There is a reason why you meet the person you do because every encounter is an opportunity to learn something. I have learnt something from all the people I interviewed over the decades and knowingly or unknowingly, leant something from them.
I met Nargis Dutt sometime in the mid-70s. There was a screening in Sunil Dutt’s private theatre Ajanta Arts and she was watching the film with us. It was an unusually boring film and I was young and restless planning to leave in the interval. Nargis overheard my plans and explained to me that no matter how boring any film, it is insulting to walk out of the film half way. I’ve remembered that and never misbehaved ever since.
Nutan disapproved of the media coming to interview her without homework. She said it was insensitive of editors to send novice reporters to meet veteran artistes because they knew nothing about their subject and tried the artist’s patience. Some of them lacked basic shooting etiquette and conversed in the middle of a ‘take’ and some had to be forewarned to get out of the frame.
To be continued