Actresses like Padmini, Vyjayanthimala and
Waheeda had already paved the way for the influx of the twinkle-toed South
brigade but the one person who broke the dam that began the deluge was a
doe-eyed beauty who was packaged as the ‘Dream Girl’ in her very first film, Sapnon ka Saudagar – Hema Malini. The
‘Dream Girl’ sobriquet hasn’t been bestowed on anyone since, even if the
veteran actress was gracious enough to say that she thought the tag fit
Aiswarya [Rai] very well indeed.
Incidentally, Hema Malini had been rejected by a producer/director CV Sridhar as ‘not star material’. (The role – in Venniradai – went to Nirmala.) After a couple of outings in side roles in Tamil, she got her big break – the role of heroine in a film called ‘Sapnon ka Saudagar’, opposite Raj Kapoor. The film flopped but the industry sat up and took notice of the slim, tall girl with large beautiful eyes.
Her initial failures only spurred her determination to succeed. And succeed she did; Johnny Mera Naam saw her catapult to the big league – she played a unwilling but definitely-not-helpless gangster’s pawn in this Vijay Anand directorial, headlined by his brother Dev Anand.
Her star wattage continued to shine as she continued to take on projects that were not exactly big ventures – Gulzar’s Khushboo, Kinara and Meera all came along in the 70s. She also committed to roles that were not exactly ‘heroine material’ – Ek Chhaddar Maili Si and Rihaaee were bold themes for the time. At the same time, she consolidated her status as a purely commercial heroine, forming popular star-combinations with Dharmendra (she did 28 films with him), Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra, and Sanjeev Kumar.
She commanded a respect that few heroines have managed – even a hurried marriage with an already-married man didn’t dent her reputation any. People talk about Dharmendra’s and Hema’s iconic romance, quite forgetting Prakash, Dharmendra’s first wife. However, Hema held her head high, worked and danced and produced and directed after marriage, all without a breath of scandal. If you ask about an actress who lived her personal life and managed her career on her own terms, it is she.
While she’s always been a favourite of mine for her sheer charm on screen, it’s also been refreshing to see that she’s quite forthright and honest: when asked (on a talk show) about the gossip about her and the untrue stories that were spread by the media, she laughed, saying, ‘They wrote only true things about me.’ [Those episodes of Koffee with Karan – Hema with Zeenat, and Hema with Jaya Bachchan were two of the most interesting episodes on that chat show.] Yesterday was her 69th birthday, and in celebration, I present a selection of what I consider her most definitive work.
Johnny Mera Naam (1970)
Directed by: Vijay Anand
This is as commercial as it gets, but while
Hema’s Rekha is the regulation heroine and love-interest of the hero, she has
more to do than just play arm candy. Nav Ketan’s heroines were always slightly hatke and while this was not produced by
Nav Ketan, it was directed by Vijay Anand and starred Dev. Here, Rekha is a
gangster’s moll. What Johny (Dev Anand) has to decide is whether she is a
willing accomplice or an unwilling pawn. It turns out that intrepid Rekha has
infiltrated the gang to prove her father’s innocence. But despite that back
story, Rekha is a smuggler, all said
and done, but she gets to have a happy ending. Hema looked absolutely stunning
and this film would prove to be her stepping stone to the big league. (She was
barely seven films old then, and while she had been cast as the heroine, the
resounding success of this film would catapult her as a box-office force to
reckon with.)
Abhinetri (1970)
Directed by: Subodh Mukherjee
As Anjana, Hema was fantastic in a
thankless role. Her Anjana gets to walk out of her marriage to assert her own
individuality when faced with a possessive, mopey husband (Shashi – aarrrgh!)
but the lame-duck ending had me engraving the QWERTY on my forehead. It was a
bold film that chickened out on the ending: both women – mother and wife – make
valid points about a woman’s identity, her feelings and desires – and while the
ending is ambiguous enough to make one fantasise that the son/husband has learnt
his lesson, the film does not delve into the problems that led to the impasse.
However, Anjana was a nuanced character who is the least bothered by what
society has to say about her, and Hema
played her with sincerity.
Directed by: Sushil Majumdar
Hema is Saudamini rechristened Madhuri by
the man who rescues her from dacoits and unkind in-laws. A zamindar of some
prestige, Kumar Bahadur Gyan Shankar Rai (Raaj Kumar) is adamant that he will
not get married – the family curse of insanity makes him vow that his lineage
will end with him. However, the zamindar is not short of a few of his
ancestors’ vices. His rescue of Saudamini is self-serving – he lusts for her.
