Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 9, 2020)

I was just a schoolgirl when I saw Bimal Roy’s 1955 tragic love story, Devdas, for the first time on Doordarshan. And like so many others, was mesmerised by his Parvati. Even in black and white, Suchitra Sen’s luminous beauty shone through, lighting up the frame when Dilip Kumar as Devdas, livid at being rejected by his Paro for a letter he’s long since regretted writing, says through gritted teeth, “Yeh roop tumhara... itna roop achcha nahin hai.” Then, to put a chand-like daag on her chiselled features to dent her haughty pride, he lashes out with his stick, “Aao tumhare chehre pe aisa hi daag bana de.” As it catches her on the forehead, spilling blood, his face reflects not just his anger, but also his pain and torment.

This scene has stayed with me for decades and it didn’t come as a surprise to learn that Tollygunge’s Mrs Sen had landed the role on the rebound, after Meena Kumari had reluctantly turned it down. She gave her nod because it was the first Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay story offered to her and for its director. It is said that when they were shooting in Mumbai, visitors crowded into Mohan Studio to catch a glimpse of the famous beauty and Bengal’s rising star. No one went away disappointed even though the lady herself stayed aloof and untouched by the adoration.

On Suchitra Sen’s 89th birth anniversary (she entered the world on April 6, 1931), I reached out to Dharmendra, who is at his farm, following the Coronavirus outbreak. The duo had worked together in Asit Sen’s 1966 film Mamta. A Hindi remake of his 1963 Bengali film, Uttar Falguni, it featured her in a double role, as the beautiful Devyani who, after a hellish marriage, becomes the dancing girl Panna Bai, and her lookalike daughter Suparna, whom she is ready to protect with her life. Ashok Kumar played Monish Rai, the man the mother has always loved even after she lost him, while Dharamji was cast as the barrister, Indraneel, who woos the daughter.

“Suchitra was a picture of beauty and after seeing her in Devdas, I had been dreaming of working with her. It is said that when you want something dil se, the universe conspires to give it to you,” Dharamji informs over the wire, and one can almost picture him smile.

They shot the film in New Theatres, a Kolkata studio, and in Darjeeling. Dharamji shares that when they were in the hill station, after ‘pack-up’ he would sometimes go for a drive with his leading lady and her sister. “In the darkness, I couldn’t see the ravines flanking the narrow mountain roads on either side. But the next morning, she would point them out to me, saying, ‘Look Dharam, you were zooming down this road like a racing car driver last night,’ and we would laugh. We had some good times together on that film. Mamta, for all its intensity on screen, was so much fun, like a picnic,” he laughs, recalling that his heroine had always told him that she loved his smile.

Dharamji’s recollections of the desi Garbo are very different from public perception of Suchitra Sen, as a lady who always stood apart in the studios, and after she stepped out of the spotlight, was consciously never seen in public again. “She was a lovely lady and a very mature actress,” he avers.

Prod him on his favourite scene and he zeroes in on the one where Ashok Kumar, from afar, points him out to the older Suchitra as the man he has picked for her daughter. “It was a romantic moment between the younger couple where we are unaware of being watched. However, I knew, I had to somehow convey to the mother that I am in love with Suparna. Suchitra was wearing a sari, the blouse cut low at the back, and as the camera rolled, I bent down and spontaneously dropped a kiss on her back. It wasn’t in the script, but when we saw the shot later, everyone agreed that my unrehearsed gesture added a lot to the scene and it was retained,” Dharmendra reminisces, adding that he had hoped to do many more films with one of his favourite heroines, but she preferred to anchor herself to Bengali cinema and the only other Hindi film she did was Gulzar’s Aandhi in 1975 with Sanjeev Kumar.

However, Dharmendra stayed in touch and they often spoke on the phone. And once, when he was in the City of Joy for the opening of a lab, he dropped by her residence. “Hema (Malini) was with me on the occasion and it was wonderful meeting her again. For me, Kolkata will always be associated with Rabindranath Tagore… and Suchitra Sen,” he says emotionally, admitting that they had lost touch in the last few years of her life. “I had heard that she wasn’t keeping well and I wondered about her, wishing I could go visit. But, by then, she wasn’t keen on having visitors and I respected her need for privacy. When I learnt that she was gone, I was shattered. It was like I had lost a family member.”

