Tisca Chopra Recalls ‘Almost Getting Divorced’ With Husband While Writing Saali Mohabbat

Tisca Chopra’s directorial debut, Saali Mohabbat, premiered on ZEE5 on December 12 and has been receiving widespread praise from critics and audiences alike. In a candid interview, Tisca revealed that while co-writing the film with her husband Sanjay Chopra, the couple almost faced divorce due to creative differences. She explained, “His sense of writing is robust, mine is more subtle.”

Creative Differences Nearly Led to Divorce

Speaking to Mid-Day, Tisca shared the challenges of directing her first film: “Directing is a mother-of-God hard job. It just never ends. You start your day with a volley of questions. What should be the size of the car’s number plate? Should the actor shave his chest or not? If you don’t answer, they’ll think that you don’t know your mind. So, you just have to make

a decision, even if it’s wrong. And then you make it the right decision.”

She elaborated on working with Sanjay during the writing process: “We almost got divorced writing it. His sense of writing is robust, mine is more subtle. So the yin and yang came together nicely in the script. We were told in the beginning [to drop it], but we still went ahead and recorded it. Then we had to dub it to something else,” she said, expressing her resistance to censorship. “I’m not a big fan of censorship. If at 18 years, you can choose a government, why can’t you choose what you want to watch?”

Saali Mohabbat features a talented ensemble including Radhika Apte, Divyendu Sharma, and Anurag Kashyap. Produced by Jyoti Deshpande, Dinesh Malhotra, Vipin Agnihotri, and Manish Malhotra under Jio Studios and Stage5 Production, the film has been lauded for its storytelling and Tisca’s bold approach to direction.

The movie’s combination of strong performances, nuanced writing, and uncompromising vision has made it one of the standout releases on ZEE5 this season.