Unfortunately for the poor woman, he soon loses interest in the uneducated,
uncouth, unsophisticated Saudamini. Ten long years later, he falls in love with
another young woman, Sumita, and forgetting his vow, weds her and brings her
home as his bride.
Saudamini is furious – hell hath no fury
like a woman scorned, and Hema plays Saudamini as a woman of strong passions,
hell bent on defying societal norms to attain what she considers hers. If, in
doing so, she ruins Sumita’s life, well, that’s collateral damage. Hema changes
from the docile young woman who initially enters the haveli to the unquestioned chatelaine whose every word is law to a
wounded tigress refusing to let go her claim to her man. So what if she’s not
wedded to him? She’s his woman, not
this milk-faced tremulous young woman he’s replaced her with.
Andaz (1971)
Directed by: Ramesh Sippy
If that’s not refreshing enough for a Hindi
film heroine, Sheetal actually gets a second chance at love; her student’s
widowed father begins to feel attracted to her, and she responds, though not
without feeling confused – her guilt over moving away from Raj’s memories, and
her nascent attraction to the attractive widower who seems to understand her
was well etched by both director and actress.
It was an unusual role for a heroine to
play so early in her career – playing mother to a young child would have been
seen as career suicide then. (Perhaps even now.) However, Hema did sign on, and
she did a wonderful job as a young single mother who’s making her own way
through the world.
Directed by: Ramesh Sippy
Upar aa jaa, moti…
By the time Seeta aur Geeta was released, Hema had already become a name to
reckon with. In this gender-bending remake of Ram aur Shyam, Hema essayed the roles of both the demure Seeta and
the hoydenish Geeta, twin-sisters-separated-at-birth, with utmost elan. While
Seeta was the regulation Hindi film heroine, Geeta was a spunky lass with
impeccable comic timing. Whether it was the scene in the police station where
she trades quips with her aunt (whom she doesn’t know), or whether she was
squabbling with her partner-in-crime Raka (Dharmendra), or even romancing Ravi
(Sanjeev Kumar), who’s under the impression that she’s Seeta, she was
brilliant.
Geeta tells off Raka when he trails after
her announcing his love for her, and is not loath to ‘talk back’ to her
[foster] mother, but she has strong sense of loyalty and responsibility towards
the woman even after she learns that she was kidnapped at birth. What’s more,
in Geeta, we had a heroine who didn’t need the hero to ‘rescue’ her; in fact,
she does quite a bit of rescuing, herself.
Sholay (1975)
Sholay (1975)
Directed by: Ramesh Sippy
Yun toh, humein befizool baat karne ki aadat toh hai nahin…
Basanti redefined the ‘simple’ village folk
of Hindi films. Strong, independent, earning her own living in what’s
essentially a man’s world, Basanti has no qualms about demanding the correct
fare (no bargaining allowed), or about the way she expects her male passengers
to treat her. She’s no damsel in distress either – she may have been forced to
dance on glass to save her lover’s life, but she gave them a good fight before
she was caught. Who can forget her heroic attempt to escape and her mare’s
valiant effort to help her mistress? ‘Chal
Dhanno, aaj teri Basanti ki izzat ka sawaal hai’ is forever enshrined in
the dialogue hall of fame.
Directed by: Raj Sippy
Another commercial film, where Hema’s Indu
is seemingly the regulation heroine – just there for the songs and a few
tear-filled scenes. However, in this adaptation of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Indu is a strong, independent
woman who has no time or patience for the stalking that masquerades as love. It
teaches him to woo her (as opposed to stalking her until she falls in love with
him), but when she does realise that her husband’s story was a charade from
beginning to end, she still gives him one chance. A chance that is squandered
almost as quickly – and Indu doesn’t mince words when she tells off her
brand-new husband. Indu was that rare Hindi film heroine – a strong,
independent working woman who could be warm and nurturing without losing one
ounce of her self-respect or self-worth.
In a film that was headlined by Amitabh
Bachchan (in a double role), Hema proved she could not only stand up to him,
but force him to rethink his ideas about women. Her Indu is a no-nonsense
person who refuses to give up her principles however much she loves her
husband. The film showed a mutually respectful husband-wife relationship and we
(I watched this with Shalini) loved that Hema’s character didn’t just disappear
into the woodwork or become a doormat once she was married. As I wrote in my review, both Shalini and I
agreed that such respect for a female character was so seldom seen in a
mainstream film. Hema’s portrayal of Indu helped that perception. Her Indu was
a refreshing departure from standard female characters of the time, and Hema
once again displayed the comedy is her forte. Witness the scene where she's teaching her brothers-in-law to behave.
