What about your speeches, are they rehearsed too? “No, no, speeches cannot be scripted, that would be so hollow. It has to emerge on the spot, straight from the heart as a reaction, only then can it touch the audience.”  She was always logical and old guards believed that she had the potential to be groomed as an effective leader. She widened her eyes, “Are you hinting at politics? Please no, I’m not inclined, maybe something for the downtrodden that too if it comes naturally not for the sake of taking up a cause” she concluded.

True to her promise, Dixit never fell for the offers made by different political parties from time to time and ruled on the wish list of all her filmmakers even after motherhood. Her detractors said it was because she was diplomatic and never disagreed with her directors. Madhuri disagreed vehemently, “That’s not true at all, when I’m not convinced of a scene, I always express, but if the filmmaker does not agree, I withdraw because he is the captain of the ship. Most directors are always clearheaded and find the actor’s conflict interfering with their vision”.

So how does an artiste resolve his conflict? She pondered for a while, “Sometimes, a scene appears awkward but then the director enacts it for you, it becomes simple. I often feel that we actors’ complicate matters by over thinking. I don’t know how other actors resolve it but I prefer to submit to my director, I trust that he will ride me to the shore.”

For a long time now, the media dedicates the month of May to Madhuri magic. It is not without reason, her other contemporaries, Sridevi, is no more and Juhi Chawla has more or less retired but Madhuri Dixit despite marriage, motherhood and whole new generation still holds her own.

In 1999 when she got married, the film fraternity was unsure how she would balance an overseas marriage and a career back home. She did it effortlesslyand resurrected her presence in show business.

Over the decades a lot changed and a lot remained the same. Madhuri Dixit lives in the same home, differently done up of course and inhabits three generation, her mother, Snehlata Dixit, husband Dr Nene and her two sons.  Film and web projects still line up for her and the proof it is her dance show on television and dance academy on YouTube.

She was always distant as a person even though she had known you for a long time and said it was part of her persona. How do you always manage to retain your poise in public, I once asked her? She laughed, said, that what everyone described as poise was extreme nervousness. “When I’m on stage, I’m so anxious that my knees are quaking, but I flash a smile and because I’m a good actor people believe it”.

The mother on the Indian screen for good or for bad was always for her children but in case of conflict between the spouse and the off spring, the mother supported her husband. The first time this changed was in Maine Pyaar Kiya, in a crucial scene after opposing his father Salman Khan asks mother Rima Lagoo, ‘Maine glalat kiya?’ and a tearful Rima shakes her head and embraces Salman. In Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge when Farida Jalal discovers Kajol and Shahrukh Khan together in the courtyard, she is filled with hope not fear and urges them to flee and follow their dream.  

Come 2000 and the mother (rather the family) was slowly disappearing from the big screen. Ram Gopal Verma said he was bored of the relatives and Yash Chopra who had built a career on family dramas sidelined the older generation in Dil Toh Pagal Hai. In Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na Ratna Pathak Shah revived the motif as a new age mom and Farhan Akhtar’s coming-of-age Dil Chahta Hai revived image of contemporary parents. When Aamir Khan’s father senses he is low, he says, ‘I want you to come back’. The film was a success not just for the portrayal of the youngsters but their supportive, realistic parents.

Another film featuring Sulochna in her later years was Johnny Mera Naam. Two scenes stand out in my memory. The first when her son, Dev Anand appears in disguise at the door and she pulls off his moustache, making it clear that she cannot be tricked. The mother in this case is super intelligent and she proves it in the climax when villain Jeevan asks her to point out to her son and Sulochna deliberately and helplessly points to Pran to save Dev Anand.

When young heroines played mothers, filmmakers camouflaged their roles as Bhabhi maa to stroke their ego and I think the concept first emerged with Bhabhi Ki Choodiyaan where Meena Kumari rises at day break going about household work singing ‘Jyoti kalash chalke…’ as her besotted devar follows her from room to room… In Chhota Bhai, an exasperated Nutan has punished her mischievous devar to stand on one foot on the terrace. At dusk, while serving dinner to the family Nutan realizes that he is still there waiting for her release orders, so she charges up the staircase and pleads forgiveness.  The film held a strong social message that Bhabhi is more than a mother!

