(Padmini-The Silver Jubilee Year, article by Bunny Reuben)
Both goddess and sex symbol the quiet and pliant actress Padmini completes this year her silver jubilee in films.
Padmini, who started her screen career in 1944 in Uday Shankar's “Kalpana”, completes twenty-five years in films this year.
In this hectic period, Padmini, without much fanfare or ballyhoo, has acted in more than two hundred Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi films, and danced in at least one hundred and fifty of them.
“I’ve lost count,” she smiled modestly, when I interviewed her in a hotel room in Bombay where she frequently comes every month to fulfil her Hindi starring assignments. “I’ve scarcely felt the years pass - they’ve passed so quickly and they’ve kept me so busy!”
In Madras, the various screen and stage and cultural associations are planning a big Felicitations ceremony in Padmini’s honour on her having completed her silver jubilee in films.
For years, she was the acknowledged “goddess” of the Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam screens. She has played almost the entire range of goddesses in the pantheon of hindu mythology, and consequently her fans have been legion. It is an acknowledged fact that humble, poor and illiterate folks in the South used to touch the hem of her saree in reverence, and fold their hands in veneration when she appeared on the screen! Of all the actresses, she had occupied a peculiarly unique place in the affections of South Indian cinema going populace.
Then one day a decade ago Padmini attended a youth festival in Moscow along with her sister Ragini, and Raj Kapoor was there.
The rest is history. The Raj Kapoorean brand of flamboyance, the mogramusky salutations, greetings and gifts, the whirlwind persuasion, all this and more brought Padmini to Bombay as the leading lady of “Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai”, a film which gave her goddess like image a dual personality by adding the sex symbol on to it as well.
Since then, Padmini has been the darling of Hindi screen too. The most amazing quality about her is the sharp difference between her outer and inner self. Outwardly, Padmini is the director’s delight. She is pliant to the point of being docile, and is therefore very good clay in the hands of an imaginative director. She has her own opinions about men, matters and memories, but she keeps them to herself. Ask her, for example, to express an opinion about the leading men of the Hindi screen opposite whom she has acted - and she has acted almost all of them excepting Dilip Kumar - and she will be most charmingly evasive. Similarly if you ask her who is the best director under whom she has worked, she will say, “They are all good” or something equally non-committal! |
| Padmini |
The fact is that Padmini does not like to hurt anyone’s feelings, and it is this quality that throughout her life has made her bend so for back that she has frequently been hurt herself. In her personal and private life she has had her own tragedies and sufferings, but she never goes around parading them through the gossip-columns or the fan magazines. She is reserved to the point of being taciturn with strangers, but with friends she can be talkative and free, even positively voluble!
Even today, despite the fact that she retired from the screen some years ago for about a year in order to get married and have her son (“He is studying in the third standard now,” she remarked with quite pride), Padmini is as busy as ever.
Never fussy about billing or roles, Padmini has been known to accept almost every good offer that has come her way - even a side heroine’s role.
In “Aashiq” for instance, although the key romantic role was hers, she “sacrifices” in the end in favour of Nanda! Similarly in B. Radhakrishna’s “Madhavi”, which will be released very soon, Padmini plays beside newcomer Deepa. However Padmini’s is the major emotional role, and here too, she “sacrifices” in favour of the other girl!
“Among the two most important films I have on hand at the moment,” Padmini remarked, enumerating her current Hindi assignments, “are Raj Kapoor’s ‘Mera Naam Joker’ and B. Nagi Reddi’s 'Nanha Farishta’. In both these films I have very vivid but very dissimilar roles”.
Having seen both these films in the making myself, I can testify to the truth of this observation. In “Mera Naam Joker” the graph of the character is from a lonely, frightened orphan girl frightened to let the world know her she is a girl (hence she goes around dressed as a boy!) to her ultimately becoming the leading glamour queen of the movie industry.
On the other hand, in B. Nagi Reddi’s “Nanha Farishta” she plays the role of a maid servant who is like a mother to the little angel, the “nanha farishta” of the title.
As a matter of fact, Padmini played this role in tamil hit on which “nanha farishta” is based. An offbeat theme about three criminals and a little child, Padmini plays the maid servant to the little orphan and showers her with mother love. “Actually,” Padmini observed, “I have no romantic link-up at all in this film. There is no hero with whom I am in love! Actually, in this film there cannot be - it would damage the significance of the theme otherwise.
“In 'Nanha farishta’ I have enjoyed working for several reasons. In the first place, It is a distinguished banner. In the second place, it is a very significant theme with a moral . Producer B. Nagi Reddi has not made any compromises whatsoever in transcribing it from tamil to Hindi. No romantic distractions have been injected. And lastly, it was a pleasure to work in the film because it has been made so fast - in just three or four months. The same is true of B. Radhakrishna’s 'Madhavi’.”
At the moment a new Padmini starrer, Ranga’s “Bhai Bahen” is awaiting release in which Padmini plays a sister to Sunil Dutt. Her other assignments include Atmaram’s “Chanda aur Bijli” and Sawan Kumar Tak’s next film.
“The fact is that I like to keep busy!” Padmini smiled. “Between my film work and dance assignments I have scarcely any idle time on my hands”.
Since the marriage of her sisters Lalitha and Ragini and the dissolution of their old dance troupe called “Dancers of India”, Padmini has refashioned a brand new dance troupe of her own, comprising forty members in all. “We have choreographed and created many new ballets based on various chapters of Hindu mythology,”. Padmini revealed. “And we are busy giving dance performances all over India most of the time.”
At the present moment, besides her Hindi film assignments, Padmini is also busy starring in six Tamil and Malayalam films.
No comments:
Post a Comment