Conversations with Waheeda Rehman Read online

  Jabba keeps asking Bhoothnath about Chhoti Bahu. She is curious about her and I suggested that Bhoothnath could take Jabba to the haveli so she could see Chhoti Bahu, at least from afar. Guruduttji hummed and hawed and finally said he didn’t think it would work.

  NMK: Did you go on set while Meena Kumari was shooting?

  WR: I did once. They were filming the song ‘Na jao saiyyan chhuda ke baiyan’. Guruduttji was there, even though he was not required for the scene.

  By the time we were making Sahib Bibi, I had made friends with many people in films. I was ten years younger to Meenaji but we were good friends. When she left her husband Kamaal Amrohi, I suggested she buy a flat in the building where I was living. I thought we could help each other, and so she needn’t feel alone. When I heard she was very ill, I immediately went to the nursing home where she had been admitted. It was somewhere in Chowpatty. She was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver.

  Meenaji came with us to the Moscow Film Festival in 1967 when Teesri Kasam was nominated in the best film category. Nargisji was a jury member for the children’s film section and Sunil Dutt was there too. They asked the festival organizers to invite Meenaji, and I believe she had some medical treatment in Moscow.

  NMK: Meena Kumari was extraordinary in Sahib Bibi. It was such a great film. Do you have a favourite Guru Dutt film?

  WR: Sahib Bibi is very good and I like it very much. But my favourite is Pyaasa. It has such a smooth flow. The story of Kaagaz Ke Phool did not have a smooth flow.

  NMK: Pyaasa and Sahib Bibi created a world that felt authentic—as a viewer you could almost imagine living among the people you were watching.

  Now this might be an awkward question, but who actually directed Sahib Bibi? Was it Abrar Alvi or Guru Dutt? Is it something you can talk about?

  WR: It’s unfair to discuss it since Abrar is no more. I know Guruduttji did not always come on the sets. He would stay upstairs in his office at Natraj Studios. But he did come down to the set, if Abrar needed him.

  When Sahib Bibi was being cast, I wanted to do Chhoti Bahu’s role, but Meena Kumari had been cast. So I didn’t think I would be part of the film. Then Abrar came over and told me he was going to direct it. It was news to me. He asked me to do Jabba’s role. I was reminded of Guruduttji’s advice not to play the secondary heroine. I was quite popular by then and so I refused. But Abrar insisted.

  Guruduttji called me later and asked if I had agreed to do the film. He said: ‘Rehman has the role of the Sahib, Meenaji is the Bibi and I play the Ghulam. Your role isn’t the lead role.’ I told him I agreed to play Jabba since I didn’t want people to think I had refused because Abrar Alvi was directing the film.

  I do recall telling Abrar Saab once that I didn’t understand what he wanted me to do in some scene, and said he wasn’t explaining it to me clearly. I did not complain to Guruduttji, but I think Murthy went and told him that I was finding it difficult.

  On location in Panhala for Bees Saal Baad, cast opposite Biswajit. The ghost story, a major hit, was released in the same year as Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. Circa 1962.

  NMK: What about the songs in the film? Who directed them?

  WR: We shot the song ‘Bhanwaraa badaa nadaan haye’ and then the whole unit saw the rushes. Abrar Saab wasn’t there that day. I felt the shot taking was dull. So we told Guruduttji it was all right if he didn’t want to direct the scenes, but he had to do the songs. He then spoke to Abrar and reshot the song brilliantly. He directed all the songs in Sahib Bibi.

  NMK: I wonder why Guru Dutt decided not to sign any film as director after Kaagaz Ke Phool. Do you think it was because the film had flopped?

  WR: It is very strange. He never told me he didn’t want to direct any more. You mean he never directed again? What was his last film?

  NMK: Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi. Shahid Lateef directed it. The last film Guru Dutt signed was Kaagaz Ke Phool.

  WR: Is it right for someone to get so disheartened by one flop? Everyone makes films that don’t work.

  His sister Lalli [the artist Lalitha Lajmi] told me once that Guruduttji suffered from depression. In the last years of his life he was very confused. We could all see that. He was unhappy. But no one realized just how depressed he was.