For me, Dharamji is as much a talented actor as he is a brilliant poet. Every time we chat, he leaves me with one of his couplets. Does he have a piece of poetry he’d like to dedicate to her on her birth anniversary, I wonder. Pat comes the reply, “Padte hi unpar, Jhuk jaati thi meri nazar, Iss darr se ki nazar na lag jaaye unhe meri nazar se…”

Taapsee Pannu opens up about playing the cricketer in a biopic, says she will shoot for six films and have at least four-five releases next year
Ankita Chaurasia (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 10, 2019)

It won’t be wrong to say that 2019 has been a great year for Taapsee Pannu. She started as a conniving protagonist, Naina Sethi, alongside Amitabh Bachchan in the whodunnit Badla in March, then changed into a devoted wife, Kritika Agarwal, who helps her team establish communication with the Mars orbiter in the August release, Mission Mangal, ending the year with a bang as an 80-year old gun-toting dadi in her Diwali outing, Saand Ki Aankh. While the actress agrees that this has been her best year so far, she wishes every year is hers. And with a choc-abloc date diary in 2020, it might as well be. Excerpts from a conversation:

You’ve been shooting for a Tamil espionage thriller in Darjeeling. That must have felt like a vacation after a hectic year...
Reaching there was an ordeal; the narrow, winding streets gave me motion sickness and by the time we reached, my pancreas and kidneys were in a jumble. Darjeeling itself was pleasant and not very chilly. While I have done Baby and Naam Shabana in Hindi, I hadn’t tackled the genre down South. I’ll have at least have four-five releases next year, all different from each other on terms of characters. Since I’m going to be on screen every three months, I can’t afford to get repetitive.

Tell us about these films.
Anubhav Sinha’s Thappad will be my first release, followed by the Tamil film. I plan to shoot at least six films next year, three of which will open in 2020.

Will one of them be a commercial potboiler like you promised?
Yes, everyone has been asking me to do one after Judwaa 2. I have signed one and will get to play a typical Bollywood diva and it has a story too.

Buzz is, one of them is Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Shabina Khan’s production, Sia Aur Jia, which will roll in the first half of 2020, will be shot extensively abroad and has you in double role.
When was the last time you saw an actress play a double role in a commercial film?

Another new project is Vinil Mathew’s romantic thriller with Vikrant Massey. Does it have a title yet?
No, we have only done a photoshoot for it so far. It’s set in North India and my character has been styled accordingly.

Cricketer Mithali Raj’s biopic, Shabaash Mithu, was also announced with you.
I started following Mithali Raj when she counter-questioned a journalist who asked her about her favourite male cricketer, wondering if he’d pose the same query to a male cricketer. I felt an instant connect because as an actress, I’m constantly asked about my co-stars. When I started watching her matches, what struck me as odd was that when her team was battling it out on the pitch, trying to meet the required run rate, she’d sit calmly in the pavilion reading a book. I was so happy when I met her and got my answer. that’s the least of my worries. I’ve never played cricket as it was considered a ‘guy’ thing. At best, I was allowed out on the field as I could run fast. Now, Mithali has challenged me to learn her cover-drive. She will be helping me with the training so I’m breathing easy as I’ll already be working on my body for Rashmi Rocket, which has me playing an athlete and goes on the floors before the biopic.

What can you tell us about Mithali?
She is a Tamilian, born in Jodhpur and brought up in Hyderabad. Her father is in the defence forces which is perhaps why she is so confident and speaks her mind. However, she doesn’t talk much, so no 70-minute dialogue here. And if you think that because she is a sports star, she must have been a tomboy, let me tell you, she is a trained Bharatnatyam dancer. Mithali didn’t face parental opposition but she had to battle to get people to accept that women, too, can do a lot with the bat. She had to struggle to bring a team together, after starting out as the juniormost member of the team.

Cricket is a religion in India. Did you follow the game before you signed the film?
I used to watch India’s matches religiously and would run to my room to do a paath, if we were not doing well on the field. But even I didn’t watch women’s cricket. We have no right to call ourselves a cricket-loving nation, if we make it about gender. Then, we should be specific and say we love men’s cricket because even after the Indian women’s cricket team reached the finals of the World Cup, there was no one to greet them at the airport when they returned.

