Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 4, 2020)

It’s hard to forget Sadhana in Arzoo, a vision in white, against the backdrop of Chinar trees, their reddish-brown leaves carpeting the ground below, as she sighs about lost love, “Bedardi Balma Tujhko Mera Mann Yaad Karta Hai, Barasta Hai Jo Aankhon Se Woh Sawan Yaad Karta Hai”. The autumnal image is intercut with memories of spring when the same trees were lush and green, and the man of her dreams by her side. The evergreen chartbuster is among Lata Mangeshkar’s top five songs and producer-director Ramanand Sagar’s son, Prem Sagar, recounts how one day, while they were filming at the Rajkamal Studio, Jaikishen, of the composer duo Shankar-Jaikishen, suddenly walked in and reminded his Papaji that they still had one sad song to complete. Then, using the cameraman’s paatla (low wooden stool) as a makeshift drum, he began to belt out a tune even as his alaap rend the air. Then and there, the song was composed, with Jaikishen ji, whose recording for the day had been cancelled, urging Ramanand ji to record the song immediately as the studio was free, and Lata ji was there too, along with a 100-piece orchestra and Mangesh Desai, the best sound recordist in the business.

Soon after, Ramanand ji sent his lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri on a recce to find apt locations for the song. Once they were identified, they flew to the Valley for the shoot. But being a writer himself, Ramanand ji wanted a different colour palette for words like “Tujhe Is Jheel Ka Khamosh Darpan Yaad Karta Hai…” Being a much-loved son of Kashmir, he roped in the state tourism department to tell him when the Chinar trees would turn the exact shade of red-brown he had in mind. “Papaji knew he’d have a really short window of three-four days for this portion of the shoot and had warned Sadhana she’d have to drop everything when he called. She was game and after a flurry of telephone calls and telegrams, we rushed to the same location, this time in autumn, and completed the song,” narrates Prem Sagar ji, who has penned the bestselling book on his father, The Epic Life - Ramanand Sagar: From Barsaat To Ramayan.

There is a scene in the romance drama where Sadhana ji and Rajendra Kumar ji are walking along the banks of the Dal Lake in Srinagar, reading each other’s thoughts. “Yeh raasta kahaan jaata hai?” he asks, and she replies, again without words, “Yeh toh mujhe bhi nahin pata.” Prem Sagar ji acknowledges that it’s not easy speaking through silences, the language of the dead. “But Sadhana didn’t need words. The expressions flitting across her beautiful face spoke for her,” he says, chuckling as he recalls how the locals, including Chief Minister Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq, were amazed to see unseasonal poppies growing by the lake during the shoot. “How did they suddenly bloom?” they wondered aloud. Ramanand ji only smiled, unwilling to divulge that he had artificial flowers specially imported from Hong Kong for the sequence.

Arzoo started where An Affair To Remember ended, with Cary Grant’s Nickie realizing that the reason Deborah Kerr’s Terry did not keep their meeting at the Empire State Building is because she can’t walk. Ramanand ji took the same theme forward, with Rajendra Kumar’s Gopal aka Sarju, a champion skier, refusing to go back to his fiancée, Usha, after he loses his leg in an accident. He is afraid that she will reject him having heard her say that it is better to die than live the life of a disabled. Sadhanaji, as Usha, is unable to accept that her Sarju would leave without a word and keeps searching for him. She even goes to a skiing competition, where she spots someone who looks exactly like him on the slopes. But he tells her that he has been an invalid since he was a child and has never skied.

“Papaji wanted 10 feet snow for this sequence and we were cooped up in a hotel in Kufri, waiting for a heavy snowfall to call our lead pair, who were at the peak of their careers and really busy, for the shoot. “We had them fly out after it snowed for two days, but then, none of us could step out because it continued snowing. On the fifth day, Papaji told his hero and heroine that they were free to fly back, but both voluntarily decided to stay back another day. The next morning, the sun blazed bright and Papaji got what he wanted,” Prem Sagar ji flashbacks, all praise for the cooperative duo. “Sadhana was a God-gifted artiste who knew exactly what the director wanted from her. And despite being a top star and amongst the five most beautiful actresses in the industry, she had no airs and no requirements. She was a simple, homely girl and a great cook who’d bring biryani for the whole unit, from the director to the spot boys,” he raves.