  He started a film called Raaz in which I starred opposite Sunil Dutt. His chief assistant Niranjan was directing it. The story was something on the lines of Woh Kaun Thi?. Rehman Saab and I shot many good scenes, but Guruduttji shelved the film. When we asked why, he said: ‘Nahin jam raha hai.’ [It isn’t working.] Then he started Gauri with Geeta who wanted to act. He shelved that too.

  NMK: Sadly none of the footage of the unfinished films exist.

  Maybe the failure of Kaagaz Ke Phool shook Guru Dutt’s confidence and perhaps unnerved him.

  WR: My husband suffered from depression as well and we didn’t realize it. He started losing interest in everything. He didn’t want to meet people and basically didn’t feel like doing anything.

  In the same way, no one knew how Guruduttji was really feeling. His brother Atmaram was not in India at the time. He was very fond of his sister Lalli, and very close to his mother, but I don’t know whether he talked to them about his feelings.

  NMK: There continues to be much speculation about your relationship with him. Everyone assumed that you were in love with each other. Did that cause a scandal when you were making films with him?

  WR: Because his death was a mystery—no one knew for sure whether it was a suicide or an accident—there was much curiosity. His death was such a shock to us all. He was only thirty-nine. He was young. The question everyone asked was: ‘Why did he have to die like that?’

  None of my film colleagues have ever asked me personal questions about our relationship. It was always other people and the press who were curious, and still are, almost sixty years later.

  I know we’re public figures, but I strongly believe my private life should remain private. What ultimately matters and concerns the world is the work we leave behind.

  NMK: Maybe it was because he filmed you in such a romantic and loving light that stirred this curiosity—which just doesn’t seem to go away.

  WR: It was true of the way he filmed others too. Don’t you agree with me that Meena Kumari has never looked as beautiful as she did in Sahib Bibi?

  You must know all directors want their leading lady to look special. I think a director has to be a little in love with his leading actress so he will project her as the most beautiful woman in the world. Considering the kind of romantic stories we make, this is a must.

  Guruduttji was good to me and to many people, including Sadiq Saab and Johnny Walker, whom he introduced to films. In fact he was sensitive to everyone’s needs. He helped me in many ways and guided my career. He was caring and protective. But in truth, he looked out for everyone.

  NMK: Do you remember when you worked with Guru Dutt for the last time?

  WR: It must have been in 1961 or 1962. I don’t remember the exact date—but it was during the filming of the final scene in Sahib Bibi. Jabba is waiting for Bhoothnath in a carriage in the haveli ruins. That was the last time we worked together. He never offered me another role after Sahib Bibi.

  I was in Madras when Guruduttji passed away. I had gone there for a charity cricket match with a group of stars. Dilip Saab was there too. The actress Shammi Rabadi, who is a close friend of mine, came and told me she had some very bad news. She said: ‘Guru Dutt is no more.’ Oh my God, I was completely stunned. I knew he had tried to commit suicide before, but it was still a terrible shock. I immediately flew back to Bombay. This was on 10 October 1964. There were many people at the funeral, including Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand. It was a very sad day.

  NMK: Do you recall when you last saw him? Or spoke to him?

  WR: Abrar, my sister Sayeeda and I had gone to the Berlin Film Festival in June 1963 where Sahib Bibi was screened. Guruduttji joined us there. No one liked the film in Berlin. They found it slow, despite the fact
that a shorter version was screened there on the evening of 27 June. The festival director asked me: ‘If Chhoti Bahu is so unhappy with her husband, why doesn’t she go away with Bhoothnath?’ [laughs] I said: ‘It doesn’t happen like that in our culture.’

  Their culture is totally different. I tried explaining why the aristocrats of that time could do no such thing. In fact, when Chhoti Bahu steps out of the house for the first time, she is murdered for having broken with tradition. Besides, Chhoti Bahu is not in love with Bhoothnath and neither does he love her—it is her sadness and beauty that fascinate him.

  Guruduttji was present at the screening, but he left Berlin the following day.

  NMK: The Berlin Film Festival was held between 21 June and 2 July 1963. So that means you did not meet him for a whole year, and then you heard he had passed away in October 1964. Is that right?

