Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 28, 2017)

Anil Kapoor turned 61 on Christmas Eve and Padmini Kolhapure, his leading lady of Woh 7 Din, which was produced by his father Surinder Kapoor and brother Boney Kapoor, is quick to acknowledge that 34 years later, Prem Pratap Singh Patialawale is still brimming with the same energy, enthusiasm and dedication to his craft. That’s what had set him apart from the crowd of new faces when they had worked together in this Hindi remake of the Tamil hit, Andha 7 Naatkal, in 1983. And that’s what makes him still jhakaas today.

“Anil hasn’t changed much except for the fact that he seems to be getting younger with the years. And for that I’d give credit to his wife Sunita. A woman can make or break a man and Sunita has made Anil the man he is today,” she asserts.

Going back by three decades, Padmini informs that since her parents knew his well, she was in and out of the Kapoor house when they were growing up and the camaraderie they shared, spilled over to the sets. “We would eat our lunch together, sometimes the food coming from his home and sometimes from mine,” says the actress who played Maya, the landlord’s daughter who falls in love with a struggling singer and the new tenant who thinks himself unworthy of her till she convinces him that they are made for each other and should elope. But they are caught, Prem is married and Maya forcibly married off to Dr Anand, a widower with an ailing mother. “Anil was absolutely brilliant as the flamboyant Punjabi Prem in the first half who is thoda darpok, thoda macho, thoda naïve, thoda shana. Bapu (director) would enact the scenes for us and I would marvel at how naturally Anil would slip into character,” Padmini flashbacks.

The plot changes when Maya attempts suicide on the night of her marriage and on being questioned by her husband admits that she’s in love with someone else. Dr Anand promises to unite Prem and her after his mother’s death and keeps his word too. But by then Maya has grown close to her step-daughter and husband and Prem leaves her home, alone, pointing out to Anand that it is against our culture to walk away with another man’s wife. “No matter how independent we are in our thinking, it’s hard for a woman to walk out on her husband and marriage. Even today, it’s painful,” Padmini justifies the conventional end.

She remembers how Anil tried to play matchmaker, trying to get her to meet his producer-friend Pradeep (Tutu) Sharma, insisting he’d keep her happy. “Tutu and I had already started dating by then and to ensure that our secret remained between us, my ‘No way!’ to Anil was loud and rang with conviction. Little did he know then that I was on the studio landline chatting for hours with Tutu who gave a different name every time he called and asked for me so no one would suspect,” she laughs at the intrigue.

Soon after she eloped with Tutu and married him. Padmini admits that Anil has still not forgiven her for keeping him in the dark. “Every time he sees Tutu and me together he shakes his head and says, ‘Kya ullu banaya mujhe, kabhi maaf nahin karoonga tujhe!’” she chuckles.

Woh 7 Din remains memorable even today and Padmini who was in Varanasi recently was pleasantly surprised when a judge she was sharing the stage with at a function, mentioned it among his favourite Padmini starrers and even in Japan, people were raving about it. Three years after its release, Anil and she reunited for Pyar Kiya Hai Pyar Karenge and were to do Kasam together in 1988. “I had even shot for it but by then I didn’t want to work in films anymore and since co-producers Indu (Indra Kumar) and Ashok (producer Ashok Thakeria), director Umesh Mehra and Anil were friends, Tutu could confide in them and Poonam (Dhillon) ended up stepping in for me,” she signs off, still laughing at how she fooled Anil.