Conversations with Waheeda Rehman (17 page)

The director explained the camera movements to me so I would know beforehand if he had decided to start the dance with a trolley movement or a wide shot.

Most of my dances were filmed in extended shots with no cuts. I was used to dancing for two hours at a stretch for the stage. So giving an extended take was no problem for me.

NMK:
You have worked with many choreographers. Did you have any favourite?

WR:
I liked many of them, but I think I worked with Hiralal the most. For
Guide
I told Dev I wanted both B. Hiralal and his
elder brother B. Sohanlal who was a Kathak expert. They were originally from Jaipur and had settled in Madras many years ago. They spoke Tamil and Telugu, but basically were Rajasthanis. Hiralal’s granddaughter Vaibhavi Merchant is a well-known choreographer today.

I lost touch with Sohanlal and Hiralal over the years, and when I started playing character roles, there was no need for me to sing and dance.

NMK:
Hiralal was responsible for choreographing many brilliant songs, including ‘Inhi logon ne’ in
Pakeezah
and ‘Piya tose naina lage re’ in
Guide
.

But one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable dances is your extraordinary snake dance in
Guide
. It was full of emotion and dramatic tension without the help of lyrics. It must have been a difficult dance to perform.

WR:
I tell you, Hiralal broke my bones. We rehearsed in a sound studio in Dadar between five and eight in the morning. Then I’d come home, have a bath and go to another studio to shoot some dialogue scenes. Straight from there I went back to the dance rehearsal and we’d work till ten or eleven at night.

My God! It killed me. I couldn’t walk for days and it was only with great difficulty that I managed to get out of my car because all my muscles were aching so much. My driver Naseer Ahmed said:
‘Memsaab, ye kaisa zaalim aadmi hai. Aap ki jaan nikaal dete hai.’
[Madam, he’s a cruel fellow. He’s killing you.]

NMK:
But it was well worth it! I am curious about the girl who danced with you. She was fantastic. Who was she?

WR:
Hiralalji’s assistant, Sheela. She was very good and graceful. I told her to become a solo dancer. But she had her own logic and said: ‘I won’t get many solo dances, but as an assistant I can work in ten pictures.’ I saw Sheela in some film recently but haven’t met her for years. She was excellent and so was Saroj Khan who was Sohanlalji’s assistant.

NMK:
Did Vijay Anand choose the camera positions for the snake dance or was it Hiralal?

WR:
Goldie was a very good director and always decided the camera positions. He left the choreography to Hiralal.

NMK:
Do tell me about that fantastic circular shot that comes at the end of the snake dance. How was that done?

WR:
In those days, we didn’t have crab trolleys and the cameras were bulky and heavy. In the middle of the set at Mehboob Studio, they built a raised platform on which the camera and circular tracks were placed. They call this structure a ‘
ghoda
’ [horse]. Fali Mistry, his assistant and Goldie sat there with the camera tilted down for the top shot.

I danced round and round and the camera followed me on the circular tracks. At the end of the take, I felt really dizzy. There
was a camera assistant who ran alongside the tracks, holding all the cables—we both went round and round—it must have looked like a jalebi being fried.
[we laugh]

NMK:
Wow! Vijay Anand and Fali Mistry were very inventive. That dance will remain forever as among the best Hindi film dances ever.

WR:
You know the greatest compliment I got was during the making of Yash Chopra’s
Lamhe
. There is a scene in the film in which Anil Kapoor slaps Sridevi when she tells him she loves him. She is upset and in her frustration she dances.

I was in London for the shoot of
Lamhe
and Sridevi was yet to arrive. When she came, she told me:
‘Yashji mera dimaag kha gayen ke tum Waheeda ka snake dance dekh ke London aana.’
[Yashji drove me crazy. He kept saying I must see Waheeda’s snake dance before coming to London.]

Sridevi danced in a similar style but it didn’t work that well. The frustration she feels and Rosie’s frustration come from different emotions. I don’t know if they finally kept her dance in
Lamhe
.