  WR: Yes. The last time I saw him must have been in Berlin. We did not work together after Sahib Bibi.

  Losing someone is always upsetting. Even though Yash Chopra was eighty his death was a shock to me. I met Yashji at Amitabh Bachchan’s seventieth birthday party about ten days before Yashji passed away. He hugged me and said he was feeling tired and wanted to go home. His wife, Pamela, thought they should stay at the party a little longer. I think Yashji was admitted to the hospital a few days later. The next thing I heard was that he had passed away. I was very sad.

  So you can imagine what a shock Guruduttji’s death was for his family, for me and for all the people who worked closely with him.

  We must, however, think of the amazing respect he has in the world today. No other Indian director after Satyajit Ray has, I believe, that kind of international recognition and admiration.

  NMK: That is true. It is ironic that Guru Dutt’s fame spread after his death—something he predicted in Pyaasa as being the fate of some artists. But few Indian film-makers have as enduring a power as he has.

  I also believe if popular Indian cinema had been better known in the West in the 1950s, Guru Dutt would have most certainly been counted among world cinema’s finest directors. He had such a singular voice and vision.

  WR: I am lucky to have worked in his films. I don’t believe they will ever be forgotten.

  NMK: You have contributed to many classics and I can imagine it is satisfying to have such a substantial legacy. I am not sure how many Indian actors will leave behind as many memorable films. I’d like to ask you about another important film in your career—Mujhe Jeene Do. Set in the Chambal Valley of Madhya Pradesh, this tale about a dacoit and a dancer was among the highest-earning films in 1963.

  What made Sunil Dutt decide to produce a dacoit story?

  WR: From the early 1960s, Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan encouraged the Chambal River Valley dacoits to surrender. It was around the same time that the story of dacoits became a popular subject in Hindi cinema. The trend started in 1960 with Raj Kapoor’s Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai. In 1961 came Gunga Jumna with Dilip Saab and in 1963 Sunil Dutt released Mujhe Jeene Do, directed by Moni Bhattacharjee who had worked as Bimal Roy’s assistant on the classic films Do Bigha Zamin and Madhumati.

  You could say even Sholay was about a dacoit, Gabbar Singh. And Sunil Dutt himself had played a good son turned dacoit in Mother India. When we were shooting Mujhe Jeene Do, Sunilji told me about an incident that took place during the making of Mother India. He had to play an emotional scene and, to get the emotion right, Mehboob Saab asked him to lie face down on the ground. He then stood on Sunilji’s back and twisted his arm. When he screamed in pain, Mehboob Saab said: ‘I want you to cry out just like that in the shot!’ I told Sunilji I hoped he had no intention of doing that to me. [we laugh]

  NMK: I read an article by Deepak Mahan [The Hindu, 13 May 2010] in which he interviewed several former outlaws who believed Mujhe Jeene Do had the most authentic depiction of dacoit life while they felt that films like Sholay were glamorized figments of imagination that bore no connection to reality.

  WR: Sunil Dutt’s intention was to show the reality of dacoits, and that was the interesting thing about the film—eighty-five per cent of the story was based on real-life incidents, including those involving the notorious ‘daaku’ Maan Singh.

  We had police protection while we were shooting the film in the ravines of Bhind–Morena. I remember hearing about a woman who had been kidnapped and who later became a dacoit. One of her hands had been cut off and so she had to fire her gun with one hand. I have forgotten her name, but it is a true story. Her daughter came to see me during the filming of Mujhe Jeene Do and, when she saw our costumes, she said: ‘My mother never wore a ghagra-choli, she wore pants.’

  A day off during the filming of Sunil Dutt’s Mujhe Jeene Do. Chambal Valley, circa 1962.

  NMK: So much for the costume department!

  You play the prostitute Chamelijaan in the film. She is a woman who is abducted by the dacoit Jarnail Singh [Sunil Dutt] who falls in love with her when he sees her dancing at a wedding. What kind of person is Chameli?

  WR: She has a defiant nature and although she is at Jarnail Singh’s mercy, she refuses to dance for him and tells him: ‘I dance at happy occasions—at weddings or when children are born. But your hands are stained with blood. Because of you, women become widows and children are orphaned. What right do you have to tell me to dance?’ I thought that was a good scene.

