffered an irreparable loss yesterday due to a massive fire that broke out at their 18,000-odd square feet godown at Cama Industrial Estate, Goregaon East.
Early news reports that came in said the blaze began at around 2.30 am on April 30. It broke out on the first floor and, eventually, engulfed all the three floors of the building. As many as 12 fire engines were deployed to bring the inferno under control. There were images of smoke bellowing from the area and it was impossible to tell how bad the fire was even until late afternoon. However, no casualties were reported. While the cause was still
being ascertained till the time we went to press, we learnt that the estimated loss is huge.
According to sources, the godown was home to several Dharma treasures from down the years. One hears, everything from costumes to props was stored here. It is also being said that there were film memorabilia, books and valuable artifacts. Most of it are related to the various movies made by this banner from the ’80s until the present.
The fear is that props and other shooting material for some of their upcoming productions were also kept here. While there was no ballpark figure arrived on how big the financial loss was due to this tragedy, one hears the filmmaker and his core team were more upset because of the loss of their guarded film property, some of which would be needed for shooting in their under-production movies.
(The fire at Cama Industrial Estate)
RK FIRE ALSO BEGAN AT THE SAME time IN 2017
It is uncanny. But on September 16, 2017, at around the same hour — 2.22 am to be precise — fire engulfed another institution, the iconic RK Studios, Chembur.
Even back then, apart from the financial losses that the Kapoor brothers incurred, they also suffered an immensely emotional blow. Rishi Kapoor had wept as he recounted, how everything was gone! He had said, “We lost costumes from Awaara (1951) to Aa Ab Laut Chalen (1999).”
The actor had recounted details of how these included outfits worn by every RK heroine from Nargis to Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. To add to this, there was jewellery, artifacts, spears, sabres, furniture and Raj Kapoor’s mask from Mera Naam Joker (1970), all of which was destroyed.
A BLAZE DESTROYED SRIDEVI'S HOME, TOO
On December 21, 2013, Indian cinema legend Sridevi’s bungalow in Andheri also was partially devoured by a huge fire. At that point, the actress, her producer husband, Boney Kapoor, their two daughters, Janhvi and Khushi, and Boney’s mother Nirmala Kapoor, had to relocate. Besides damage to the house, which Sri never returned to, the actress and her daughters had lost their extensive wardrobe.
Some films backed by Dharma Productions
- Dostana: 1980
- Agneepath: 1990
- Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: 1998
- Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham: 2001
- Wake Up Sid: 2009
- My Name Is Khan: 2010
- Student Of The Year: 2012
- Kapoor & Sons: 2016
- Badrinath Ki Dulhania: 2017
- Raazi: 2018
- Dhadak: 2018
- Simmba: 2018
- Kesari: 2019
- Kalank: 2019
Few Movies Produced By The Banner
Upcoming films
- Student Of The Year 2: 2019
- Drive: 2019
- Good News: 2019
- Brahmastra: 2020
- Takht: 2020