September 2 marked the 79th birth anniversary of the actress who was also a style icon and Prem Sagar ji remembers that after the film’s release, her costumes, designed by Bhanu Athaiya, were such a craze among teenagers that as part of Arzoo’s promotional campaign, they designed a contest around her wardrobe. The winner was a young girl, who owns Cooper Chikki Shop in Lonavla, and, as promised, she was flown to Kathmandu and got to meet Princess Annapurna because she’d correctly answered all the questions about Sadhana ji’s clothes.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 7, 2019)

Since the last few days, it’s been pelting down in Mumbai which is perhaps why the song from Woh Kaun Thi?, “Naina Barse Rimjhim Rimjhim” is stuck in my mind or maybe because September 2 was its leading lady Sadhana’s 78th birth anniversary. Even after 55 years, Madan Mohan’s haunting melody, along with the vision of the mysterious lady in white, resonates in our collective memory. Its ‘hero’ Manoj Kumar recalls filming the song in Kufri with Sadhana ji lip-synching to the composer’s voice because Lata Mangeshkar had fallen ill and was unable to record it before the schedule. To ensure that the schedule was not cancelled, Madan Mohan ji recorded the song himself, telling director Raj Khosla that Lata ji could dub it on their return. “A crowd of star-gazers were watching us shoot, and after a while they wondered aloud why Sadhana was singing in a man’s voice,” he guffaws.

Manoj Kumar saab (right) himself had recommended Sadhana ji’s name, but while she was keen to partner with him in the chiller thriller, she pointed out that since neither of their films had done well commercially, it might not be a viable jodi. To this he quipped, “Two minus will make a plus.” However, the actor admits, that having taken off to Delhi earlier, he was on tenterhooks, wondering which actress was coming, till he saw Sadhana ji and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Woh Kaun Thi? also made me a full-fledged writer,” reveals Manoj Kumar saab who having ghost-written in his struggling days, was going through the script while his director shot with Parveen Choudhary who played Dr Lata. On Khosla saab’s return, he told him that he wanted to discuss some scenes and was invited to his hotel room. When Manoj Kumar saab confessed to having rewritten six-seven scenes, Khosla saab silently read them, then, without saying a word, strode to the actor’s room where his wife Shashi was sitting with producer N N Sippy, Sadhana and her parents. “Even as we watched wide-eyed, he chucked the file he was holding in one hand into the burning fireplace, saying, ‘There goes the original script, we don’t need it anymore’, then, waving the sheaf of papers in his other hand, added, ‘Pandit ji will write a new one for us,’” recounts the actor who from that day was frantically writing between shots. “Raj Khosla would stroll across to enquire how far I had progressed, and when told I’d finished half a scene, would insist we shoot that much, before I returned to complete it. I not only wrote the script and acted in the film, I even gave it its intriguing title and designed an eye-catching poster which had me with my back to the camera and Sadhana facing it,” informs Manoj Kumar saab.

Another star of the ‘60s, Biswajit (left) also shares anecdotes from his triangular love story with Sadhana and Dharmendra, Ishq Par Zor Nahin, which released six years later in 1970. He played Amar, the only son of a millionaire shipping magnate while Dharam ji was his impoverished friend, Ram, whom he gets a job in his father’s company. He then uses his friend’s talent as a shayar to woo Sadhana ji’s Sushma, only for her to decide that she will marry Ram when she discovers that he’s the real poet. This plot was tweaked for Lawrence D’Souza’s Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt and Maduri Dixit’s musical romance Saajan .

The original love story ended in flames, literally. In the climax, shot aboard a ship, Biswajit da’s father (Abhi Bhattacharya) shoots at the fuel tank, and within minutes, there’s fire around the ship as the spilled petrol burns. Playing the sacrificial hero, Amar jumps into the sea, grabs a lifeboat and sends Ram and Sushma to safety, but loses his own life.

“To everyone’s horror, despite all the precautions we had taken, the blaze suddenly went out of control. There were no fire brigades around to douse the leaping flames that encircled me, and like everyone else present, I too believed that the reel life tragedy would happen for real when the film’s action director threw a chain into the water, and instructed me to grab it, saying I should swim underwater. Being a strong swimmer, I dived below the surface and found my way out of the fiery ring, living to tell you the story,” he signs off with a relieved laugh.