Conversations with Waheeda Rehman (16 page)

WR:
Well, they don’t fit because the stories are often action-based or they have more realistic settings. Everyone wants special effects these days. In the realistic dramas or the crime thrillers, they tend to use the song as a background song—not a lip-synced song.

I think that’s because the characters in some recent films would look too odd if they were singing. You can’t expect the hero in
The Lunchbox
or
Paan Singh Tomar
to sing a song, can you? How could the character Vidya Balan plays in
Kahaani
sing? It would look totally wrong.

There are also fewer situations in the stories today for the characters to sing. In a way I think it is a good thing.

In our time songs were used to express love. But now the couple meet and are hugging and kissing soon enough—where’s
the time or opportunity for them to sing a love song?

NMK:
I suppose it would be out of place for a hero to also sing praise of the heroine’s beautiful eyes—her ‘
nargisi ankhen
’—when she is scantily clad. I am not sure why would he concentrate on her eyes?
[we laugh]

We see comedies, action stories and crime thrillers dominate film-going tastes in the 2010s. I wonder if romance has finally taken a back seat today. Is it a loss for Indian cinema?

WR:
There has to be change. You can’t stick to the same themes like love and tragedy. People are changing in India. The audiences are more educated, otherwise would they accept films like
Kahaani
or
Paan Singh Tomar
or
Kai Po Che!
? These films have done well at the box office and so show us that the audience is changing.

In my era, people who watched films were not highly educated. Perhaps that’s why melodramas and weepy love stories dominated our films. Those films struck a chord, and people would let out their frustrations by watching them.

Audiences today have a lot more entertainment. They’re far more aware because of the vast number of television channels and the Net. Little kids can teach you a lot today.

NMK:
Earlier films were indeed preoccupied by romantic themes, and this was particularly true of your era. Do you think the prevalence of arranged marriages had something to do with it?

WR:
I think so. We should not generalize, but even today some traditional families, especially in small towns and villages, do not want the couple to know each other before marriage. The girl does not see the boy’s face before her wedding day. The poor thing doesn’t even know what he looks like. Is he hideous or handsome or what?

This was the norm in earlier times and so there had to be a sense of frustration and anxiety of not knowing who they will live with for the rest of their lives. Young people have a yearning for love and this increased the appeal of romantic stories. The story of doomed lovers like Laila–Majnu, Heer–Raanjha and others were always popular and so it was natural that romance of all kinds would become central to our films.

Our society is changing and that’s why you see a wider variety of film subjects.

NMK:
Like film stories, as we said, the role of songs is also changing and they don’t have the same importance as before. I think it would be a loss if they disappeared entirely from Hindi films. They made Indian cinema unique.

In addition to performing and delivering dialogue, there is an art to lip-syncing. Did you find it difficult to mime to the words of a playback singer?

With sisters Shahida (left) and Sayeeda with whom she continues to share a very close relationship. 1960s.

WR:
Dilip Saab would tease me because I would actually sing along with the playback track. One can tell if the actor is singing or not.
[sings]
‘Kabhi kabhi mere dil mein’. I may be singing out
of tune, but you can see the neck veins protrude slightly—that’s how you know if I’m singing.

The basic requirement is to know the song perfectly. You need to feel and understand the meaning of words and only then can you have the right facial expressions to match the words and mood of the song.

In a song like ‘Jaane kya tu ne kahi’, it was nearly all about facial expressions. There was a little body movement—the way I walk, the way I look at the hero, flirt and seduce him—all that was important.

‘Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm’ on the other hand is played in the background. I do not mime to the track and so I relied entirely on silent expressions—my face had to say it all. There was no movement in the song. I sit in a chair and knit. At one point, the souls of the two characters walk across the studio floor and merge together in a dissolve—a merging of shadows.

NMK:
That was an extraordinary moment—an imaginary union or one could say a union of spirits. It is almost ghostly.

WR:
It was very unusual. By and large, movement in a song varies according to the situation in the story.

NMK:
There are many examples of excellent song picturizations but do you think that background music has been used well in Hindi cinema?

WR:
I think it is rarely used well. The songs have a definite
purpose and take the story forward. They are a form of narrative through lyrics and music. The old songs were very good. But you can’t say the same about the background music. It was often too loud and too present.

I liked the way S.D. Burman and Madan Mohan composed background m usic. I never had the opportunity of working in a film in which the music was composed by Madan Mohan. But he was good. O.P. Nayyar did not write music for many movies, but his background scores were very effective—especially in the early crime thrillers like
Aar Paar
and
C.I.D
. I liked his music in those films.

NMK:
I read an interview with Meena Kumari in which she said she didn’t have to act if Lata Mangeshkar was singin g for her. I am sure she meant the emotional power of Lataji’s singing was enough, so why act when the voice conveyed all the feelings?

Did the way Lata Mangeshkar sing help you find the right way of expressing the song?

