Conversations with Waheeda Rehman (20 page)

Sometime later Kamal sent me a tall candle. We sisters were very fond of food. We decided to make a soup and soufflé, switch off all the lights and have a candlelit dinner. We settled at the table, ready for our meal, and although we tried everything, the candle just would not light. I said jokingly: ‘The candle is just like Kamal. Shy and reserved.’

NMK:
How did
Shagoon
do at the box office?

WR:
It flopped miserably; even
Son of India
had not done well and neither had his other films. When Kamal realized that in spite of working with Mehboob Saab, his career had not taken off, he thought it was better to give up acting and try something else. I think it was a very unusual decision because actors rarely want to quit.

Kamaljeet stopped working in films and went to London. I don’t remember what he did there, but a year later, he moved to Toronto where some of his Delhi friends were living. He settled in Toronto and opened some shops. Every winter he would return to Delhi to meet his family.

NMK:
What kind of business did your husband do?

WR:
Shashi started exporting garments to Canada. He and his partner planned to open a restaurant in San Diego. But they had to put the idea on hold because Shashi needed to return to Bombay to oversee his garment factory as the production was not going well.

Whenever Shashi came to Bombay he stayed with his close friends Yash and Hiroo Johar. They happened to be close friends of mine, so the three of them would come over together. I knew Yash Johar from the days when he worked as production-in-charge on
Mujhe Jeene Do
and
Guide
. He was a very decent man.

One day when Yash and Hiroo had brought Shashi over, I noticed that he had put on a lot of weight since the
Shagoon
days, and I asked him jokingly: ‘You must have a Punjabi wife who is feeding you parathas and ghee.’ He laughed.

Sometime in 1972, I told him I wanted to open an Indian restaurant in Paris. Shashi said: ‘You know my partner and I are planning to start a restaurant in San Diego—why don’t we work together?’ A few days later, Shashi called and said: ‘I’d like to talk to you about something. Can I come over?’

I had this feeling he was very fond of me, but I thought he wanted to discuss my investing in a restaurant. I was keen on the idea of an Indian restaurant in Paris, but actually didn’t have the money to invest at that time. I decided that I would be open with him and explain the situation when he came over.

As we were having coffee, Shashi suddenly said: ‘I want to marry you. Will you marry me?’ It hit me like a bombshell. Did
I hear right? I looked down. I didn’t know what to say. He was quiet for a minute and then said: ‘I asked you something. You didn’t answer.’ All I could say was that I needed time to think it over.

There comes a moment in life when we all think about settling down and having children. I was thirty-four, and to be very frank, my career was no longer at its peak because Hindi cinema as such does not have good roles for women over thirty. I wanted to get married and so I thought about his proposal.

Yash Johar used to call me ‘Maalik’. A few days later, he called me and said: ‘Maalik, you’ll be the death of us. This fellow is pacing up and down the room, smoking like crazy. We live in a small flat and we’re going to fall sick with all his smoke. Is it yes or no? I think you had better say yes. Shashi is a good man. I know him. You have worked with him.’

‘Yes, I have, though I can’t say I know him well.’

‘He’s good-looking and a man of good character.’

I thought about it for a few more days and then finally agreed to marry Shashi.

You may not know this, but I was engaged a year before that. My sisters were pressurizing me to marry and like a fool I agreed. I was engaged to someone from Najibabad in UP. I don’t want to name him because it’s not fair.

Things did not work out and I decided not to marry. When Shashi proposed to me, some friends advised me not to say yes in a hurry. But I have always taken risks in life and knew that Shashi was a decent man. I was comfortable in his company.

NMK:
What kind of wedding ceremony did you have?

WR:
A registrar marriage. We had to wait six weeks for a date from the registry office. Although we wanted to keep our wedding a private affair, the news somehow leaked out in the press. Sadhana called Yash Johar whom she considered a rakhi brother and said: ‘What is this? Waheeda is getting married? I heard the news from a friend in New York.’ Yashji pretended to be surprised: ‘No! Really? To whom?’
[laughs]

Shashi went into a panic and we decided to have a high-powered meeting at Yash Johar’s house to discuss what we should do. There was Yash, Hiroo, my sisters, Shashi and I. Yash thought we should go to America and get married in Nevada. He had heard that one could marry there in twenty-four hours. I said no—how could I marry without my family? We even talked about having a kind of ceremony in which couples exchange garlands—the kind you see in the movies. But Shashi said: ‘I’ll only start laughing. I’ll think we’re shooting!’

Finally Yash said: ‘Shashi, you don’t follow any religion. At least Waheeda prays. Why not call a maulvi and have a nikah?’ Shashi agreed and we had a Muslim wedding on 26 July 1974
in our Sahil home.

NMK:
Did your husband’s family have any problem with his marrying a Muslim?

WR:
His brother and uncles were not at all religious. Shashi was forty years old and had just announced that he was marrying Waheeda. ‘Which Waheeda?’ They were very happy to hear it was Waheeda Rehman.

Shashi Rekhy and Waheeda Rehman were married in Bombay on 26 July 1974. They first met on the sets of
Shagoon
in 1964.

