Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; November 9, 2017)

Monday, November 6, was Sanjeev Kumar’s 32nd death anniversary. While the world raised a toast to some unforgettable performances in films like Koshish, Khilona, Arjun Pandit, Aandhi, Angoor, Sholay and Trishul, my mind flashbacked to a little remembered black-and-white film from 1970. Dastak marked Rajinder Singh Bedi’s debut as a director in films and was based on one of his own plays, Naqle-Makaani. It won its leading man his first National Award, as also Rehana Sultan and composer Madan Mohan.

Almost half-a-century later, Rehana recalls being surprised by a call on sets from Sanjeev Kumar informing her about the coveted award. “I didn’t even know what the National Award was and wondered why they would give it to a newcomer. Thinking I had misunderstood him, I replied, ‘Oh aap ko award mili hai?’, to which he retorted with a faint trace of irritation that if it were only about him, he wouldn’t be calling me. He rang off, leaving me shedding tears of joy,” says the veteran actress.

Seeing her crying, the unit members assumed she had got some bad news from home. When she confided that she had won a National Award there was jubilation and it was early pack-up. She accompanied Sanjeev Kumar and Madan Mohan, who were wearing matching tuxedoes, to the prestigious function. “I was like this village belle who’d just arrived in the city whose bright lights left her wide-eyed and speechless. It was one of the happiest moments of my life,” says Rehana.

Dastak revolved around a newly-married couple whose search for a home in an overcrowded city ends up with them renting an apartment, which had earlier housed a tawaif. Believing that the young and demure wife was a replacement for the bazaar-soiled Munnibai, her customers come knocking on their door at odd hours, and not even the presence of her husband deters them. Finally, fed up, Salma runs home to her abbu and sister in the village, complaining that it’s hard to find a decent place to stay in Mumbai. Her father sighs that even they are short of space and she has no option but to go back. “That scene with my father and sister was the muhurat shot. It was okayed in one take and Bedi saab liked it so much that he retained it in the final cut,” she exults.

Bedi saw Rehana in a short diploma film while she was still studying at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune when he was there as a guest lecturer. When she came down to Mumbai after finishing her course, a fellow student asked her to call Bedi who invited her over to his office located in Tardeo. “I asked him when I should come over and he said ‘barah baje’ which made me giggle as I remembered the famous sardar joke. Realising this, Bedi saab told me I could drop by at 12.15 pm or 12.30 pm, it didn’t matter,” she recalls. Bedi finalised her instantly as Sanjeev Kumar’s heroine without any audition.

The actor turned out to be a really nice guy who, unlike the exasperating junior artistes, wasn’t constantly giving her instructions on how to do a scene. Rather he would tell her she had done a good job and to not let anyone else but Bedi saab direct her. “He also had a wicked sense of humour, cracking jokes with a straight face. Once he told me to go to Bedi saab and say that I didn’t want to do the film because Sanjeev Kumar was harassing me. I did and a harried Bedi saab pleaded with him not to upset me, or we would be without a heroine. He eventually admitted that he had pulled a prank on Bedi saab with some convincing acting from me,” Rehana chuckles.

Their director wasn’t laughing when she messed up take after take in a scene which required her to go flying to Sanjeev Kumar and him drawing her into his arms, saying solicitously, “Kya hua?” She would start giggling the minute he spoke and Bedi finally packed up early only for the silsila to continue the next day. He almost blew a fuse, till his actor suggested he bury his face in Rehana’s shoulder before asking the question. “He never got angry or upset, woh bahut araam se har chez bardasht kar lete the,” Rehana reminisces fondly.

During the course of the shoot, Sanjeev Kumar revealed himself as a foodie and after discovering that Rehana’s mother was a great cook, he dropped by at their place twice for some finger-licking paya. “After the film was over we met only a few times at parties and functions. I would have loved to feed him more paya but he went away too soon. He was just 47 when he left a heartbroken nation mourning him,” she sighs.

Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 3, 2015)

Knock on your memory door and you would remember Mahesh Bhatt's 1996 film, Dastak, which paved former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen's entry into Bollywood.

Knock a little harder and you may just remember another Dastak from 1970, popular Urdu writer Rajinder Singh Bedi's debut production.

Based on one of his own plays, Naql-e-Makani, it was Rehana Sultan's second film after Chetna made her an overnight sensation. The audience came in hordes, expecting to see more of the legs which had made Chetna's poster the talk of the country, only to find them demurely covered up in this sensitive black-and-white film in which she was Sanjeev Kumar's wide-eyed begum.

Both Rehana and her onscreen miyan bagged the prestigious Urvashi Awards, as the National Awards were known then, for their nuanced performances.

Rehana played Salma, who moves from the village to the city and into a rented apartment, with her husband. But her peaceful domesticity is disturbed by frequent knocks as lascivious strangers lurch drunkenly to her doorstep, even when her husband is hovering around protectively. In time, the couple learn that they come looking for the nautch girl who lived their earlier. They are not unhappy to find a younger and prettier replacement, never mind that this girl desperately puts up a fight as her home pulls her down that same road to degradation. She finally burst out of its doors and flees down the street, away from the house, the galli, the city and may be the world itself...

