Close Encounters of the Bollywood kind
In my younger days I was ‘star struck’ like all of us. We equate film stars to celestial beings. However the truth is far removed. Let me rewind to circa 1978, I was in my first year MBBS and holidaying in Bombay with relatives (the city was known by that name then). My sister is a very versatile person, she had started her career in an ad agency then went onto dabble in Film Journalism. She had joined the Indian Express group and her first posting was in their film supplement Screen. She had quite an exciting time interviewing film personalities and used to tell us stories about the various stars she interviewed. One day it was an interview with Neetu Singh who was then the reigning Bollywood Queen (BTW it was not known as Bollywood in those days). The current generation know her merely as Ranbir Kapoor’s mother. Then another day it was an interview with Amjad Khan who was famous for his role as Gabbar Singh in Sholay.
I being as ‘star struck’ as everybody else asked her whether it was possible for me to meet some of these celestial beings. She said “Sure! I have been invited to screen villain Ranjeet’s wedding you can accompany me.” Mr. Ranjeet was the reigning Hindi film villain. He must have done the maximum rape scenes on screen. The scenes consisted of tearing of sleeves followed by shoulder squeezing and with the heroine screaming “ Chhod de mujhe kaminay!” This was invariably the cue for the Hero to play spoilt sport and burst in with the predictable invectives, “Kuttay! Kaminay! Tera khoon pee jaoonga.” Recently I saw him in a small comical role in Housefull 2, where he is the ‘the-rapist’.
He was marrying his long time live in girlfriend and the reception was at his Juhu Bungalow. My sister assured me that the whole of Bollywood would be attending and in one night I could view an entire galaxy of stars.
Those were simpler times when people were more trusting and terrorism had not reared it’s ugly head in India. You only heard about terrorist acts in the middle east. Security was not a big thing as it is now. We caught a local train upto Bandra Station and took a taxi to the venue, which was his house in Juhu. The reception was held in the lawn of his house, that would be unheard of in these days of conspicuous consumption where a wedding reception is held in a five star hotel with all the trappings of wealth. Ranjeet and his bride were at the gate to personally greet the guests. His bride wore a blue saree and a departure from tradition wore silver jewellery. My sister explained later that this was a new trend, which unfortunately never caught on. My sister had done couple of interviews with Ranjeet so he knew her. She introduced me to him and he greeted me warmly with a vigorous hand shake and a back slap, like a long lost friend. He told me to make myself at home, make sure I eat well and also to look after my sister. As you can well imagine I was fairly taken aback, never expected to be greeted which such warmth. I had expected the stars to be aloof and cold. We entered the lawn. The drawing room of the house had large French windows which were laid open allowing the party guest to spill out from the drawing room into the lawn. I spotted Rekha in traditional attire. She was wearing a cream Kanjeevaram saree with a heavy border and gold jewellery. Her hair had a single braid and a large red bindi on her forehead. Outside in the lawn was standing Sanjay Dutt, this was just before his first movie Rocky was released. He was more famous as being the son of Sunil and Nargis Dutt.
At that time Sanju baba looked like a ‘chota baba’. Full head of hair cut in the prevailing fashion of those days to cover the ears. He was formally dressed in an off white suit and was talking to Simi Garewal. I edged a little closer to them to overhear their conversation, “So when I we going to see you on the silver screen?” asked Simi in her British accented English. Baba mumbled a reply which was not audible to me perhaps because he does mumble and his back was turned to me. Meanwhile there was a stir in the crowd and I looked to see what was happening, there strode in all alone, the Big B himself Mr. Amitabh Bacchan. Though he was not known as the Big B in those days, he was at the pinnacle of his career with Manmohan Desai movies like Amar, Akhbar Anthony being superhits. As you can imagine the entire focus of attention of crowd shifted to Mr. Bacchan. He firmly ensconced himself in a corner of the lawn and remained aloof. Some small kids approached him with a request for an autograph which he ignored. He was the only star who behaved in the stereotyped manner of a star.
I would have continued to observe Mr. Bacchan but my sister caught me and told me “I would like you to meet someone.” And lo and behold that someone turned out to be Amjad Khan, famous for his role as Gabbar Singh. Mr. Khan was wearing a white Pathan suit and had a cigarette burning in his hand. He turned out to be a far cry from the evil persona he portrayed on the screen. In contrast he was very friendly and very jovial, constantly cracking jokes with us. Meanwhile the party was warming up and people were tanking up on the booze. An inebriated individual stumbled by Mr. Khan and bumped accidentally into him. Mr. Khan turned around with a dirty look but the individual was oblivious to the world. Mr. Khan turned back to us and remarked, “I love well mannered people” in shades of Gabbar Singh style. Mr. Khan himself was a teetotaller.
Then the call of nature took me on a quest for the toilet. I asked a hired help for the directions. He pointed to a door in the house. I opened the door and walked in, it was a den which had a music system and a collection of cassette tapes (wonder if my younger readers know what those were). The room was done up in Filmy style as a faux gufa. The walls consisted of grey fake granite boulders as also was the roof. At the end of the room was the toilet .
Once relieved I picked up a plate and joined the buffet que. While serving myself I felt a sharp poke on my back, turning around I found an individual who was slightly inebriated and very familiar. He had inadvertently poked his plate on my back and was blissfully oblivious. I looked carefully at his familiar face and then realized that the individual was another Bollywood baddy, Mr. Prem Chopra!
Now was time to return back home me and my sister stood outside looking for a taxi. Just then a white Ambassador drives up to us and on the passenger side is seated Mr. Amjad Khan. He tells us to hop on behind and he will drop us to the nearest taxi stand. He apologized for the humbleness of his ride as his Mercedez had gone for repairs. He kept us amused all throughout the ride with his humour though I was so much in awe of ridding in his car that I could not laugh or even pay attention. We came to a parked taxi with the driver sleeping and his feet sticking out of the window. Our car came and stopped next to the taxi, Mr. Khan who was sitting on the passenger side in front tickled the driver’s toes and who got up startled and was further startled to see Mr. Khan. We said our good byes and took the taxi to Bandra station.
At the end of this encounter I realized that the Bollywood stars far from being celestial beings are people like you and me. The after all have risen from our ranks, they have their insecurities, vanities, they also jostle at the buffet table and get inebriated. After that I have never seeked another star.