Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh's "Bajirao Mastani" is gearing up for its release on 18 December, but what many may not know is it was conceived keeping Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Salman Khan in mind.

Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali may seem extremely pleased with how his magnum opus has shaped up, but he has quite forgotten what he started out with.

According to a Mid-Day report, the filmmaker has a poster featuring Salman and Aishwarya hung at his office space.

Bhansali, even today, is so fascinated by his earlier cast that he decided to pick a song from their only film together– "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam" – to be recreated for "Bajirao Mastani".

"Albela Sajan Aayo Re" was sung by the late Sultan Khan, Shankar Mahadevan and Kavita Krishnamurthy.

"Bhansali sir retained the original lyrics and roped in six singers, including me, to sing it. He knows more ragas than the musicians and would instruct us to switch from high to low, into different alaaps, during recording," singer Shashi Suman told Mumbai Mirror.

However, "Bajirao" with the "Sultan" actor and former beauty queen went kaput because of their bitter split post which the former reportedly severed relationships with Bhansali.

"Salman was upset that Sanjay didn't stick to him and felt like his friend and mentor turned against him. There was a lot of bad blood between them at that point," Bollywood Life quoted a source as saying.

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