Do you plan on venturing into production as a solution to pay parity?
It will happen when I have a partner to do the groundwork for me. I can’t act and produce simultaneously. And it’s only to nurture my entrepreneurial side. The pay parity issue can be addressed only when your film makes money. The roles I do are not conventional, so I can’t be replaced by someone else and most producers happily pay me the money I ask for because my films promise returns. I don’t want anyone to not invest in a film because they can’t afford me. I have a reality check.

You made headlines by saying on a show that Harsh Varrdhan Kapoor is where he is because of his famous parents…
I’d said most star kids but was asked to name someone. When you have parents in the business, it is easy to get through. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it gives you access. It takes people like me years to get through the door of a director’s office. Also, even after a failure, resurrection is easier for them.

I had interacted with Harsh only a few times earlier. We spoke after the episode aired and I clarified that it wasn’t a personal dig, nor was I undermining his efforts. I told him that I understood the burden of being a star kid. It’s just that as an outsider, if my first few films hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t have got another chance.

What’s your take on nepotism?
A famous parent recently told me that their kid went through a grilling interview with a big director and was heartbroken to be told that they are not ready for a debut yet. I was looking at him and thinking if he even knew how many films it would take me to get a one-on-one meeting with the director. But as an outsider, I have some privileges too. I don’t have a surname to protect, so I don’t come with tags and can be fearless with my choice of films.

Did you feel short-changed when Badla was being called an Amitabh Bachchan film?
When the film released, a particular website kept doing box-office stories on Badla and describing it as Amitabh Bachchan’s film. I asked them what it would take for them to include my name too since I had worked equally hard. I can’t reach Bachchan sir’s stature at my age but that doesn’t mean you take away all my credit. If it was an article about him, I’d be okay with my name being excluded, but this was about the film’s collections and I felt I should be part of it.

So, will 2020 be all work no play?
No, I keep taking short breaks after a schedule wraps to maintain work-life balance. I can’t tell myself that I’ll work now since I am getting brilliant films and take a break later. I won’t get this time again.

Now that your career is going great guns, aren’t your parents talking marriage?
My parents never ask me about marriage. They can see that my life is erratic right now, so I will not be able to have a conventional married life, in which you need to spend time with your partner because you are in a relationship where families are involved. I’ll get married, eventually.

Fatima Sana Shaikh is all set to return to screen in March with Anurag Basu’s crime anthology; kicks off a horror-comedy with Saif Ali Khan in January
Ankita Chaurasia (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 22, 2019)

Fatima Sana Shaikh’s life looks like a travelogue. From Macau and McLeodganj to Beijing and Turkey, the actress is living out of suitcases and loving it. But it’s not all play. Despite being a box-office debacle, Thugs Of Hindostan bagged her an award for her action scenes, presented by Jackie Chan and Adrien Brody. “After collecting my award, I went to Jackie Chan’s room, where many top actors from the Chinese film industry were present. They immediately recognised me as the Dangal girl and were excited to meet me. It was surreal!” she exults.

The actress, however, admits that she lost out on a film she’d been finalised for because Thugs... didn’t bring the numbers. “It’s plain business,” she says, matter-of-factly, going on to point out that now casting is done taking the number of Instagram followers and who you are friends with into account. “I don’t attend parties unless I know the host and the guests. If it is only about pictures, I can click and upload them myself, but to pay for people to dress you up and click you for an event, is not organic. I’d rather use the money to travel.”

Fatima has just wrapped up Anurag Basu’s next (below), a crime anthology of four stories, which pairs her with Rajkummar Rao. “For the first time, I play a normal woman in a sari on screen. After battling for a medal in the ring and performing superhuman, gravity-defying stunts, this one was a breeze,” she smiles, adding they would start the day’s shoot with breakfast on the set, followed by long gossip sessions while the scene was being set up. “After quickly wrapping up the shot, it was back to more gossip.” Didn’t the director reprimand them? With a chuckle, Fatima relays that he was a part of the addas and had amazing stories to share. “Dada would also break into a dance when he felt like it and we joined in.”

While most filmmakers do away with music in crime dramas, Fatima assures this one will have Basu’s signature tunes, with an overall fun vibe. “We shot for songs, but haven’t heard any of them yet as they are recorded much later. Even in Jagga Jasoos, he had done the same and yet everything looked so coordinated on screen,” she reasons.

