Conversations with Waheeda Rehman (18 page)

While we were working on
Palki
, Asif Saab narrated some fantastic scenes of
Sasta Khoon Mehenga Paani
, a film he was planning with Rajendra Kumar. Sadly the film was shelved. He was a very interesting person.

NMK:
I wonder why he was not credited as the director of
Palki
along with S.U. Sunny and Mahesh Kaul.

WR:
S.U. Sunny was to produce and direct the film but he passed away in 1966. Then sometime later Rajendra thought they should restart it because it was a very good subject. Mahesh
Kaul was the original screenplay writer, and he decided to direct, but Rajendra Kumar wanted K. Asif. So Asif Saab helped out on an informal basis and maybe that’s why it was agreed that he would not be credited.

There was a lot of confusion on the
Palki
sets. It isn’t easy working with two directors. They were both very intelligent men and we actors didn’t know who to listen to. Mahesh Kaul would say the take was good and Asif Saab would say let’s go for another take.

NMK:
Your co-star Rajendra Kumar was a popular actor in the 1960s and part of the ’70s. As you know he was famously called
‘Jubilee Kumar’ because many of his films enjoyed a jubilee run. I believe you made three films with him.

WR:
Besides
Palki
, I made
Shatranj
and
Dharti
with him. He was a very popular star. But he cried a lot in his films. I used to tell him: ‘If you cry so much, Rajendraji, how will I cry?’ He would smile and say: ‘Oh sorry, you’re right. One more take.’

I remember this one delightful incident. Rajendra and I were on location in Lausanne during the shooting of
Dharti
in the late 1960s and by chance I met a little Swiss German girl in a restaurant. When she saw me, she came over and sat on my lap and refused to go back to her parents who were at another table. She would not leave my side for a minute. Her parents had to go somewhere and so they left, saying they’d be back to collect her in a few hours.

During the shooting of
Dharti
in Lausanne, a young Swiss German girl (unidentified) took a shine to Waheeda Rehman. Circa 1970.

The little girl spoke no English and I couldn’t speak German, but we somehow communicated through hand gestures. We had a lovely time. At the end of the day when her parents came to take her home, she was very upset to leave me. She was a sweet little girl. Rajendra Kumar was most amused by the whole story and said the girl and I must have some connection from a previous lifetime. I don’t know her name but I have not forgotten her.

NMK:
The world has become such a small place, thanks to the Net, that she might find herself in this book some day! That would be nice.

Were you considered a romantic pair with Rajendra Kumar?

WR:
Not really. Meena Kumari and Rajendra Kumar made a very successful romantic screen pair and worked in many hit films with tragic stories. Rajendra Kumar was so popular.

Dharmendra also had a great following. And many people loved Balraj Sahni. He was such a sensitive artist and had a lovely face.

NMK:
His face epitomized decency and integrity, and what an extraordinary actor he was.

Can we talk about another fascinating director you worked with—the exuberant Manmohan Desai?

WR:
Before we made
Coolie
in 1983, he was making
Naseeb
and that’s when we met. For a party scene in the film where Amitabh sings ‘John Jaani Janaardhan’, Manmohan Desai asked many top Hindi film stars to make a guest appearance. He also asked me to participate. I think it was the first and probably the last time that so many stars came together in the same film.

On the day of the shoot, Manmohan Desai said: ‘Waheedaji, I have a request; I am sure you won’t refuse. Shammi Kapoor wants to walk into the party arm in arm with you.’ I said okay and he ran like a child to tell Shammiji, who had wanted to work with me, but somehow it had never happened.

Shammiji came over to me and said: ‘
Arey kya baat hai ji?
I was dying to work with you.’ I said: ‘This is our last chance. Let’s enter the party together.’

Sometime later, Manmohan Desai offered me the role of Amitabh’s mother in
Coolie
. He asked Shashi [Rekhy] to play my husband in the film. But Shashi had given up acting ten years before that and wasn’t keen to face the camera again.

NMK:
Coolie
became doubly famous because of Amitabh Bachchan’s near fatal accident on the set in 1982.

WR:
Yes, it was awful. Poor fellow. Thank God he recovered.

NMK:
Manmohan Desai was an amazing man. I made a documentary on him in 1987, and was very fond of him. He had a beautiful singing voice.

WR:
Really? I didn’t know that. He would always be jumping about. He could never sit still.

As I told you, I have a logical mind and I would ask Manji how some situations in his films were possible. He would say:
‘Waheedaji, it’s a Manmohan Desai movie—there is no logic. No truth. No reality.’

I remember a scene in
Coolie
where the villain is chasing Amitabh, Chintu [Rishi Kapoor] and me. I fall and am injured, and a bandage is put on my forehead.

The next scene we were filming was the climax scene. We shot it somewhere near the Bandra Reclamation. A huge crowd
had gathered to watch us shoot. Kadar Khan was also there and he was very popular too.

After a few shots, I said: ‘These assistants are very bad. They should have remembered to put the bandage on my forehead for continuity. I should have thought of it myself.’ Chintu looked at me and said softly: ‘This must be the first time you’re working with Manmohan Desai. There’s nothing for you to worry about because he never gives the viewer the time to see what went wrong where. If you notice the continuity in his movie that means the picture is a flop.’
[we laugh]

NMK:
He was an original. I still miss him.

