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Greatness wrapped in humility

Pallab Bhattacharya studies the life of a cinema icon
AS you flip through the first few pages of London-based documentary filmmaker Nasreen
Munni Kabir's book, Conversations With Waheeda Rahman, on the Bollywood legend, the first thing that strikes you about it is its refreshing format. After seven pages of the preface titled, "Encounters with Waheeda Rahman", the book slips into smooth-flowing dialogues between the actress, who has delighted generations with her roles in super hit films like "Guide", "CID", "Pyaasa", "Kaagaz Ke Phool", "Chaudhvin Ka Chand", "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam", "Bees Saal Baad" "Mujhe Jeene Do", "Khamoshi", Bengali film "Abhijaan" (directed by Satyajit Ray), "15 Park Avenue and "Rang De Basanti"
In a career spanning more than five decades and beginning at the age of seventeen with a dance sequence in a Telugu language film in 1955, Waheeda has acted in diverse roles in 83 films and worked with all leading directors of Hindi cinema, including Guru Dutt, Raj Khosla, Ray, Vijay Anand, Dev Anand, and with prominent actors like Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt,
Dev Anand, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, Soumitra Chatterjee and Rajesh Khanna. And that is remarkable for Waheeda who, as she herself says, was forced into film acting more by circumstances after the death of her father Mohd Abdur Rehman, a bureaucrat, than by choice and signed her first big break in Guru Dutt's "CID" without any audition and camera test and just on the basis of some still photos. Remarkable for Waheeda, the minor girl prone to frequent illness due to vulnerability to allergic asthma.
The trials and tribulations and successes of Waheeda's life are beautifully brought out in the book primarily due to its refreshingly different format of interview (Question and Answer). It is as if the reader is watching a documentary film in printed form, barring the images. It must be said to the credit of Nasreen Munni Kabir that the book gives readers a deep insight into different aspects of Waheeda Rehman's life not only as an actress but as a human being who, like her parents, was much ahead of her time and broke new ground.
The preface chronicles the seven-to-eight year-old story of Kabir's efforts to write the book on Waheeda, beginning in 2005 and fructifying in 2012 due to the writer's sheer perseverance. Another reason why the preface is important is that it brings out, in the writer's own words of course, some key features of Waheeda's persona—her "genuine humility" reflected in her initial reluctance to the idea of a book because she wondered why anyone would be interested in her story in the first place and the actress' "deep modesty" manifested in her belief that whatever she is today has nothing to do with her natural talent but just being lucky.
Like her father, who broke with tradition by moving away from his landowning family and opting for a career as a bureaucrat rather than live like a zamindar, the book leaves the reader with the inescapable conclusion of Waheeda being a woman who has lived life on her own terms. One cannot agree more with Kabir's observation towards the end of her preface that Waheeda is a "feisty lady and has always fought her corner, even from a young age".
And that is borne out when she travels to Bombay to sign the contract for her first Hindi film "GID" and putting two key conditions relating to her costume and refusal to change her name in keeping with the trend among the first generation of Muslim actors and actresses, such as Dilip Kumar (originally Yousuf Khan), Meena Kumari (Mahajabeen Bano), Madhubala (Mumtaz Jahan) and Nargis (Fatima) That came as a surprise to producer Raj Khosla who, according to Waheeda, told her that 'newcomers don't usually make demands. Just sign'
Regarding the condition related to costume which Waheeda insisted on for inclusion in her contract, the actress says she told Khosla, "When I am older, I might decide to wear a swimsuit. I won't now because 1 am very shy". Khosla told her, "If you're so shy, why do you want to work in films?" Waheeda, according to her own worlds, shot back, "I haven't come her of my own accord. You called us." This is something unimaginable even today in the cut-throat competition that Bollywood is.
The book also contains certain new and interesting information coming from Waheeda. For instance, she tells Kabir that Satyajit Ray was considering adapting for the celluloid novelist R. K. Narayan's novel "Guide" and had
asked her to read the book as "he told me that if the film ever took off, he would cast me as Rosie." Later, the film was made by Dev Anand although Waheeda played the leading lady opposite him. "Satyajit Ray would have conceived the film in a completely different way", Waheeda says.
A most interesting part of the book relates to Waheeda's comments on Ray, how the maestro had approached her for the rule of Gulaabi in "Abhijaan", how honoured she felt to work with him, her assessment of Ray as a "towering personality" and how he helped her in acting in the film "in an unfamiliar language" of Bhojpuri-Bengali.
"Ray Saab was meticulous and explained everything in great detail. He sketched every scene and made detailed shot breakdowns, even noting the lens he planned to use. His storyboarding was extremely helpful. In those, days, no one had heard of storyboarding. He was one of the few directors who gave me a bound script", recalls Waheeda.
The reader also learns from Waheeda how Ray had once told her that if he ever made a Hindi film (which he eventually did with "Shatranj Ke Khilari), he would cast her. But while making that movie, Ray made it a point to tell her, "Waheeda, I promised to cast you but I don't feel the role in this film will suit you".
Waheeda essaying the role of Jaya Bhaduri's mother in the film "Phaagun" at the age of 35, her marriage to Shashi Rekhi, a Punjabi, in 1974, the birth of their son and daughter, her husband's death in the year 2000 and her acting career progressing through all those years, her equations with the leading Bollywood heroines of her time, such as Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Nargis and Nanda, tips for aspiring actresses —the Bollywood veteran tells Nasreen Munni Kabir about all this in an engrossing manner.
Through Conversations with Waheeda Rehman, Nasreen Munni Kabir has made a valuable addition to film lovers' search for the life and personality of Hindi cinema's leading heroines, coming as it does after her previous two books on singer Lata Mangeshkar and composer A R Rahman in the same format.
PALLAB BHATTACHARYA IS A LEADING
INDIAN JOURNALIST BASED IN NEW DELHI