She took both the Bengali and the Bombay film industry by storm in her very first film. From Balika Bodhu(Child bride) which she did while in 5th grade in Bengal, Moushumi Chatterjee became the golden girl of Indian Cinema. Her vivacity and pizzazz, her natural performances and crookedly gorgeous smile made her the most sought after actress even after marriage and kids at a very young age. In an exclusive interview however she tells Kavita Chhibber that she attributes her success to being God’s favorite child.
You come from a family that would be considered most unlikely to have a kid in films and that too at such a young age.
Yes, my father was in the Army and my grand father was a judge in the British times. I was brought up in a very conservative but close knit family. My grand mother used to hide her transistor to listen to songs as my grandfather frowned on it. We did see some films and often I used to put a dupatta(a long Indian scarf) and tie it on my head and create a long plait as I had short hair, and prance about and be transported into my own world after seeing a film, especially after color films started in India.
I was a total tomboy and it was funny that the night before I got my first film offer to play a child bride in Balika Bodhu, my sister and brother and I were fighting on the dinner table and my father said most exasperatedly, “ Desh azaad hai, tum bhi azaad hai jo marzi aye karo(The country is independent and so are you, do as you please). I was in 5th grade when I was asked to go up two stories to meet film director Tarun Majumdar. I said why should I go up? He can come down to meet me if he wants to talk to me! Tarun came down-he was dark with spectacles and looked like a professor. He asked me, “ Will you act in my film? I said most nonchalantly-sure. He asked again, “But will your parents agree?” I happily parroted what my father had said to me the night before, “The country is independent, so are we and so we can do as we please.” It was funny how I totally believed what my father had said and of course when he heard about it he said No!
It was Tarun’s wife the famous actress Sandhya Roy who asked my father to meet her and I don’t know how she did it but she was able to convince him. He said, “Fine but this girl is like a wild horse so I’m washing my hands off her. She is your responsibility.” And boy, did I drive them crazy on the sets! Initially I was very excited by the attention I received but then I would run away, mess up my make up, throw away the big dangling nose rings they stuck in my nose. I felt at times the second heroine who was about 15-16 was getting more attention. So I demanded even more. If she wanted one glass of water, I would demand 2 and they would say to me –keep quiet and go and sit there. Then I felt no one cared about me and I would act up! At one point Tarun Majumdar said he was going to burn the reels already shot and not make the film-he was so fed up!
But finally the film was complete and became a platinum jubilee hit! After Balika Bodhu I did Parineeta. It was only at Hemant Kumar’s insistence that my father even agreed to let me act in that film and made him my guardian. He told him,” We know nothing about the film industry so you take care of her.”
You got married when you were in 10th grade and then came to Bombay. How was that transition?
An aunt of mine who I was very close to, was dying of cancer and she wanted to see me married off before she died. Hemant Kumar had become a close family friend and he asked for me for his son Babu(Jayanto Mukherjee). I have never met Rabindranath Tagore but I think Hemant Kumar came closest to my idea of what Tagore may have been like. He was not just an amazing film maker and musician he was the finest human being I could have known. I feel very blessed to have been a part of his family. He was so giving and kind and he had such tolerance of others.
So I actually landed in Bombay after marriage with my pet dog, my doll house and my closest friend. I was all excited about dressing up and not having to go to school any more and was madly in love with my husband. He was the first man I got to know outside of my immediate family.
But already many top directors had approached my father in law with scripts and wanted me to act in their films.
My father in law told me, you are so talented why don’t you go ahead and act in films? So I said yes to Shakti Samant’s “Anuraag”. His Aradhana was a big hit that time. I was to play the role of a blind girl and was petrified. “I told him I have never paid any attention to how a blind person behaves.” He said don’t worry, I will take you to a school for the blind and you can learn.” Instead I was called for a mahurat shot and asked to read a few lines. I was very excited to be able to see Nutan ji who I had admired and Ashok Kumar there. Rajesh Khanna too was a huge star then, and I got the opportunity also to interact with legendary music maestro S.D. Burman who I used to call Nanaji (grand father). The place was swarming with people and while it was exciting to get that kind of attention I was also like a child who has been thrown in a swimming pool and people are watching to see whether it will sink or swim! I don’t know what I did but after I had finished reading that page of dialogue every one started clapping and then Shakti Samanta said to me, “ I’m not taking you to any blind school. I don’t know how you did what you did just now, but act the same way in the entire film.”
That movie too was a big hit. I don’t know how. I have been the laziest actress in the industry. I used to bunk shootings like crazy, because I just wanted to be with my husband. And here I was with my crooked smile, and uneven teeth, I think I also have one crooked eye and I think I’m a bit nutty also, actually working with so many outstanding people from the film industry.
Can you believe it, my dentist used to tell me people came to him wanting a smile like mine. Some one asked me the other day, when I was at the mall, “ what is the secret of your beautiful smile?” I thought of my crooked teeth and responded, “ your eyes!’
People see you with the eyes of love and you become beautiful for them. He loved the answer. And I believe in making people happy. Just see how your face transforms when you smile.