WR:
He suffered from terrible backaches and poor health.

Manji’s passing was a loss to Hindi cinema and a big shock for us all. He had a great personality.

NMK:
This is really the age of the celebrity. And thanks to Facebook and Twitter, everyone seems to want to know what the stars are doing on a daily basis. Before the Net, you must have had contact with your fans. Did you receive letters from your admirers? When did that start?

WR:
Just after the release of
C.I.D.
I started getting fan mail. In the early days, I read the postcards and letters. I didn’t have a secretary and so I threw away everything. I was told it was rude not to reply because most fans only wanted a signed photograph.
So I started sending out signed photographs.

I got strange fan mail too. There was a man who sent me eight-page letters every day for weeks on end. He wrote: ‘I am going to build a Taj Mahal for you, better than the real one. You live in my heart . . .’ He claimed to be an architect and I wondered if it was true and if so, how did he find the time to write such long letters to me?
[we laugh]

NMK:
Did you ever meet any of your fans?

WR:
Yes, I did. A young man once wrote saying we did not need to marry because we were already married. Crazy fellow. I forgot all about it, but then one day he landed up at our door. It was very scary. Thankfully my sisters and my servants were there. When one of our servants tried to stop him from entering the house, he said:
‘Tu kaun hai chaar paisewala, hato! Main apni biwi se milne aaya hoon.’
[Cheapskate! Who are you to stop me? I have come to see my wife.]

We had to call the watchman to get rid of him. It was a frightening experience.

NMK:
I hope you have had a more positive encounter with a fan.

WR:
I had a very special encounter once. One day a woman came up to me in a shop and said: ‘I have wanted to meet you for years. I have something personal I want to share with you. You know Shanti, the character you played in
Trishul
? Well,
my life was just like hers. I was in love with someone and was expecting his child. He abandoned me, but I decided to bring up the child on my own. It was a terrible struggle. When I saw you in
Trishul
, I thought to myself, if you could do it, so could I.’ I found her story very moving.

NMK:
The 1978 film you are talking about tackled a very daring subject because in those days the story of single mothers was uncommon in Hindi cinema and frowned upon by society.
Trishul
was a very popular Yash Chopra film based on a Salim–Javed script with some leading stars, including Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar.

WR:
Yes, it was popular and it dealt with a bold subject. Unmarried mothers had to face many social stigmas. There is a famous scene in the film in which someone asks the hero Vijay, who is forever putting himself in danger, why he never fears anything in life and he answers:
‘Maine maa ki nazron mein maut har din dekhi hai, to mujhe kis baat ka darr?’
[I have seen death in my mother’s eyes every day. What could possibly frighten me now?]

Vijay finally has his revenge on his father by taking over his business and renaming the company ‘Shanti’ after his mother.

NMK:
Before
Trishul
you played the heroine opposite Amitabh Bachchan
.
Was it odd to play the mother of an actor who was once your romantic lead?

WR:
By the late 1970s, I had started playing mother roles. This kind of casting is not unusual in Indian cinema. Even in regional cinema, in Tamil and Telugu films, many actresses have played the heroine, mother and sister of the same male star. Audiences have never questioned it.

NMK:
I can’t imagine an actor playing Anushka Sharma’s hero in one film and her father in another, even if the male star is old enough in real life to be her father. But ours is not to reason why.
[we laugh]

Since you started working in Hindi films in 1955, you have seen the heroine’s character change over the decades. How do you define this change?

WR:
Every ten years you can see a distinct change in the role of the heroine. In the 1950s and ’60s, the hero and heroine had more or less equal importance. You also had Meena Kumariji’s many heroine-oriented films in the 1950s—the character she played won the sympathy of the audience because she was a woman who sacrificed everything in the name of love or family duty. People liked Meena Kumari in those roles.

In the 1970s, the hero took over and the violent action film became popular—that was Amitabh Bachchan’s era. In his time, the girl became a kind of showpiece, that’s all. The heroines had nothing to do. But I think roles for women are getting better again in Indian cinema.

NMK:
Is there a character you would have liked to play?

WR:
Radha in
Mother India
and the role Suchitra Sen played in
Mamta
. I liked the character of Radha because she made such a deep impact on the minds of people.

In fact, when producers wanted to cast me in a mother’s role, to persuade me they would say: ‘This is a
Mother India
role.’ But it was not at all true!

We artistes are very greedy and want to be in the film from the first to the last frame. All artistes like the challenge of growing old on screen. It proves what great actors we are—how real we look at every age.
[we laugh]

NMK:
I was reading an article on Audrey Hepburn recently and her son Luca Dotti remembered her saying: ‘I don’t understand why people see me as beautiful.’ It is an amazing and a heart-warming statement. The fact that Audrey Hepburn was not vain makes her even more beautiful.

How aware were you of being regarded as a great beauty?

WR:
[laughs]
I promise you no one ever told me: ‘Wow, how beautiful you are!’ They would say: ‘You photograph well.’ Therefore the compliment was directed at the photographer or the make-up artist or whoever.

I am being very honest with you and God knows it, I have never thought of myself as beautiful. I knew I had a photogenic face, but I’ve never thought I looked like Aishwarya Rai or Hema
Malini. People look at them and would say, ‘Wow!’ I didn’t think I had a ‘wow’ kind of personality. When I see my photographs, I think I’m pretty but nothing special.