Padmini Kolhapure: Born for cinema

By: Screen Weekly, IndiaFM
Monday, October 09, 2006
The buds for both acting and music were in her blood, and chromosomes always will assert themselves. Padmini's paternal grandmother and the legendary Dinanath Mangeshkar were sister and brother. Her grandfather Krishnarao Kolhapure, along with Dinanath Mangeshkar and Chintamani Kolhatkar owned the Balwant Naatak Company, and in these plays Krishnarao would always do all the female roles.

"My grandmother and both my paternal aunts wanted my sister Shivangi (now married to Shakti Kapoor) and I to become actors, even though our own inclinations went towards the other side of the art - singing," recalls Padmini. "As kids, we would sing in films songs right from the early '70s under R.D.Burman, Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Kalyanji-Anandji. We would royally enjoy ourselves too, for on that day we would have to bunk school, and since our recordings were always at Filmcenter, Famous Tardeo or Famous Mahalakshmi in town we would go and have a meal at Khyber's, which we loved, as soon as we got out money packets!"

Padmini first faced the camera for Ek Khilari Bawan Pattey ( a humble film made in 1970 during Vinod Khanna's pre-fame days) in which she doubled up for a child artiste who fell sick. "My neighbour was filmmaker B.S.Thapa and he called me for the role."

When she recorded 'Yaadon ki baaraat...', the title-song of the Nasir Husain blockbuster with Lata Mangeshkar and sister Shivangi, the sisters' voices went in a joint chorus on three child artistes, one of whom was Aamir Khan. Mention this and Padmini laughs, "Yeah, I never realized it, but you could say that!"

Asha Bhosle introduced Padmini to Dev Anand at the recording of Ishq Ishq Ishq as her bhatiji (niece) who could also act and she ended up playing the sixth sister in the film. Says the actor, "My celebrated films as a child actor were Satyam Shivam Sundaram and Saajan Bina Suhagan and I was an adolescent in Thodisi Bewafaii, Insaf Ka Tarazu and Gehrayee. My other roles as a kid were in Dream Girl, Zindagi, Hamara Sansar and Darling Darling."

She adds, "Whatever I know about real acting is all thanks to Rajsaab. I have always been a director's actor and I will go to the extent of saying that I was totally trained by Raj Kapoor. Even as an adult, he extracted Prem Rog from me. I had had zero training as an actor, though as a singer I had at least got experience of recordings as well as of several competitions in which Shivangi and I had taken part."

Padmini never formally trained as singer either. "As far as singing is concerned I think that you either have it or you do not. I was never trained but I even sang as an adult. In fact if everything works out I am planning a remix of the hit songs that I have enacted as an actress."

Apart from her illustrious aunts Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle singing for her, Padmini had a hit streak of songs as a leading lady from playback singers as varied as Anuradha Paudwal, Sulakshana Pandit and Salma Agha. Did she find any faults in their singing for her? "Of course, I did!" she laughs. "I would always feel that Lataji and Asha-ji were flawless. They sang so well that I found it easier to emote. Like for example Asha put in so much zest and pep in Pooncho na yaar kya hua...' from Zamaane Ko Dikhaana Hai that I was naturally charged."

Padmini also has to her credit the only song in world cinema in which one actor has had seven playback voices - Saat saheliyaan...' in Vidhaata - Hemlata, Kanchan, Anuradha Paudwal, Alka Yagnik, Sadhana Sargam, sister Shivangi and Padmini herself sang the chartbuster with Kishore Kumar under Kalyanji-Anandji for the Shammi Kapoor-Padmini Kolhapure dance number.

A striking feature of the actor's career is her getting to work with so many legends - Dev Anand (besides Ishq Ishq Ishq and Darling Darling also romantically in Swami Dada), Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar (Vidhaata, Mazdoor, Aag Ka Darya) as also with Shammi Kapoor (Ahista Ahista, Prem Rog, Vidhaata, Daata), Rajendra Kumar (Lovers, Star), Raj Kumar (romantically in Ek Nai Paheli), Sanjeev Kumar (Zindagi and romantically in Professor Ki Padosan), Nutan (Saajan Bina Suhagan, Teri Maang Sitaron Se Bhar Doon), Mala Sinha (Zindagi), Nanda (Ahista Ahista, Prem Rog, Mazdoor) and Tanuja (Lovers, Suhagan).

Says Padmini, "I have very fond memories of all of them, especially Rajsaab as my acting institution, Dilipsaab who was so jovial and Devsaab who was so caring. I remember going with my dad for the shooting of Darling Darling in Kufri where it was freezing. While travelling there itself I was almost frostbitten, and Devsaab took actually helped dad massage me. As for Haribhai (Sanjeev Kumar) he was simply brilliant as an actor - and great fun. But I also had a few misses like Mr Amitabh Bachchan. I was do a film called Charlie with him that never took off."

Padmini's debut as leading lady with Eesmayeel Shroff's Ahista Ahista (though she had signed Nasir Husain's Zamaane Ko Dikhaana Hai earlier) was followed by a distinguished brief innings with films besides Prem Rog and Vidhaata also included Woh 7 Din, Souten, Pyar Jhukta Nahin, Pyari Behna, Swarag Se Sunder, Anubhav and other films. In some of her films in the '80s, Padmini returned to singing - for herself as a heroine - in films like Dana Pani. She also began her innings as a producer with Dav Pech (1989) and then produced Nagesh Kukunoor's Rockford a decade later.

Having quit films to concentrate on family (her last releases in the '90s after her '86 marriage to producer Tutu Sharma were the delayed films Qurbani Rang Laayegi, Tauhean and Professor Ki Padosan), she returned to face the camera for the Marathi hit Chimnipaakhare in the millennium and turned to the stage with the role of the protagonist in the play Kaash in 2004. And in 2006, Padmini was back to Hindi films with the film Eight - Shani.

Padmini says that Kaash, her foray into stage, happened out of the blue. "As a viewer I have been a fairly regular audience for Marathi and Hindi plays, and abroad I also watch English theatre. As a film actor in the audience I have always thought that stage acting must be very difficult- with no retakes, with reams of dialogues, with performing at a stretch for three hours and with the danger of mistakes in front of a live audience. But I had never given a thought to doing plays, not even negatively, as in I will not be able to do them.

"But when the trend of film actors doing plays began with Jaya Bachchan and others, I began to get offers but nothing was worthy enough till Prakash and Sandeep, the directors of Kaash, gave me a narration, which was so superb that I got tempted. After this, I asked for a second narration and then accepted the play. But I am so used to cinema that I still keep referring to it as a 'film'," laughs Padmini.

Kaash, she explains however, was accepted more as a matter of conviction that she could portray the role well, and less as a challenge. "I have played a devdasi before in my film debut Ahista Ahista as well, but this was totally different. It was a dark role of a prostitute who has seen life and did not want her younger sister to become an actress. For this, she also has to persuade their mother who could not become an actress herself and now wants her daughter to be one at any cost."

With her grown-up son and time on her hands, Padmini will welcome a good role, come film or stage. But there are some strict requirements: in her brief career, Padmini has made her presence felt in some powerhouse performances all the way from Satyam Shivam Sundaram to Chimnipaakhare, and what she does now should be worth her salt.

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