NMK:
Yes, Sridevi’s dance was in the film. Can you tell me what form of dance was the snake dance?

WR:
You can’t call it Bharatanatyam or Kathak. It is a mix of all forms. But it had proper mudras and footwork.

Film dancing is a blend of Indian dances, developed especially for a film. Sometimes you change a movement to make it look good on the screen.

NMK:
You mean dance movements are designed for the frame?

WR:
Yes, especially in a close-up. A dance movement must have a graceful shape and not go outside the frame. If you’re filming a movement in a wide or a mid shot, the movement does not need to be so precise.

Directors who did not know about rhythm and music usually left the camera positions and framing to the choreographer. The director would sit on the set and watch—unlike Guru Dutt who always decided the camera movement. He had learned dance under Uday Shankar and knew all about choreography.

NMK:
I am sure working with Uday Shankar must have helped Guru Dutt define his style when it came to filming dance sequences. Minoo Mumtaz performed some unforgettable songs in Guru Dutt’s films. I am thinking of ‘Saaqiya aaj mujhe neend nahin aayegi’ [in
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam
]. I asked Murthy why the chorus dancers were filmed in shadow. And he said, because they were ugly, they decided not to show their faces.

WR:
I don’t think that’s true.
[laughs]
The song had such beautiful lighting. The film was set at the end of the nineteenth century,
and I thought the lighting effect helped create the shadows made by those old-fashioned
pankhas
[swinging ceiling fans pulled by rope].

Minoo Mumtaz was excellent in that song. She was a very nice person. Her brother, the comedian Mehmood, once asked me to work opposite him in some movie. I gave him some excuse about not having the time. He got so annoyed with me that in one of his films he tells a girl: ‘Hey, Waheeda Rehman, what are you doing? Are you washing dishes like a maid?’ It was very mean of him.
[we laugh]

He was a very talented actor and changed his personality in every film. Johnny Walker was always Johnny, but that was not true of Mehmood.

NMK:
Which male actors do you think danced well?

WR:
In my time the heroes didn’t dance as such. There was Bhagwan, and among the romantic heroes I believe it was Jeetendra who started the trend of the dancing hero.

In a love song the couple would usually hold hands, or run through fields. So no dance steps were required. I may be wrong but I think Dilip Kumar danced for the first time in
Gunga Jumna
. There is such charm in his whole personality. He is very lovable, sweet and nice. He has a lovely smile.

I made four films with him,
Dil Diya Dard Liya
,
Aadmi
,
Ram Aur Shyam
and
Mashaal
. But my role in
Mashaal
was very small. I didn’t like
Dil Diya Dard Liya
. It was too melodramatic. The
director made us cry too much. I feel dramatic situations should make the audience cry, not the actors.

Personally I liked Dilip Kumar in
Gunga Jumna
,
Andaz
and
Daag
.
Amar
was interesting too. His voice and his effortless acting are impressive. He has a lot of depth and expression in his eyes—Dilip Kumar is a natural actor like Motilal, Balraj Sahni and Rehman.

NMK:
You would be in the same group of natural actors. You have created many lifelike personalities on the screen. The fact that you underplayed your roles has helped your films not feel dated. Much more than dialogue or editing, I think performance can really date a film. When you see some old films, an actor’s wooden performance is what gets the audience laughing. Nothing dates as badly, not the music, photography or even editing.

In this current generation, I find that Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a natural. He’s brilliant. I hope the attention he is now getting doesn’t corrupt him.

WR:
His performances are so different from each other. He doesn’t emote through facial expressions; his feelings come from the inside. He’s very good. In
The Lunchbox
, there is a wonderful scene where Nawaz’s character is feeling hurt and snubbed by the character Irrfan Khan is playing. You can sense Nawaz’s feelings in his slightest glance and gesture. He is subtle and moving.

NMK:
For the record, I’d like to ask if you had worked in many films that were never released.

