Poonam Dhillon on the making of her 1979 superhit, Noorie, and how it catapulted her into the big league
Poonam Dhillon (MID-DAY; June 24, 2016)

How time flies! 1979 was a special year for me. I actually cannot believe that so many years have passed since Noorie’s release. It was my first big film which propelled me centre stage. That very year, mid-day was born and since then, I have been a regular reader.

Coming back to Noorie, I remember shooting at a place called Bagharwa (in Uttar Pradesh), which, I am sure, nobody has ever heard of. I don’t know how the makers zeroed in on that location. Back then, we were not fully equipped to handle the whole unit in a remote village and so, had put up at a school there. Imagine classrooms being turned into bedrooms for the cast and crew! And there was no proper toilet facility. We used to wait for days for our lightning calls (priority trunk calls) to come through since it was a very small village. In those days, it was difficult and time consuming to contact somebody through ordinary trunk calls, but booking a lightning call did not always mean that it would come through at lightning speed! However, they were good ol’ days. The entire unit was like a close-knit family.

There was no concept of ‘star’ and ‘technician’; everybody was the same. The bonding among all of us was pure and genuine. That is why many of us are still in touch even today.

Noorie’s songs were an instant hit. At that time, Binaca Geetmala (a weekly radio countdown show of most loved film songs) used to have Noorie’s songs as the top tracks. Music was always an important part of filmmaking, but it didn’t really mean a huge amount of money for the producers back then. Also, we would never think about the first week collections. All we had were golden and silver jubilees. I must say that things have now changed in a big way. We are in a completely different era of filmmaking today, be it the kind of films that are being made or the market for them. But the industry’s growth over the years has been quite commendable.

We are getting recognition overseas and the world is keeping a tap on our films. Hindi films were always looked upon as dance dramas and people used to make fun of us, but today, the industry and the artistes get respect.

Having said that, I do miss that little innocence that we had back then.