Your roles in Angoor and Roti Kapda aur Makan stand out as total contrasts. The rape scene in Roti Kapda aur Makaan is considered to this day to be one of the most disturbing rape scenes done on Indian cinema. I heard you were pregnant then.
I received flowers from Nargis Dutt when angoor was released, because she loved the way I performed in it. Even Jaya Bachchan loved it and sent me flowers. I have always enjoyed working with Sanjeev Kumar. He was very gentle, very protective and very informal with a great sense of humor. He was a great observer of people and their personalities and had no inhibitions as an actor. He had started drinking a lot in later years and I feel he just let himself go after his mother’s death. Often even when my husband and I were going out for a party he would come in holding a couple of movie videos in his hands tell us to go to our party, have dinner at our place and watch the films by himself. He died too young.
As for Roti Kapda aur Makan, my daughters laugh at how naïve I was when they hear how that scene was picturised. Manoj Kumar handled the scene with great sensitivity. He didn’t tell me too much so as not to freak me out. He just said some of these people will come and hold your hand, pull you on the bags of flour and pull at your blouse and this sack of flour would open and flour would stream on your face.
Funnily at that moment my only concern was not what was about to happen, but that the flour would go on my face and hair and how was I going to wash it all off? And I had been told that an identical blouse will be put over the one I was wearing and that would be the one pulled. When the scene happened, the flour fell on me and I started puking. It was done in one shot and I was more relieved that I didn’t have to have the flour run on my face again. I was so naïve I didn’t even realize the implications of rape. It was only when I saw the scene in film that I realized the enormity of what I had enacted.
Tell me about some of your co stars. You have acted with the best of them.
I think Amitabh Bachchan was impressive in Anand and up to Amar Akbar Anthony. After that his persona became larger than his role and in every film you only see Amitabh Bachchan and not the character he plays. I have to however thank him from the bottom of my heart for the facelift he has given the film industry in just the way he carries himself and speaks in the global arena.
Dharamendra is a happy go lucky wonderful human being. He loves people who are straightforward and genuine and is very intolerant of those who are not. He was very close to my father in law and so very protective of me. He had tremendous sense of comic timing which was not exploited by too many directors.
I used to call Shashi Kapoor, Shashi Uncle until we started shooting and he told me to either call him Shashi ji or Shashi baba! He was my mentor in many ways and would tell me not to get too close to people because the film industry works in a different way and people might misinterpret my naiveté for something else. I’m a huge admirer of Rishi Kapoor however. He is a tremendously intense actor and his role especially in Damini was outstanding.
I have to say that I have yet to find anyone who was as much of a gentleman as Vinod Khanna. He was a class apart. In fact he yelled at Babu for bringing a young innocent girl like me into the big bad world of films. He would make sure all the people on his sets were treated well especially women. I got along very well with both his first wife Geetanjali and his second wife Kavita. In fact I used to spend a lot of time playing with his sons Rahul and Akshaye when they were little. I have a deep connection with their family through the years. Imagine I have acted first with the father and then with Rahul and Akshaye. Rahul is a darling and still addresses me as Ruby Ji, the character I played in Bollywood Hollywood where I was his mom in the film.
Which are the best directors you have worked with?
I’m not saying this because I’m a woman but I think we have outstanding women directors.
Whenever I’m having fun I remember Deepa Mehta. As a child I had a great childhood, but as a woman and an actress, I don’t recall anywhere else where I had so much fun as I did on the sets of Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood Hollywood. It was like a large family and I still remember the faces of the unit crew and how they would smile. I miss them and think about them to this day.
Deepa is very very perceptive. When rehearsals were on she would watch us without interfering and giving us a free hand. But she would immediately notice if anyone of us was having a hard time with any lines. After the rehearsal was over she would come to us and say, just say what comes to your mind, as long as it conveys the same meaning.
Now you are acting under Aparna Sen’s direction in The Japanese Wife?
I had cold feet within the first three days. I had to put on weight for the film and speak a strange dialect spoken by people in the Sundarban area. Aparna Sen told me then that she was expecting 60 to 70 percent out of me and I’m giving 120 percent. If I didn’t do the film she was going to kill me! It was good fun working with her and I had a great time, but again whenever I have a great time, I miss Deepa Mehta. Ideally I want to see more women in the film industry in every sphere whether its cinematography, or camera work or as a screenplay writer or a director. I don’t think women are encouraged here, because they are walking in on a male domain and wherever women do that, there is resistance from the men.
You have done a lot of family dramas and comedy but you acted in the Hindi remake of The Others with Amitabh Bachchan and Dimple Kapadia. How was that experience working in a supernatural thriller?
I was going to be offered the role Dimple did, but they got to her first. I was fine with the other role as it was equally important but the director got a late break, was too much of a gentleman and got pushed around. The film really didn’t turn out the way it should have.
How has the film industry changed over the years. I hear your younger daughter Megha has made her debut also.
