Flashback | Waheeda Rehman, a symbol of beauty, grace, dignity, and inner strength

Without a jot of a doubt, the name Waheeda Rehman signifies beauty, dignity, and inner strength. And yet I’ve not seen this iconic actress stepping out of her comfort zone to display the staggering range of Madhubala, Geeta Bali, Nutan, or Sridevi. Whenever Waheedaji has slipped away from her restrained histrionics she has given us characters who will live forever, and a Friday. A rare instance when Waheedaji shifted out of her comfort zone was Darpan (1970) where she played a sex worker trying to find a life for herself. Only God and the Moral Police know why our greatest heroines are never accepted as prostitutes unless they are the pristine poetic version of the sex worker known as the tawaif in Pakeezah, Umrao Jaan, and Amar Prem. Otherwise, from Rehana Sultan in Chetna to Shabana Azmi in Bhavna, Mandi, and Doosri Dulhan, they’ve all been rejected. In the flop, Darpan Waheedaji played a prostitute being rehabilitated by Sunil Dutt, a role he played earlier to Vyjanthiamala in Sadhana.   But here the sex worker was not a simpering poetess hence rejected on both levels, by the moral police in the screenplay and the audience watching the film. But Watch this flop film for Waheedajis’s anguished protest in the great Lata Mangeshkar song Mujhe Pyar karne a haq nahin. Watch the film for its courage to cast a top female star as a sex worker, directed by A Subba Rao who also directed the great Milan with Nutan and Sunil Dutt.   As Radha in Khamoshi (1969) Waheedaji encored a part that Suchitra Sen had immortalized in Bengali. Producer Hemant and director Asit Sen were advised to take Nutan in the role of a nurse at a mental asylum who is asked to feign love for a man suffering a nervous breakdown after being jilted in love. It’s a role of tremendous complexities, performed by the actress beyond her normal serene range. Waheedaji’s mental breakdown at the end will give you goosebumps each time. Woh sham kuch ajeeb tthi, indeed.   In Rajinder Singh Bedi’s Phagun psychological complexities abound. This dense and profoundly tragic film is about a woman whose marriage to a man beneath her status breaks up leaving her emotionally fractured and sexually deprived for the rest of her life. There are scenes where Waheedaji’s Shanta had to enact a character who gets attracted to her son-in-law. Not a very easy emotional outlet for an actress as dignified as Waheedaji. She told me Phagun was a mistake because it relegated her to the mothers’ roles prematurely. “I got the role of a lifetime in Rajinder Singh Bedi’s Phagun in 1973. I had to play Jaya Bhaduri’s mother. That did it for me. I was suddenly flooded with my mother’s roles. And I found myself playing Rajesh Khanna’s mother just nine years after I played his leading lady in Khamoshi.” Waheedaji blames the male-dominated film industry for the premature matriarchal status accorded to leading ladies. “Heroines for our established heroes are getting younger and younger. So the heroines who started their career with these established heroes are quickly promoted to senior roles.” Ask her if she doesn’t find this unfair and Waheedaji says, “It’s the norm in cinema everywhere. Look at Meryl Streep. She contemplates quitting every year when Hollywood quickly offers her another role. Sadly in our industry, there’s no such remedial procedure. Once a heroine is passed a particular age, she has to graduate to mother’s roles or quit.”   Once again Waheedaji moved away from her zone in Abhijaan (1973). In her only film with the great Satyajit Ray, Waheedaji played the free-spirited rural woman, a widow named Gulabi who does what her heart wants. Tricked into the flesh trade by one man, she happily sleeps with another man (Soumitra Chatterjee) with no strings attached because she loves him. Gulabi was a true feminist long before feminism became fashionable in films. Rosy in Guide (1965) remains her signature film. Nutan and Nargis may have a wider range, but they couldn’t dance to save their lives. Waheedajis’s snake dance in Guide is the single-most-stunning piece of film dancing in Indian cinema, rivaled only by Vyjanthimala’s Hothon pe aisi baat in Jewel Thief. What was it about Dev Anand that provoked these dancing queens to out-excel themselves? What to say about this unforgettable woman who thumbs her nose at a bad marriage to pursue her dreams, her dancing. And her heart—in that order—no matter how much the moral police honks its pointy horns at any signs of horniness. Like it or not, brother, Rosy will live her life on her terms: Kaaton se kheench key yeh aanchal tod di Bandhan,bandhi payal. Go for it, girl! Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai aaj phir marne ka iraada hi….Rosy is so seductive in her whimsicality, such a non-conformist she dumps her husband for the love of dancing and then dumps her lover when he turns out less than what she had hoped. This film gave the Indian heroine the right to defy stereotypical gender rules. Lata Mangeshkar who sang almost all of Waheedaji’s songs to eternal fame says, “She accompanied me on my live concert in 1995. She’s so simple and pure, never behaving like the big star she was. Those artistes were a breed apart….I sang really beautiful songs for her, except in the films which she did for Guru Dutt. There, naturally the director’s wife Geeta Dutt did the playback. In all the films of Guru Dutt, I sang only one song for Waheeda Rehman, and that was Badle badle mere sarkar nazar aate hain in Chaudhvin Ka Chand….I sang super-duper hit songs for Waheeda in Bees Saal Baad, Guide, Mujhe Jeene Do Reshma Aur Shera…even today we meet with a great deal of love. That’s the way she is.”