To be continued

Yash Chopra once said that Salim Javed’s ‘Mere paas maa hain’ is an immortal line and what made Deewar unforgettable. The mother has been omni present in our movies initially as a goddess, later as a paragon of virtues, at the cost of extreme self-sacrifices. The audience loved it and so did the filmmakers. They repackaged the same motif over the decades, a coughing widow bent over a sewing machine working tirelessly to pay the fees of her children and on the other extreme, a cheerful mother dressed in silk, feeding the hero with gajar ka halva. Unfortunately, even the promising protagonist like Sumitra/ Nirupa Roy of Deewar in the seventies was a replay of Radha/ Nargis in Mother India.  So, the changing image of the mother on screen, in my opinion occurred not via the titular roles but films that reflected social change.

On top of my special list is the kohl-eyed Sulochana humming ‘Nanhi kali sone chali…’ while putting her new-born to sleep in Bimal Roy’s Sujata. In the adjoining room, sleeps the abandoned child of an untouchable who has through some coincidence landed into this Brahmin household. The husband watches his wife overlooking the stranger baby and cons her into believing that she is burning with fever. In a spontaneous gesture, Sulochana jumps out of her bed to touch the baby’s brow to realize that she has been tricked into touching the ‘untouchable’.

To be continued

In the forthcoming years, RGV did work with many superstars, Sarkar Trilogy with Amitabh, Abhishek, Aishwrya Rai Bachchan and Bhoot with Rekha to name a few but after a few films, the restless filmmaker liberated himself of the excess baggage and shifted to making Rakt Charitra Par 1, Part 2 with unknown names and insisted they were bigger hits than Sarkar.

Not easy to argue with his logic because RGV is eccentric and lives by his dictates. Post 2010 he disappeared from Bollywood, turned author, wrote strangest memoir with the weirdest title /Guns and Thighs. These days, I hear, he is parked in Goa and shooting a web series. I’m hoping the series is completed in stipulated time or else RGV will not be able to sustain interest.

Why do you enjoy scaring your audience with horror movies?  “I entertain myself scaring them and I want to master the art and therefore keep rectifying my mistakes, Kaun is a correction of Raat. We lived in the house where we shot and after a point, all of us felt haunted! Human beings endure far worse than they imagine, which is why crime is a recurrent motif in all my movies. But all my films Shiva or Satya have never glorified crime but yes, I empathize with the gangster”.

Why are you reluctant to work with saleable stars? “Well, I did feature Urmila Matondkar, Aamir Khan in Rangeela and Ajay Devgan in Company but when you sign on superstars’, the canvas expands, dates are not as easy and the film takes that much longer, while newcomers are at my beck and call and their enthusiasm is infectious.”

To be continued

In the 90s and in the 2000 RGV’s production office worked 24 X7 because Varma is an insomniac. Surely there is a life beyond cinema I commented. “Sure, but cinema dominates all. I celebrate my successes and my failures because all of them teach me something. It is only now I realize how rebellious I was during Daud, had I paused and pondered, the film would have fared better. Satya reflects introspection and Rangeela my happy state of mind”.

What does Jungle reflect? “My impulsive nature, I hate being idle, so one afternoon, writer Jaideep Shahani dropped by my office to narrate a subject. Next minute, I summoned my assistant and asked them to start planning our next production. That’s how all my films are born and my team is used to my spontaneous operations. I became obsessed with the idea of turning a forest into a character even though Jungle proved physically an exhausting experience”.

It was shot in one schedule? “We camped for 45 days on location, cut off from civilization, stayed in villages without electricity and with only each other for company. We travelled rough roads in open jeeps, endured insect bites but our spirits remained unbroken. The grass inside a dense forest is four feet tall and it is difficult to perceive what lies ahead of us, once a leopard crossed our path and scared us.”

To be continued