  Portraying Chamelijaan was a challenge because her character goes through many transformations—from dancing girl to wife, wife to protective mother—I needed to express a range of emotions.

  A character touches me if I believe the events in the film could actually happen to someone in real life. Then I can perform better. When the characters and storylines are too unreal, my work isn’t very good. My heart isn’t in it. But great actors like Dilip Saab, Amitabh or Naseeruddin Shah can perform well even when the character, or the dramatic situations they need to bring alive, seem artificial. I can’t do that.

  NMK: Mujhe Jeene Do has your exquisite song ‘Raat bhi hai kuch bheegi bheegi’ by Jaidev and Sahir. You perform the dance in the wedding scene where Jarnail Singh and his band of dacoits see you for the first time.

  WR: I liked that song very much. Lachhu Maharaj choreographed it so beautifully. His mudras and bhavas were very delicate. The facial expressions were soft and Lata Mangeshkar sang the song with such sensitivity that she made it easy for me to convey the right tone and mood.

  The dance itself was not difficult. However, the way it was filmed was technically complicated. I danced on a large mirror that had been painted black, but the mirror reflected everything and so lighting the set was tricky. The end result, however, created a mysterious and interesting effect.

  NMK: Have you noticed how often Hindi films, particularly the older ones, have a song performed for an audience within the story? The heroine is dancing and the hero sits among the onlookers. Or the hero is singing and the heroine, looking embarrassed and awkward, is a guest at a party. We could call it a performance within a performance.

  I have always wondered if the popularity of this setting is a harking back to cinema’s theatre origins by recreating a performance and an audience.

  WR: I have no idea why this kind of setting became popular. There are many examples—the hero plays the piano and sings a sad song. Or the heroine is dancing while the hero mingles among the party guests and watches her dance.

  I know that distributors used to worry if a film only had five songs, and so film-makers would be more or less obliged to add a few more songs. Perhaps the party scene was an easy scene to add.

  NMK: I suppose it could fit into any story and so we see it in all sorts of films.

  You have worked in the black-and-white and the colour film eras. Did the switch affect the way you worked?

  WR: When we started shooting colour films—and I was told this later—the film speed, the emulsion’s sensitivity to light, was not very high. As a result, they needed hard lights and reflectors, and these we
re very harsh on our skin and eyes. It was uncomfortable for us actors.

  When colour-film speed increased, the lighting became softer. That helped a lot.

  NMK: Is it true that black-and-white photography required you to wear colours like yellow or red to enhance the contrast?

  WR: Yes, it is true. Strong and dark colours helped to increase the contrast and we were particularly asked not to wear pure white in black-and-white films. They said it reflected light. We mostly wore pastel blues, off-whites and pale greens.

  NMK: Colour photography took over Indian cinema very late, as compared to Hollywood. So you have both black-and-white and colour films being produced side by side till the late 1960s. When colour photography did take over, one can honestly say the films were not sophisticatedly lit through the 1970s and ’80s. The lighting wasn’t very good, the zoom lens didn’t help and even the make-up, especially for male actors, exaggerated the problem. Faces were powdered white while you could see the hands and neck of the actor were his natural colour.

  I remember visiting a film set in the early 1980s and hearing the camera assistant cry out: ‘Full light!’ And all the lights went on and every inch of the set was lit with the same intensity. No shading, no pools of darkness to create atmosphere.

  WR: You’re right. It took time for Indian films to be photographed properly in colour. For colour to work well, the lighting has to be subdued and soft. In the early days they wanted to show as many colours as possible—everything had to been bold and brash. It was to show they were making a film in colour rather than making the story work. [we laugh]

  Many years after I had more or less stopped working, I returned to the sets for Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. When I saw the set, I wondered where all the lights had gone because the lighting was so soft. I was told they now use reflected light.

  I don’t know if you know this, but I was supposed to play Amitabh’s mother in Karan’s film. I shot for a day, but on that same day my husband fell very ill and had to be admitted to hospital. So I pulled out of K3G.