Ek Nai Paheli (1984)
Bhairavi is another unusual character for a
mainstream heroine to play – at least in
the Hindi films of the time. She is an established classical singer,
independent and alone – her backstory indicates the presence of a husband, who
is missing – but he’s not important to the story. Not yet. She comes across
young Sandeep (Kamal Hasan) in circumstances which force her to offer him the
sanctuary of her house. While recuperating, Sandeep begins to be attracted to
Bhairavi. The conflict? He’s years younger than she is. In a story that
explores an intricate web of parallel relationships, the relationship between
Bhairavi and Sandeep is not based on love – at least, not initially. It is lust
(on Sandeep’s part), the attraction of a young man towards a beautiful,
desirable, woman.
Ek Chhaddar Maili Si (1986)
Directed by K Balachander
Hema, with a couple of decades of acting
behind her, beautifully portrayed both the maturity and the confidence of a
woman who has spent years on her own. Yet, she’s no cougar awaiting a sexual
relationship with a much-younger man; the attraction on her side is both
emotional and intellectual. As the relationship matures, so does Sandeep, and
the love he feels for Bhairavi is no less ‘pure’ for there having been a sexual
attraction before. It was refreshing to see an ‘older’ woman shown as a living, breathing, desirable, sexually attractive character. Casting Hema (in a role
that the late Sri Vidya played in the original) as Bhairavi was a stellar move
– I wonder how many of her peers would have dared to take on such an
unconventional love story.
Directed by: Sukhwant Dhadda
Izzat ka sawaal baad mein aata hai, pehle pet ka...
For Hema, this was another feather in her
cap as she portrayed Rano with a sensitivity that made her anguish come to
life. Her silences were eloquent as she allowed her eyes to express her
emotions – in a film that was sensitively
handled, her Rano was both fiery and passionate, accepting and strong,
and she played her part with remarkable restraint.
Directed by Aruna Raje
As I list Hema’s roles that are my
favourites, I’m struck by how many unusual choices she made – like Lal Patthar,
Ek Chhaddar Maili Si and Ek Nai Paheli, Rihaaee too follows an unusual
trajectory for its female characters. A brave attempt at dissecting social
mores that set boundaries for women, but another set of rules for men, Rihaaee
questions the double standards not just through the women in the film, but
through one of its male characters as well.
Set in a village, Rihaaee sets out to
explore the plight of women left behind in the villages as their men migrate to
the cities in search of work. The women are lonely, and sexually deprived, and
the proximity of an unscrupulous young man leaves them vulnerable in ways they do not
expect. Taku (Hema Malini) is the only one who staunchly refuses to have
anything to do with him – this provokes Mansukh (a sleazy Naseeruddin Shah)
into wooing his way into her heart and her bed, with predictable consequences. When the men return – they are furious.
The conflict lies in the double standards –
Mansukh, who’s self-serving has already left the village; however, his father
blames the women. The men who are excoriating their wives for infidelity have
not been faithful to their marriage vows – they were frequent visitors to the
city’s brothels, a pertinent fact that is pointed out to them by the elderly village women who have experienced this, and more.
The film has its flaws, but what makes the
film an important one in feminist cinema is that it gives its women voices;
what they say resounds beyond the film itself, and into the two decades since
its release. While the men may or may not accept their women’s arguments, their
hypocrisy is called out in the moment – what’s more important, the film underlines the fact that women have a need for companionship just as much as
men do; that they have sexual desires, and are their own sentient beings, who
are allowed their own choices. Rihaee displays, without judging, the
the choices, and their consequences. It is important to note that film had the women take responsibility for their actions, without whitewashing their behaviour.
Hema’s Taku is at the centre of the conflict, and she turns in a restrained performance. It’s an interesting – and bold – character, and it says much that an actress of Hema’s stature agreed to take it on.
Hema’s Taku is at the centre of the conflict, and she turns in a restrained performance. It’s an interesting – and bold – character, and it says much that an actress of Hema’s stature agreed to take it on.
Whatever the character she was playing,
Hema imbued them all with dignity. Her own self-worth was evident in the
characters she played, even if they were the standard romantic heroine roles. She’s conducted herself with dignity, lived her life with her head held
high, and despite a controversial marriage, kept her self-respect intact.
She’s actress and dancer, producer and director, choreographer and member of
parliament, mother and grandmother – all roles she takes in her stride.
To an actress who has always sparkled on the silver screen, here's wishing a long, happy, productive life.
To an actress who has always sparkled on the silver screen, here's wishing a long, happy, productive life.
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