09.06.2020
Dear Basuda,
I met you for the first time when I visited your set of Madhu Malti to interview Sachin and Sarika, shooting at a remote college in Andheri. I think this was soon after the release of Geet Gata Chal. There was a major electricity breakdown on location that afternoon and all of us – you, Sachin, Sarika and me were parked in the lawn outside chatting leisurely.
Since all of us were young with plenty of time on hand and no distractions like mobiles, the bonds were instant and we kept meeting again and again.
Madhu Malti never got released and Sachin-Sarika never worked together again, but you did another film with Sarika soon, Griha Pravesh (1979) and I often hung around on your sets. Shabana Azmi had around that time, signed Sparsh with Naseerudin Shah to be directed by Sai Paranjpye and produced by you. Your wife Rinki Bhattacharya was doing costumes for Shabana and decided to dress her in her own sarees and Shabana was game for it. The winter jackets draped with exquisite shawls however was Shabana’s idea, she was in double mind whether to wear a French bun or a braid for the character and I lured her towards the braid because I felt the bun would look too sophisticated. (That was the beginning of my career as a costume designer with Azmi but that’s another story, so another time).A decade or more went by, now Sarika lived in Madras but every time she was in Bombay, she visited you at your beautiful home and I often accompanied her. It was during one such meeting over fragrant tea, you narrated Sarika and me the story of Aastha, and both of us were alarmed! That’s when you told us the backstory, a true incident where you saw a homemaker accompanied by her little son in a show shop. The little boy tried a pair but on reading the price tag the mother left the shop without purchase. Another woman, at the same shop, observed this and handed her a box of shoes outside. The child was overjoyed and the mother unwittingly gave into temptation. Nobody expected Rekha to agree to the role but she did and made her character unforgettable. You were happy with the response to the film and a few months later, died peacefully.