Meanwhile, the shoot of the horror-comedy, Bhoot Police, featuring Saif Ali Khan and Ali Fazal, has been pushed to January 2020. Insisting she wasn’t the reason behind the delay, the actress adds, “It’s a very urban character, again a first for me. I’m a fattu at heart and am already dreading the shoot. As long as I am on the set with people around me, I’ll be fine. But as soon as I’m alone in my room, meri barbaadi hone wali hai.”

The team is expected to shoot in Darjeeling and the hills can get spooky. So, what is her contingency plan? Fatima sheepishly admits that since she lives alone and gets scared by the tiniest of noises at night, she has an arsenal of soft toys. “There’s a particular teddy bear that’s my bodyguard. I’m going to take it along and sleep with it. Also, you will immediately identify my room in the hotel because the lights will never be turned off through the night. I have asked them to give me a room in the middle,” she confides.

But that won’t stop the prankster in her and she plans to make the most of the setting by spooking others. “I used to prank Sanya and AK (Aamir Khan) all the time. I have so much footage of them screaming their lungs out. They get scared so easily that even if I go ‘Boo’ as they come out of the loo, they’d be terrified,” she recalls, between chuckles. But what if the tables turn and she ends up getting pranked? Almost as if challenging her co-stars, Fatima quips, “What will they do? Drop a lizard on me? Well, I find them cute because they help keep the house clean. What’s not to love about them.”

Meanwhile, Fatima has been putting up clips showing off her daredevilry, but reveals that her heart was in her mouth when she was attempting them. Now, the only thing left to try is skydiving. For the moment she is happy learning new skating tricks from YouTube. “It’s only a hobby and takes me outdoors, otherwise I would spend hours bingeing on online content on my phone. I scatter books all around the house so that I see them, feel guilty and picking one up, start reading,” she grins.

Her dad has started accompanying her on her trips. “I started flying business class only when the production houses started paying for my ticket. And when I got an opportunity, I took him on a trip with me. It was the first time he was flying business class. I taught him how things functioned and he was proud of me,” beams the actress who is reconnecting with her parents after what she terms a “rebellious phase”. “For them, I’m not a celeb and we keep fighting all the time.

You take people around you for granted and try to connect with strangers; but in the process, you are estranged from your own family,” she points out, admitting she has “calmed” down a bit now. So, what’s top priority on her bucket list? Pat comes the answer, “I want to buy a house,” And what about work? “As soon as I finish one film, I wonder what’s next. At that time, it doesn’t matter how famous I am or who recognizes me,” she signs off.

Tevar director Amit Sharma was in Siliguri to shoot a commercial when the earthquake hit the region
Ankur Pathak (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 16, 2015)

Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 11, 2014)

Not many would remember Reshmi Rumal but for Manoj Kumar it was a significant film. After its director Harsukh Jagneshwar Bhatt showed some rushes to his older brother, producer-director Vijay Bhatt invited the actor home and signed him for a two-film contract. The first film was Hariyali Aur Rasta (1962) for which he was paid Rs 11,000. "It was my first silver jubilee hit and Shashi who I had married just before its release, insisted she'd brought me luck," smiles Mr Bharat, half a century later.

The love triangle was the fourth highest grossing film of the year and revolved around Shankar (Manoj Kumar) who is forced to tie the knot with Rita (Shashikala) -- a match fixed by their parents when both were kids. Rita turns out to be an uncaring wife and mother and the marital journey gets messier when Shobhana (Mala Sinha), Shankar ex-flame, re-enters his life. "It was a little awkward for me to play the father of a child but Hariyali Aur Rasta wasn't just another love story. It was a film with a message--about the mother's role and the folly of arranging marriages without the consent of the bride and the groom," he says.

Working with an established star like Mala Sinha was a dream come true. "I used to watch her films when in college. At that time I'd never imagined that one day I would be singing songs with her in the tea gardens of Darjeeling," admits Manoj Kumar. The film was shot extensively in the Ging and Rangneet Tea Estates.

Hariyali Aur Rasta had a memorable score by Shankar-Jaikishan with evergreen hits like Allah jaane kya hoga aage, Lakhon taare aasman mein ek magar dhunde na mila, Ek tha raja ek thi rani and of course the unforgettable title track beautifully rendered by Lata Mangeshkar.