Well not just the film Industry, India has changed, and not necessarily for the better though a lot of money has come in. The industry is technically a lot better, but people are crazily running after success and don’t know how to take a break. You go to any eatery or coffee house in Bombay, it is overflowing with youngsters not knowing what to do with their time. People are on the fast track and by 30 they are burnt out. You tell them to take it easy and they look at you as if you are crazy. They inform you that if they took it easy 100 others behind them will overtake them. They are so insecure. I can’t make out what most of them doing in the film. These days you can’t make out the difference between the heroine and the vamp. In our time the songs used to complement the films, today you come out and don’t remember the songs and the odd one you can remember is forgotten by the time you reach home. The films of yesteryears had a social message, a theme-today its aimless stuff by and large.
I also don’t understand this method acting business because I have always been spontaneous and natural. How can you act without feeling or sing the notes if you don’t appreciate the notes and feel their magic? I miss the era of the stars when each one became a legend by honing their craft naturally. Today among the actors I only like Aamir Khan and Hritik Roshan. Other than that they come and go.
People think I was lucky to be in films the time I was, I am on the other hand jealous of Waheeda Ji’s time which was full of fabulous musicians, film makers and everyone was like one happy family. Now everyone is out for himself and so self absorbed. No one is interested in living life-everyone just exists. Kids sit and watch TV all day long as their parents have no time to talk to them. There are no grand parents to tell them stories at night. In fact director Mahesh Bhatt asked me once why did you have kids so young? They will hinder your career. On the contrary they have enriched my life. We are like friends and hang out and my husband has been so wonderful. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for him to be the husband of a famous woman. In fact if I was to be born again, I would want him as my husband again.
Yes, my daughter Megha actually made her film debut with Tarun Majumdar the same director in whose film I made my debut and I was as anxious as any mother would be, I was acting as her older sister in the film and initially stressed out as to why was she not doing something a particular way, but Megha has her own style and is quite accomplished. She cries without glycerin just like me and has a tremendous sense of comedy as well. She does everything better, and unlike me she has finished her graduation, and also trained under Namit Kapoor as per Rakesh Roshan’s advice and learnt dance from Shiamak Davar’s and Saroj Khan’s assistant. But you know how parents are-they want to take their kids’ exams for them!
It’s not an easy world for children of stars. Even in school in the early years I know Megha had a tough time with other kids but I was always there to protect them. I think only Hritik Roshan has been totally able to emerge from his father’s shadow. I’m a huge admirer of his work and him as a person.
I think most star kids have to shake off the non stop comparisons they have to face with their parents and have a strong mind and the parents too have to be behind their kids supporting them. The competition is tough with kids from all over the world coming here to be in films or other areas of film making.
You handled a lot – acting, marriage and motherhood all pretty close. How did you manage?
Well it was not an easy transition. A young girl coming from one unique culture in Calcutta to a totally different environment in Bombay with not a single relative from her side in the city. But my in-laws were really nice and so is my husband. But the fact remains that women can give a lot and put up with a lot. Men can’t multitask like that. It’s really not a 50-50 agreement. I think women give much more and in any case happiness is not an arrangement. It doesn’t come with –okay I’ll give this much and you give that much. My husband Babu did a lot in his own way, because culturally it is still not acceptable for a woman to do better than her husband, and you have to be extremely mature to understand how things are and be secure within yourself.
So you dabbled in politics? How was that experience and what do you have to say about so many movie stars who dabble in politics and either don’t do much or drop out disheartened.
I joined politics because I made certain commitments and I defeated a person who had won 6 times in a row. I fulfilled those commitments and refused to go any further because as I told Sonia Gandhi, I was not ready to shift full time to Delhi since Megha was still young.
Frankly other than Sunil Dutt, I cannot talk about any other actor who has done selfless work without wanting media hype. I’d like to see how many actors will work selflessly if there was no media to follow their movements. I have the utmost respect for Sonia Gandhi. That lady has had to fight not just her political battles, she has had to fight those who have questioned her loyalty to the country by calling her a foreigner.
Someone asked me some time ago why I was working for a foreigner. I said I was working for mother Teresa from the age of 9. In fact Mother Teresa wrote a poem on me which I still have. No one questioned me then. Sonia Gandhi is a woman of great courage. If you want to think negatively, you can come up with whatever negative things you want.
So what’s in the works now other than the Japanese wife?
I have finished a movie with Basu Chatterjee called Kuch Khatta Kuch Meetha and there is an excellent film Main Phir aaoonga which is only half made due to lack of financing. I hope someone will rescue it and help finish it. I just finished a play tour. Initially I was nervous but the tour was so well received that it had to be extended until all of us got tired and said no more! We wanted to go back home!
What keeps you so down to earth and grounded?
I come from a very spiritual family and I married into a family that was equally spiritual. I believe God is in every being. Someone once asked me what would be your ultimate wish and I said that wherever my gaze falls everything should flourish, whether its flora, fauna or a human being. And that we all learn to love each other and be positive. You should be so pure within that you don’t need to go to a temple to find that inner peace.