Conversations with Waheeda Rehman (21 page)

NMK:
Were you a strict parent?

WR:
I was a little strict when my children were young. My mother was quite strict with us girls. I felt Shashi was too lenient. He said yes to everything that Sohail and Kashvi wanted. I don’t believe in being rigid. That’s too suffocating. You can break some rules, but discipline is still a good thing.

Now the children have grown up. We talk and fight too. They aren’t scared of me any more. They know I am fine with whatever they choose to do, but I don’t want an outsider telling me what they’re up to. I always tell them: ‘I may shout and scream at you, and even if I get angry, it will be for a short time. If you do something wrong, I am bound to get upset. But it doesn’t mean you should not confide in me. I am your mother and am always there for you.’

With (L to R) Kashvi, Sohail and her husband, Shashi Rekhy, on Kashvi’s first birthday. Bombay, 1977.

Sohail and Kashvi live with me here at Sahil. They aren’t married. You know nowadays young people talk of chemistry. I see many people divorcing around me, and so I don’t force them to get married. I think they should just be happy and healthy.

NMK:
Given the emphasis today on everyone looking young, especially celebrities, I am sure people have asked why you decided not to colour your hair.

WR:
My mother did not have a single grey hair. My father turned grey young, and my sisters and I took after him. And because we were making films in colour in the 1970s, I had to start dyeing my hair.

In 1997, my husband had his first stroke. A week later my mother-in-law fell and broke her hip and needed hospitalization. There was chaos in the house—the kind of chaos they show in the movies. I remember once telling a producer: ‘Why must you show tragedy after tragedy befalling the same family?’ He smiled and said one day I would see that life could sometimes turn out like that. I realized he was right.

My husband was unwell, my cook had left, it was pouring cats and dogs, the car wasn’t working as the brakes had failed, we had no electricity and, on top of all that, for two days the phone was out of order—disaster means
disaster
! I had to cook, look after my husband and run back and forth to the hospital, as my mother-in-law was frantically worried about Shashi.

There was no time to colour my hair and by the time things had settled down, my hair had turned grey. That’s when I decided to stop colouring it. When I came to Bombay for the first time after that and my friends saw me, they looked shocked—Nanda, Salim Saab, everyone. I said my children were grown, and Shashi had silvery hair, so why not me?

Mrs Krishna Raj Kapoor saw me in a shop one day and was taken aback. She said: ‘Waheeda, what have you done? I am so much older than you. Go straight to the saloon and get your hair dyed!’ [
we laugh
]

Another funny thing happened. Sunil Dutt was in the ICU because he had suffered a stroke and was paralysed. He had been extremely helpful in getting my brother-in-law admitted to Sloan–Kettering in New York. Sunil Dutt knew everyone there because that’s where Nargisji was treated for cancer.

When I entered his room in the hospital, and Sunilji saw me all grey, he was startled and said: ‘Waheedaji, what’s wrong? Shall I call the nurse? Why have you turned grey all of a sudden?’

‘It didn’t happen all of a sudden. I just stopped dyeing my hair. That’s all. You’re a grandfather now and we aren’t young any more.’ He laughed.

Nargis and Sunil Dutt were a wonderful couple. We were very close. We travelled together for charity shows and spent weeks together.

Once Nargisji and I went to London to attend a film festival. We were staying at the Hilton Hotel and would party till three in the morning. She would then call me early the next day and tell me to get ready quickly so we could go to Selfridges and Harrods for shopping. The person who looked after us in London, S.N. Gourisaria, kept complaining: ‘It’s 8.30 in the morning and you want to go shopping? I have to go to the office. You crazy people.’

With Nargis and Sunil Dutt at the Delhi premiere of
Reshma Aur Shera
. Delhi, 1971.

NMK:
S.N. Gourisaria? He’s over eighty-five now and is living between London and Calcutta. He used to organize the first Indian film festivals in London in the late 1950s. He was well known to everyone in the film industry, including Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt and Lata Mangeshkar.

Losing friends like Nargisji and Sunil Dutt must have been terrible. You also had to bear the loss of your husband. Was he ailing for a long time?

WR:
Shashi was very careless about his health. He didn’t believe in doing any physical exercise. He never walked nor was he
careful about his diet. He would eat ghee and malai and meat—you know, very rich food.

As I told you, he had his first stroke in Bangalore in 1997. We rushed him to the hospital, which was far away from the farm. The doctors would not come to the house.

Sometime later when I came to Bombay for a visit, I discovered Lilavati Hospital was only five minutes away from our Bandra house. But Shashi did not want to move back. I told him it was very important we live near a hospital and doctors. Specialists in Bombay make home visits and that was reassuring.