After seeing the film Satyajit Ray sent Rehana a congratulatory letter complimenting her on her work. Yet, the FTII graduate was not Bedi's first choice for the role. The debutant producer, who was also the film's writer-director, had his heart set on Aruna Irani who he had seen in a play. But by the time the film took off, it was too late to launch Aruna, who had established herself as a dancing girl-cum-vamp, in a heroine's role.

So, then, he turned his attention to Leela Naidu who had impressed in Anuradha and Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke. But he quickly realised that Leela with her classic profile and anglicised accent was not a good fit for a middleclass Muslim bride.

Then, he saw Rehana in a short film when visiting the Film Scool in Pune and knew instinctively that he had found his Salma. But she had disappeared.

Having completed her course, Rehana had returned to Allahabad. Fortunately, a friend from the institute traced her there and told her to return to Mumbai, asap, and contact Bedi. She did and he signed her without even an audition.

Rehana justified his confidence by pulling off the complicated mahurat shot in one take.

Later, however, she went on to mess up an intimate scene with Sanjeev Kumar in the house by giggling through 20 retakes because every time he put his hand on her back, she felt ticklish. Still, Bedi never regretted turning down Mumtaz who had offered to do the film for free.

Rehana lived the role, probably because she herself came from a middle-class Muslim family in a small town. And she knew the problems of renting a flat in Mumbai.

After being turned down by several landladies because she was young, beautiful, single and a non-vegetarian, she had finally landed PG digs in Chowpatty. However, one night, when she returned from a visit to Allahabad, she was told that she couldn't stay there anymore.

Her furious landlady had learnt that she was an actress and refused to let her stay in the apartment, even for the night. Rehana finally stayed the night with a friend who lived in the building opposite hers before moving into a new place.

"Years later, my landlady came to visit her son who was living in the same building as me and dropped by to meet me. It was a pleasant visit with neither of us making any reference to the eventful exit," she reminisced with a laugh years later.

Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 1, 2014)

Back in 1969, when the heroine was still a holier-than-thou virgin and a woman talking about sex was considered blasphemy, B R Ishara decided to shatter the status quo with Chetna. The filmmaker, who had two small-budget, black-and-white movies, Insaaf Ka Mandir and Gunaah Aur Kanoon, to his credit, spun a story around a call girl, Seema Sultan, who catches the eye of an eligible young man.

Anil Dhawan loses his heart to her, believing she's a devi who he's seen praying at a mandir, mosque and church, till a chance encounter in a hotel room opens his eyes to her reality. Seema remains unapologetic and Anil decides to give her a new life, offering her the respectability of marriage. Seema settles into her new life and just when it seems that this odd couple will have a happy ending, she discovers that she's pregnant.

Having slept with several men since the lure of easy money brought the impoverished college student into the world's oldest profession, Seema is unsure about the identity of the father. Unable to live with the guilt of burdening Anil with another man's baby, she commits suicide.

Ishara justified the pessimistic end arguing that Anil was too good a man. "May be if he had beaten her, abused her, she would have survived. But she quickly realises that she can become the devi he initially thought she was, only by killing herself," he pointed out, adding the hero is an idealist fantasy. "Seema, in comparison, was more real. I'd say, after Pyaasa and Pakeezah, Chetna was one of the more realistic films on the life of a prostitute, which was perhaps why it was objected to so strongly."

The first two producers he narrated the story to, threw him out of their office. Finally, his editor friend, I M Kunnu, agreed to invest in the film if he completed it in one start-to-finish schedule.

On the 27th day, Ishara delivered a colour film to Kunnu made at a cost of just Rs 97,000. Chetna was not just one of the quickest films to be made but also one of the cheapest, whose director welcomed an 'A' certificate from the censor board. In fact, he advertised the fact that it was an adult film with a daringly bold poster.

Forty-four years later, the film is unforgettable for that poster which had its heroine Rehana Sultan's bare legs positioned to form an 'A' and hero Anil Dhawan's face peering up at the camera from between them. The provocative frame was from one of the most important scenes in the film in which Seema is paid by Ramesh (a cameo by Shatrughan Sinha), to entertain his friend who's pining over a woman.

Anil is shocked when Seema matter-of-factly invites him in and tells him that love is the biggest con of all times as boredom and heartbreak eventually bring men like him to women like her. She's unapologetic about the fact that she smokes and drinks, doesn't mince words as she sheds her clothes and with her legs spread, offers herself up to him while he stands there looking bewildered.

Ever since the story was narrated to her, a nervous Rehana asked Ishara about it everyday. One day he exploded and she admitted to being terrified of doing what could be perceived as a nude scene. He reassured her that the camera will focus on her legs and nothing else.

"It'll be like posing in a two-piece swim suit," he told her, and on the day of the shoot ensured that there weren't too many technicians hovering around and the scene was aesthetically shot. But it still ended up creating a furore even before the film released, thanks to the poster.

"After that every film I was offered had at least one bathing scene," groused Rehana, who was tagged a sex symbol after Chetna and Haar Jeet. "My contemporaries wore shorter skirts and no one batted an eyelid, but if I wore even a perfectly decent dress I was told, 'So Rehana, you are back to showing your legs?'"

Surprisingly, the Censor Board had not demanded too many cuts. A shot of an imported liquor bottle,with the brand name visible and a couple of shots of Rehana's bare legs were clipped out. But there was plenty left over to make those legs famous and make Chetna a cult film whose surprise success started the trend of such hard-hitting but not always so sensitively shot, films.