Manoj Kumar has vivid memories of filming the last one on Darjeeling's picturesque Tiger Hill. "I went there one day to watch the sunrise. It was amazing! So was the shoot but when later we saw the rushes, we were shocked to see smoke coming out of our mouths while we were delivering the dialogues - it was that cold there," laughs the actor.

While shooting in the hill station Manoj Kumar had Dev Anand for company. He was there with the unit of Mohan Kumar's Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai. And so was Bengal's maestro, Satyajit Ray, who was on a receee for his next film, Kanchenjungha. "One day I worked up the courage to speak to Manikda (as Ray was fondly called) and asked him what he was doing roaming around in that cold and he explained that he was studying the pattern of sunlight, shadows and snowfall so that when he starts shooting, he would be prepared," he flashbacks.

Talking about the snow, he remembers a scene in a cemetery. It was snowing and after Om Prakash pays an emotional homage to his wife, Manoj Kumar opens his mouth to deliver his bit of dialogue, but instead of words all that comes out is foam. "Since we couldn't get real snow, the production guys had made flakes from soap and were showering it on us. Some of it entered my mouth and that caused the gush of bubbles," he laughs, adding that how an exasperated Mala had then reacted by asking why the hell he had come into the film industry. "I responded respectfully by telling her it was my obsession."

He remembers Mala Sinha as a graceful and generous costar, who along with veterans like Om Prakash and Helen, boosted his confidence; and Vijay Bhatt as a creative, cultured and calm person who left a lasting impression on him. "On many occasions, he would compliment me. He was open to accepting my inputs. Even when I was wrong, he would explain why he couldn't incorporate the suggestions. He influenced me a lot," says Manoj Kumar.

He went on to do another film with Vijay Bhatt, Himalay Ki God Mein. Here also his costars were Mala Sinha and Shashikala. Shot in Kullu and Manali, it was adjudged the Best Film of 1965 by the Filmfare Awards jury and was later remade in Telugu as Dr Babu. "It was another silver jubilee hit and once again I was paid Rs11,000 for it. They wanted to pay me more, but I refused," he says.

Hiren Kotwani and Parag Maniar (BOMBAY TIMES; January 8, 2014)

The title Yaariyan was initially registered by Saif Ali Khan. However, Bhushan Kumar thought it suited their subject’s genre and requested the actor-producer for the title. Saif graciously obliged.

Before she started shooting, Divya Khosla Kumar had taken her script to Aamir Khan for his feedback. When he told her that it was a great idea for a film, she was thrilled.

When Himansh Kohli was a small boy, an astrologer had read his palm and told his parents that he would grow up to become an actor.

Shreyas Pardiwala was approached by the production house on a social networking site. But he thought that it was a fake message and ignored it initially.

Dev Sharma was working as a trainee assistant on Krrish 3 when he got a call from the production house to meet them for a look test.

While shooting in the chilly climes of Darjeeling, the cast suffered frostbites when they had to walk in knee-deep snow at one point of time.

Himansh had an encounter with a poisonous snake while shooting for a sequence in South Africa. Thankfully, he didn’t get bitten.

Shreyas, who was still studying in college when they were shooting, used to take his books on the set. Sometimes, Nicole Faria helped him with his studies.

Before the shooting began, Divya devoted almost an entire year to casting and workshops for her actors.

The first-time director took keen interest in every aspect of the film, right from the characters’ looks to the costumes, locations and set.

While several talents in the industry vouch for their ‘Godfathers’, the cast of the film termed their director as their ‘Godmother’, since that’s what she was on the set.

Despite being caught up with the film, Divya ensured that her son was around all the time. She’d even joke that her son Ruhaan (oneyear-old when they started filming), was the real producer as he was more on the set than her husband.

The team also shot a schedule at Lachen, located 13,000 feet above Leh. Of course, Divya’s producer-hubby was very stressed and concerned when she told him that they’d be shooting at the location where temperatures dropped to near zero.

Gulshan Grover was like an elder brother to the young cast and allowed them to use his plush hotel room as and when they liked it.

During the making of the movie, the principal actors became such thick friends that they apparently were even considering buying a flat together so that they can spend more time with each other.

Yo Yo Honey Singh has done a special song, Sunny Sunny, for the film. The producer wasn’t impressed with the original ABCD number, so he requested Honey Singh to add some rap to it.

Yaariyan, produced by TSeries, releases on January 10.