Our wedding was a very small and quiet affair. We were about sixty people—there was Shashi’s family, my family and our close friends, including Nanda, Hiroo Johar and Salim and Salma Khan. There was no press at all. I was most upset that Yash Johar was away in London on urgent work and couldn’t attend our wedding.

After Shashi and I were married, we moved permanently to this house. Shashi got on very well with our neighbour Salim Saab and so we were constantly at his place. We would sit on
the balcony and talk for hours. We met in good times and in bad times.

NMK:
Did you live in Canada for any period of time?

WR:
No, but we went to Toronto and San Diego for our honeymoon. I was in a hurry to have children and within six months, I was expecting. Shashi’s mother was very pleased and, because her other son had not married, she asked us to stay in India. She wanted to be near her future grandchildren. My son Sohail was born in 1975 and daughter Kashvi in 1976.

NMK:
Kashvi is an unusual name.

WR:
It was Shashi’s idea. He said if we had a daughter, we should call her Kashvi because he liked the name of Marlon Brando’s former wife—Anna Kashfi.

I asked Ishaq Saab, who has recently been helping me brush up on my Urdu, the meaning of my children’s names and he said: ‘Sohail means a bright star in Arabic and Kashvi means a shining star in Sanskrit.’

NMK:
Their names mean the same thing? What about Waheeda?

WR:
It comes from the Arabic word ‘
wahid
’, which means ‘one’. Or you could say the only one.

NMK:
The unique.

Can you tell me if there was any tension between you and your husband because you were a famous star? Was it awkward for him, for example, that you were recognized everywhere?

WR:
No, to the contrary. If I happened to call someone for information and introduce myself as Mrs Rekhy, he would say: ‘Don’t waste time. Just tell them you’re Waheeda Rehman. Your work will be done at once.’ When I did that, I always got an enthusiastic response: ‘Waheeda Rehman? You should have said so.’ Shashi was very generous to think in that way.

NMK:
Why did you move to Bangalore?

WR:
The Bombay weather was a problem for Shashi. He found the humidity uncomfortable. His cousin who lived in Bangalore encouraged us to move there. One year we decided to go to Bangalore to celebrate our wedding anniversary, and Shashi fell in love with the climate. That’s when we decided to settle down and live on a farm there. We ran a dairy and a vegetable farm, grew sunflowers and made sunflower oil.

In 1983, when we were about to leave Bombay, Yash Johar told me: ‘Don’t take all your belongings; you’ll be back in six months. Maalik, you’ve worked for a long time in films. How can you live with your young children on a farm, in a jungle? You’re crazy.’

At that time Shashi’s brother had fallen very ill with cancer,
and so he was rushed to New York where he spent months at Sloan–Kettering.

So the children and I moved to Bangalore when Shashi was away in New York. The farmhouse was not quite completed and we had to live in two rooms. The kitchen was ready, but there was no power. I remember the children had to do their homework by gaslight. But I was determined to move and once I decide something, I have to do it.

I wanted my children to grow up in a natural environment, for them to know the beauty of flowers, fruits, trees and animals. It was lovely and peaceful living on a farm. I enjoyed looking after it. I learned how to make paneer at home—how wonderful it was to pick your own vegetables and eat off the land.

We ended up living on the farm for sixteen years and only returned to Bombay in 2009.

NMK:
What about your Bombay house?

WR:
I rented it out and locked up a room for us to stay in whenever we came to visit. The room didn’t have a kitchen, but Salim Saab was very kind to us and insisted on sending food every day. They sent us tons to eat!

Our garage had been converted into a gym that Salman uses. If I happened to arrive from Bangalore late at night and Salman saw me the next day, he would immediately ask: ‘Aunty, have you had tea?’ He would shout across to his flat in Galaxy
Aparments:
‘Aarey nashta aur chai bhejo Aunty ke leeye.’
[Send tea and breakfast for Aunty.] He is very sweet.

NMK:
I believe you made cereal in Bangalore.

WR:
Yes, it was called Good Earth Breakfast Cereal. Somehow the idea of promoting it as my product embarrassed me. When I went to America to attend a charity gala and visit my niece, we saw Paul Newman’s meat sauce bottles in a mall. My niece said: ‘See? Paul Newman has his name and photograph on the bottle. He gives the money he earns to charity. If you can be a brand ambassador for other brands, why not promote your own cereal?’ That’s when we added my photograph on the box. A shopkeeper later told me everyone asked for Waheeda’s cereal.

I must tell you about a funny incident. During the shooting of
Chandni
, Chintu [Rishi Kapoor] said: ‘Arey, Waheedaji, you have started a serial? Where do you do the shooting?’

‘Shooting? What shooting?’ Then I realized what he meant. ‘Chintu, I am making the eating kind of cereal, not a TV serial.’

NMK:
When you moved to Bangalore, was it difficult adapting to your new life away from the glamour of films?

WR:
I didn’t miss acting very much. After we left Bombay, if I had agreed to act in a film, it was for financial reasons. I had some old income tax dues to pay, and so occasionally I accepted a mother’s role.

With nieces and nephews at home at Poonam Apartments, Nepean Sea Road, Bombay. Circa 1965.

I always wanted to have children. I spent a lot of time with my nieces and nephews, so taking care of Sohail and Kashvi was nothing new to me.