WR:
There were a few—there was a film with Rajesh Khanna and Tina Munim called
Baayein Haath Ka Khel
, an NFDC [National Film Development Corporation of India] film called
Trisandhya
and
Ulfat
. I don’t know if
Trisandhya
was finally released.

NMK:
Your Wikipedia entry has
Baayein Haath Ka Khel
down as a released film.

WR:
I am sure it was never released. I think there was some misunderstanding between the producer and Rajesh Khanna. I don’t know what happened in the end because I had moved to Bangalore.

Rajesh Khanna and I acted in a few films together—
Khamoshi
,
Maqsad
and
Dharam Kanta
.

NMK:
He was amazingly popular in his time. His smile became a kind of trademark.

I have always believed a star must have a winning smile. Rajesh Khanna’s smile had millions swooning and so did Dev Anand’s. You have that kind of smile too—a smile that lights up the face.

WR:
Oh yes? Madhubala had a lovely smile. Dev Anand was all charm.

In fact he was the only star who could put his arms around any actress and she would not object or push him away. Today the stars are physically affectionate with each other—there’s a lot of hugging—but we were reserved in our time. Yet none of us minded when Dev put his arms around us. He would say: ‘Hi, Waheeda! Hi, Nandu’—that’s what he used to call Nanda.

The other actors were jealous and complained that whenever they tried to give us a hug, we girls would push them away. Dev was a decent flirt.
[laughs]

NMK:
Your family background, being the daughter of an IAS officer, was probably quite different from the background of most people working in films in the 1950s. Was it something that set you apart?

WR:
Not really, all kinds of people worked in films. When I first started, I was very apprehensive and my mother was too. But I never forgot the advice of our producer friend Mr Prasad who said I should not concede to every demand. For example, I made it a rule that no one should call me at home after 9.30
at night.

Sometime in 1965, I was working in
Palki
. One evening K. Asif was finalizing a scene with the actor Mahesh Kaul and the writers of the film. At 11 p.m. they told their production assistant to inform me of the schedule. The assistant immediately said:
‘No, sir, we cannot call Waheedaji at home after 9.30.’ Asif Saab couldn’t believe it.

A few days later, he asked me: ‘I want to know if it’s true that no one can call you after 9.30? Why not?’

‘Asif Saab, I am not afraid of hard work, but there must be some discipline. Only my sisters who live out of town or my close friends can call me after 9.30.’

NMK:
K. Asif was an amazingly accomplished film-maker. What do you remember of him?

WR:
If anyone talks of Asif Saab, the first thing they speak about is his style of smoking. It was so distinctive. He kept his cigarette between his third and fourth finger, clicked his fingers and took a deep drag.

When we were working in
Palki
, I noticed that Asif Saab did not instruct us clearly about what he wanted us to do. He did not speak in full sentences. The actors had to know him well to second-guess what he wanted. When we were ready for the take, Asif Saab would just say: ‘Try . . . with force.’

‘Do you mean the emotions should be more forceful? Louder?’

‘Yes, that’s what I said.’ He’d click his fingers and take another drag.

In the beginning I found it difficult to understand him. Rajendra Kumar, who was my co-star in
Palki
, had to explain what Asif Saab meant to say. It was very amusing.

NMK:
I suppose some people with a strong visual sense cannot always describe what they want in words. He was probably seeing the scene in his mind’s eye and could not articulate it.

WR:
This is true. He was imaginative and fabulous at conceiving scenes. I don’t believe he was very educated or anything like that, but then one does not have to rely on intellect or education in the creative arts—all you need is imagination. I think creativity is an inborn gift.

Asif Saab once told us about a scene he wanted in
Mughal-e-Azam
where Prince Saleem sends a love letter to Anaarkali. He asked the writers Kamaal Amrohi and Vajahat Mirza to come up with a romantic idea, but they couldn’t. Then Asif Saab came up with the idea of wrapping Saleem’s letter in a lotus and letting the flower float to Anaarkali through the waterways of the palace. How exquisite!