Filmmaker Jagmohan Mundhra passes away

Jagmohan Mundhra, whose filmography comprised of an interesting range of movies, died in Mumbai on Sunday morning. He was 62.

Reports say Mundhra hadn’t been keeping well lately and was admitted to Bombay Hospital on Friday morning. He had internal bleeding that eventually caused multiple organ failure, according to hospital sources.

Mundhra was not a typical Bollywood filmmaker. In fact, he was an alumnus of IIT Bombay (in the early 1970s) and went to the US to study electrical engineering but soon switched to marketing. That’s the time he got interested in Hollywood. He wrote a thesis on marketing practices of films in the US and India. After finishing his PhD he taught for a year at California State University but he resigned in 1979 to become a full time filmmaker.

Mundhra first came to notice with his social drama Kamla but after that he went on to make a string of horror and erotic thriller like Halloween Night (1988), Night Eyes (1990), L.A. Goddess (1993), Sexual Malice (1994) and Tales of the Kama Sutra 2: Monsoon (1998).

In 2000, he switched back to socially relevant cinema with the film Bawandar with Nandita Das and completed the trilogy of women-centric films (that he began with Kamla) with Provoked, starring Aishwarya Rai.

Shekhar Kapur, who was close to Mundhra remembers him as a kind soul.

“Jagmohan Mundhra and his wife Chandra selflessly looked after people from Indian films in LA (Los Angeles). Looked after me for months when I first landed...I will miss him dearly,” Shekhar Kapur tweeted.

Anupam Kher said, “Can’t believe Jagmohan Mundhra passed away this morning. He was a delightful person.”

Mundhra’s last public appearance was at the cremation of Shammi Kapoor three weeks back.