Shashi was unwell much of the time. He was diabetic and his sugar count would get very high. He had high blood pressure and smoked very heavily too. We had a big argument. I said:
‘No, sorry, I can’t do this. We have to move.’ The children were studying abroad and I was all alone. Very reluctantly he agreed to move back here. We had no choice really.

Between 1997 and 2000, he was admitted into the ICU several times, after suffering minor strokes. The first time he had a stroke, it had affected his speech, but gradually he regained normal speech. He became increasingly withdrawn and depressed. He started saying things like: ‘My time is up, I’ll go.’ I felt very bad and tried to persuade him not to think such thoughts.

Kashvi was in America and wanted to get a job there. I was worried that Shashi would overhear us if we spoke over the phone, so I wrote her a letter asking her to come home. I told her that her father was missing her and kept saying that his time
was up. My daughter came back to Bombay and exactly a month later, Shashi passed away. He died of a brain haemorrhage. He was only sixty-seven.

NMK:
When was that?

WR:
In November 2000. How time passes.

I don’t like dwelling on sadness. I try to face difficult times and live through them. I accept the things that happen in life. We all have to deal with loss. What choice do we have?

NMK:
Since your husband passed away, have your friends become a great support to you?

WR:
I didn’t have friends in my childhood because I was always unwell. Also, my father kept getting transferred from one city to another, so by the time we settled somewhere and made friends at the local school, we were on the move again. As a result, I didn’t have close friends. I had my sisters, and probably that’s the reason why I didn’t miss not having friends.

After my mother passed away in 1957, my sister Sayeeda got divorced and she and her three children came to live with me. Then unfortunately Bi-Apa, who was in Pakistan, lost her husband. He died of cancer. He was only forty. So she returned to India with her family and stayed with me for a while. The house was always full.

But friends have become increasingly important to me over the years. Nanda is a close friend. We both read a lot and
sometimes we sit together and imagine adapting a novel into a film. We discuss who could play the lead roles—Ashok Kumar? Rekha? We never cast each other.

NMK:
When did you first meet Nanda?

WR:
Before working together in
Kala Bazar
, we happened to see each other in some studio. She was with her mother. She told me later that she had smiled at me but I didn’t smile back. I hadn’t actually seen her.

A few days later when the filming of
Kala Bazar
had started, I asked her to have lunch with me. She was a little surprised because she thought I had ignored her the previous time we met, but she agreed to join me. After that we had lunch together every day. I told her she was welcome to use the bathroom that was attached to my make-up room any time she wanted. We soon became very good friends.

Close friend Nanda was among the sixty guests at her private wedding ceremony held at Sahil in Bandra. 1974.

Once, Nanda, her brother, my sister, some friends and I went on a holiday to Kodaikanal. From there we decided to go to Munnar in Kerala because we heard it was a very beautiful place.

Munnar was indeed lovely with flowing streams and green and lush tea estates. We were very keen to stay overnight. We found an English club that was run by a strange, rather scary-looking caretaker. He was dark-skinned and wore crisp white kurtas. We asked him if we could stay the night. He said there weren’t enough rooms for us all, but if the women slept in the main building of the club and the men in the annex, we could manage somehow.

Nanda is a total coward and so she became very suspicious. She wondered why the caretaker wanted the men to sleep in the annex and us women elsewhere. I reassured her and said there was nothing to worry about. So we went to the market and bought lungis and men’s shirts to wear for the night, as we had no fresh clothes with us for the next day.

Nanda and I shared a room. She went in to have her bath and when she came out of the bathroom, she screamed on seeing the window of our bedroom wide open. I told her that I
had opened the window because we needed fresh air. She said nothing doing and banged it shut. She was absolutely convinced that the caretaker would sneak into our room in the middle of the night through the window. It took some time before I could convince her not to worry about the poor fellow because he was unlikely to do us any harm.
[laughs]

Nanda and I had some crazy times together.

NMK:
Have you always had the same group of friends?

WR:
Yes, more or less. We’re a close-knit group of six women: Nanda, Asha Parekh, Sadhana, Helen, Shammi Rabadi and I. We meet often and do things together. Last year Asha, Helen and I went to Turkey for a holiday. Asha and I went to Kutch for a few days after that.

I also used to meet Shakila and Jabeen very often. Jabeen acted in
Taj Mahal
with Bina Rai and in James Ivory’s
The Householder
. She didn’t become a big star. I met Shakila during the making of
C.I.D.
She was the heroine and I played the vamp. We don’t see each other as often nowadays.

NMK:
How did you get to know Helen?

WR:
Helen and I performed a dance together in a film called
Baazi
, which was made in 1968. Dharmendra was the leading man. We didn’t become friends at the time, but when Salim Saab and Helen got married he would bring her over to
our place very often. We soon became close friends. Helen was also very close to Nanda because they had made many movies together over the years.