Manisha Koirala recalls her legs were covered in leeches during the shooting of Kehna Hi Kya from Bombay: ‘Tu Hi Re was also a very difficult song’ Filmymeet

Mani Ratnam’s ‘Bombay’ recently completed 29 years. Manisha Koirala, the lead female character in the movie, recalled how challenging it was to film because she had to cross a leech-infested forest. She also recalled recording the AR Rahman song ‘Kehna Hi Kya’ in the midst of enormous waves crashing against the rocks.
Manisha, who made her debut in the Tamil industry with the film ‘Bombay’, recalled how uncomfortable and swollen her eye had been during the shooting of ‘Kehna Hi Kya’ during a conversation with O2 India.She shared, “I do have this memory of Kehna Hi Kya, I think we shot it in Mysore or one of the areas we had gone. I remember I had a huge sty on my eye and I was thinking the shooting will get cancelled and all that, but no, I think Rajiv Menon was the DOP (Director of Photography) at that time and I explained to him, that I had a big stye in my eye, but he just asked me to put some make-up and said, ‘don’t worry, I’ll look into it, I’ll take care’. Nobody notices the sty in my eye.”
She further added, “So, I feel that when you are working with an entire team which is excellent, they churn out good things despite all the roadblocks.”
“Tu Hi Re” is yet another Bombay tune that music fans still like. Manisha talked about how challenging it was to record this song in a leech-infested wilderness. She shared, “Tu Hi Re was a very difficult song. There was one chunk, two places, which were extremely difficult (to shoot in). One was on the rocks and the sea hits on those rocks and big splashes come, that was pretty dangerous, but somehow we managed to shoot that and we got it right and everything was ok. The other place was… I don’t know which area that was, we were in the midst of a thick jungle and it was full of leeches.”
Manisha mentioned the difficulties she shared on the set and revealed, “So, if you walk one step also, a little distance, leeches would be all over your leg. (For the song) I had to wear a skirt, that blue skirt and I had to run through the jungle… It was full of leeches, there was a lot of difficulty. But then you find a mechanism, we were told, you put salt, someone we wore boots. We figured out how to navigate in a tough situation.”
Bombay, directed by Mani Ratnam, was released in theaters in March 1995. The movie chronicles the tale of an interfaith family living in Bombay amid the riots. AR Rahman, the master of music, wrote the soundtrack for the movie, and its album of the film is one of his most loved works.