WR:
No matter how much one praises Lataji, it isn’t enough. She is a perfectionist. She takes her work totally seriously. Many other singers have come and gone. But she is unmatched.

It’s an absolute fact that her singing helped us actresses a lot. The feelings of a song came through her voice while she kept something of the personality of the actress. When you heard a song, without seeing the film in which it appeared, you could tell if Lataji was singing for Meena Kumari, Nargis, Madhubala
or Nutan. When she sang for Dimple in
Bobby
, her voice had the innocence of a fifteen-year-old. Matching the voice with the face is very important or else the performance itself cannot convince anyone.

Lataji is a great artist and yet so down to earth. I remember we were in Sunil Dutt’s Ajanta Arts W elfare Troupe show in Bangladesh in 1972. A whole group of artistes had gone for the show. Lataji and I were sharing a room. One day I had undressed, and was about to have my bath when I realized that there was no running water. She understood my predicament and immediately rushed off and found a bucket, filled it with water and carried it back to me. She had no pretensions whatsoever.

Nargisji, Lataji and I laughed a lot together. We had wonderful times.

NMK:
One of Lataji’s songs for you is the famous ‘Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai’ from
Guide
. How did that song get made?

WR:
We were filming in Udaipur when Dev went to Bombay to record the song. He returned worried, and told Goldie he was unhappy with the song that Burmanda had given him. He didn’t like it at all and wondered what had come over Dada. They got on very well and Dev knew Dada would not mind if he were asked to compose another number in its place.

But we all insisted we should at least hear the song, and when we heard it, we loved it. We told Dev: ‘What’s wrong with you? It’s a beautiful song. It will fit perfectly into the story. The music
is good and Lataji’s singing—everything about it is good.’ But Dev kept saying he didn’t like it.

With Lata Mangeshkar with whom she shares many years of friendship. Photograph courtesy: Lata Mangeshkar.

Goldie persuaded Dev to let him at least film the song. He explained that when we returned to Bombay we could view the rushes and if Dev still didn’t like it, we could come back to Udaipur and film another song in its place. Dev agreed and we started filming.

The song was shot over five days at various locations in Rajasthan. Every evening when the crew returned to the hotel, Dev noticed they were all humming the tune. On the fifth day, he said: ‘Sorry, I made a mistake. It’s a lovely song. We don’t need to record another.’

Before the song starts, there is a short exchange between Raju and Rosie in which Raju says: ‘Yesterday you seemed like a forty-year-old woman, disenchanted and tired with life, and today you are like a sixteen-year-old, carefree and happy.’

‘Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai’ is the answer to Raju’s lines. The song had such a feeling of freedom and much of the credit goes to Lataji. Her singing matched Rosie’s emotions perfectly. It made me really feel the words: ‘Today I want to live again; today I want to die.’

When talking about the difference between old and new songs, Lataji once said: ‘The orchestra was there to give us singers a rest. Today we singers are there to give the orchestra a rest!’
[laughs]

NMK:
I suppose what she meant was that the music is more
important today than the lyrics—because songs are now essentially dance numbers.

WR:
Even the dance numbers don’t show real dancing. The dances are more like PT drills. When I listen to recent film songs, they all sound the same to me. They have a good rhythm, but it is the same rhythm again and again.

NMK:
Another lovely and unusual song is ‘Bhanwaraa badaa nadaan haye’ from
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam
, sung by Asha Bhonsle for you.

WR:
She’s another great artiste. She brought that song alive. If you hear it again, you will notice how she stresses each syllable. ‘Bhan-wa-ra bad-aa naa-daan . . .’ etc. I had to make exaggerated facial movements to match her singing and intonation. She sang the words like that because in the scene Jabba is making fun of Bhoothnath who she thinks is foolish. Ashaji understood Jabba’s character and the situation in the story totally.

How beautifully she sang ‘Nadi naare na jaao shyaam paiyyan padun’ in
Mujhe Jeene Do
and ‘Paan khaaye saiyyan hamaaro’
in
Teesri Kasam
.

You know, the singer I used to meet very often was Rafi Saab because we appeared in many stage shows together. He had a magical voice and was a very simple and good man. When he sang, you could also guess who he was singing for—Dev Anand, Balraj Sahni or Dilip Kumar. Looking at the shy and reserved
RafiSaab, you could never imagine it was he who sang those wild songs for Shammi Kapoor.

NMK:
Shammi Kapoor had such rhythm and abandon. I think that, among today’s stars, Hrithik Roshan is the best dancer—a naturally gifted dancer.

But I suppose most actors need only give the impression they can dance because their dance steps have to last for a few seconds on the screen. Then the shot is cut. More than the actor, I think, the film editor is doing the dancing today.
[we laugh]

Your dancing was of an exceptionally high standard. Can you tell me how you prepared for a dance scene?

WR:
I insisted on rehearsing for at least five days with my choreographer to avoid wasting time on the day of the shoot.