I was told to include bikini scenes when I started out as a filmmaker - Madhur Bhandarkar

Madhur Bhandarkar's rags to riches life resemble the script of a Hindi potboiler. From a video cassette seller to becoming a National Award winning director, Madhur really has made it large today in every sense. The director clearly was the hot favourite among members of the audience at FICCI FRAMES 2014, where he was invited as a speaker to talk on 'The film that changed my life.' Choosing Chandni Bar as that landmark movie, Madhur said, "One Friday changed my life. The reaction to the movie was unfathomable and I changed into an overnight star." Prior to Chandni Bar, Madhur virtually lived a lonely life. His film Trishakti had bombed and no one wanted to be 'friends' with him anymore. All of a sudden, invites to Page 3 dos reduced and Madhur realised the flip side of showbiz. As they say, 'There are no permanent friends or foes in Bollywood,' another Friday changed Madhur's life. The Friday when Chandni Bar was released. The movie opened floodgates for the director both in terms of finance and friends and the director was back in the reckoning again. "I would like to thank Tabu for standing behind me and agreeing to do the movie at a time when no one believed in me. There was a time when producers used to tell me to include bikini scenes when I had just started out. They were like, without a bikini, nothing will sell. And then when I was making Chandni Bar, there was room for including as many items numbers as I wanted. Fortunately, now no one tells me what to include and what to exclude," said a confident Madhur and also revealed how Chandni Bar was made on a shoestring budget of 1 crore which was exactly the amount spend on the costume of Kareena in Heroine! Madhur is currently busy with his next, Madamji starring Priyanka Chopra.