BENGALURU: Currently working on two web series, legendary actor Zeenat Aman, who ruled the silver screen in the ’70s and ’80s, reminisces about her chance entry into Bollywood which she eventually went on to conquer
When she was shooting for Shalimar (1978) in Bengaluru, yesteryear actor Zeenat Aman recalls poring over the script day and night. It was her first experience shooting with an international crew, and in two languages – English and Hindi. “The foreign crew expected us to get the lines straight at one go. It was so funny...soon after our day’s shoot, I’d be learning my lines for the next day with my Hindi tutor, while Dharamji would be practising his, with his English tutor,” says Zeenat, who played the role of Sheila Enders, Sir John Locksley’s (Rex Harrison) nurse in the Shammi Kapoor starrer.
More than 40 years on, this film, the making of it and other timeless tales kept the housefull audience at the Taj West End in rapt attention on Thursday. Organised by FICCI Flo Bangalore, Zeenat was in conversation with Dekyi Yangtso Chawla and Jayshree Menon at ‘Yaadon ki Baraat’. A cosmopolitan girl with a foreign education, Zeenat’s entry into films was quite by chance. She – along with her mother and German step-father – was ready to leave the country when Dev Anand suggested she audition for a part in Hare Rama Hare Krishna, which ultimately turned out to be her big break.
“Dev saheb was impressed with my attitude and persona – wearing a skirt and smoking a pipe – and he thought I would fit the role. For the next 15 years, it was a domino effect. I don’t know where and how the years went by,” says the actor whose other films include Laawaris, Qurbani, among a host of others. Zeenat faced several challenges, including not being fluent in Hindi, even though her father was a prolific writer and screenwriter for films like Mughal-e-Azam and Pakeezah.
“I gave my first screen test in English. My father would have rolled over in his grave, knowing I did so. I don’t think he would have ever liked my becoming an actor,” she says. Always being ahead of her time, Zeenat looks back at the ’70s and ’80s, when she ruled the silver screen for two decades. “The actors were prolific, the music was integral.
For instance, Dum Maro Dum is now considered the song of the century. In fact, Dev saheb wasn’t even keen to keep the song, but was persuaded to do so,” says the out-and-out director’s actor. Having established herself in a westernised garb, Zeenat started eyeing a key role in Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978). “I knew Raj Kapoor was directing this film, and made every effort to get the role. After much homework, I went to meet him one day.
I asked the person to say that ‘Rupa’ [the character he was looking to cast] had come to meet him. He was so impressed with how passionate I was about work,” she recalls. Zeenat doesn’t have any regrets about giving up her high-flying career for motherhood, nor her troubled marriage. “Sometimes the wrong person appears at the right time. But, I have two beautiful sons, and so, I have no regrets at all,” she says. Is there anything she would have done differently? “Absolutely not,” says Zeenat, who lives by the funda of doing the best she can at any given point, just like she did when she once walked onto a set, assuming it to be glamorous, and was then told, ‘You have to be the glamour.’
FUN FACT
If there’s one director Zeenat Aman would like to work with, who would it be? Without batting an
eyelid, she replies: Sanjay Leela Bhansali.