Sharjah: “He is the greatest prime minister of our country today. I’m proud to be part of his gang,” said Hema Malini, interrupting her story of how India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, came to write the foreword of her recently released biography, Beyond The Dream Girl.
Sitting alongside the author of the book, film journalist and critic Ram Kamal Mukherjee, at the Sharjah International Book Fair, the 69-year-old actress, who recently marked 50 years in Bollywood, addressed fans and media alike at a session. “Before he became the prime minister, before he became chief minister of Gujarat, I knew him, we used to campaign [together] — so as a friendly gesture, it [the foreword] has happened,” she explained. The prolific actress, who has worked on more than 90-odd Indian movies, said she only became interested in telling her story because it moved past the moniker she picked up when she worked on the 1977 film Dream Girl and it would introduce the world to other facets of her personality.
She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, a “working grandmother”, a politician — she belongs to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party — and an avid social worker.
Besides, “without my knowledge, he [author Kamal Mukherjee] has been meeting all my family members, right from Ahana, Esha (my daughters) to Dharamji [husband Dharmendra], my brothers ... so he has come to know a lot of things from that, then finally he sat with me”, she explained.
Hema Malini often talked of her mother, the film producer Jaya Chakravarthy, almost as a force of nature, who moulded her into the star she became. The goal of celebrity was not hers, but it is one she has adapted well to, if the number of fans who strained in their seats and the aisles at the Sharjah Expo Centre to catch a glimpse of her was anything to go by.
The winner of India’s fourth-highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, in 2000, Hema Malini also spoke about her younger days, recalling that she almost didn’t take the role of Basanti in 1975 hit Sholay because the movie didn’t offer her much of a role. She recalled director Ramesh Sippy telling her sternly ‘you will regret it, [ if you don’t do it]’. “With great hesitation I agreed, but I didn’t know how important it will become in my life.”
Kamal Mukherjee, who has also written a coffee-table book on the actress, called her “India’s first female superstar” at the event. “Hema Malini started ruling the industry in 1970 and she ruled [it] until 1982, [until] Esha was born, so it’s a record, because there was no heroine before or after Hema Malini, who stayed in Bollywood for 15 years as number one,” he explained.
But it’s not like the fame and fortune came without a cost. Fortunately, she was protected from the worst of the predatory nature of the business, she said. When asked about the Weinstein issue and industry veterans who prey on new blood, she told Gulf News in an interview: “When very ambitious [vulnerable] [kids] come to act in films, people take advantage, it is bound to happen.”
She recalled her first few years of stardom. “When I was a top star, I was busy working in so many films, many young girls used to run away from [their] homes and come to my house. And in front of my house, they would come and say, ‘I want to become a heroine, so please help me.’ I tried to send them back. It is tough. I always tell [young people], ‘if you want to act come to [Mumbai], come with someone from the family, so that you are secure’.”
Then, having signed her biography for her many fans, she sat down quietly in the VIP room, slippers half-dangling and relaxed, taking a short coffee break before her next interview.
