I have vowed never to make fun of Pandit Bindeshwar Bhalerao, the astrologer and his companion, his parrot, the parrot dressed in velvet green robes like a prince from some place in good old Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. And a beak which looked more royal than the crown of a prince.
Pandit Bindeshwar and his parrot visited our galli once in six months. He was a travelling jyotish, whose speciality was the different parts of Maharashtra, its people and sometimes even Goa. He could have travelled many other places but he had a language and a stammering problem. He spoke only in Marathi and Konkani which restricted his patronage. But he was not unhappy. He was happy with the seriousness the people who believed in him, took whatever he said without any suspicion whatsoever. They even planned their lives according to his advice. They waited for him before taking any vital decisions about life, sickness, disputes over property, marriages and - money more than anything else.
It was during one of his visits in early 1999 that I, a non-believer, too went and joined the crowd. I wanted to finally talk to him. My number was 13 in order. But I decided to stay because I wanted to ask him a very serious question. My turn came after the Sun set. The sensible man in me (whatever is left of him) tempted me to run away. The inquisitive man decided to stay. It was something I had never experienced in my life. I wanted to know what the future held for Madhuri Dixit. Madhuri who had crossed 30 and whose future everyone from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Napean Sea Road to Null Bazar was anxious to know.
Bhalerao smiled a very benevolent smile. “These days everyone seems to be interested in Madhuri Dixit and no one else, not even the country. Anyway I’ll tell you what I know about her,” he said. He slowly opened the little gate of the Prince’s palace and asked him to pick up one of the cards. The Prince walked around like Dilip Kumar in Mughal-e-Azam for sometime and then picked up a card. The crowd grew anxious and drew closer as I wondered how the future of so many millions could be trapped in those twelve or fifteen printed cards which were slowly turning from white into yellow. I didn’t ask because my maushi said someone once asked him a similar question and Bhalerao only mumbled some “mantras” and the next day her son was down with Jaundice and exactly eleven days later died. All efforts made by the parents to save the boy had failed. Did Bhalerao have the power over life and death? I was baffled, still am.
Bhalerao smiled a very benevolent smile. “These days everyone seems to be interested in Madhuri Dixit and no one else, not even the country. Anyway I’ll tell you what I know about her,” he said. He slowly opened the little gate of the Prince’s palace and asked him to pick up one of the cards. The Prince walked around like Dilip Kumar in Mughal-e-Azam for sometime and then picked up a card. The crowd grew anxious and drew closer as I wondered how the future of so many millions could be trapped in those twelve or fifteen printed cards which were slowly turning from white into yellow. I didn’t ask because my maushi said someone once asked him a similar question and Bhalerao only mumbled some “mantras” and the next day her son was down with Jaundice and exactly eleven days later died. All efforts made by the parents to save the boy had failed. Did Bhalerao have the power over life and death? I was baffled, still am.
The Parrot Prince in green handed over a card which was once yellow and had now turned brown and was almost in tatters. Bhalerao started reading slowly in a sing-song voice. There was tense silence all over. “Madhuri, Madhuri,” he said and the audience kept on murmuring in every corner. He then told the people to sit down and read the card between the lines if they could. Some of them volunteered. They couldn’t make sense of it.
They requested him to explain what he had said himself. He pronounced that the time to come, 1999, onwards was going to be the most auspicious year for Madhuri Dixit. He did not say much about her career, “because I don’t know anything about films and I know that all of you are more interested in Madhuri’s marriage and her future, both as an actress and a wife than anything else. When will you people improve?” It convinced the gathering that Madhuri was born under some star (whose name I couldn’t get and didn’t ask because of all kinds of fears his followers had instilled into me). He then came up with the truth which said that Madhuri was about to enter the most auspicious period of her life and “it was written and it couldn’t be changed.” He first told them that 1999 was the year in which Madhuri would get married. The crowd, especially the women, heaved a sigh of relief. “It is high time she got married. She is 30 after all,” one elderly woman said. “If she doesn’t get married now she may be a spinster like so many other actresses of our times who didn’t make their choice at the right time,” another woman said. Their talk continued. Bhalerao then came up with some more details. He solemnly said that she would not get married in India but she would certainly marry a doctor from her own caste. The women clapped with glee. I don’t know what pleasure this belonging to the same caste gives people from different castes. Bhalerao was treated with a great deal of respect that day. A majority of the people sitting listening to him were steadfast fans of Madhuri. Pandit Bindeshwar Bhalerao and his Prince Parrot left after having a hasty and heavy meal. The happy audience even got a ripe guava for Prince Parrot.
Time passed and the millions of Madhuri fans from all over the world waited for that priceless announcement from Madhuri or her clever secretary Rakesh Nath. Their curiosity increased when Madhuri threw her first and most lavish party, a party royalty anywhere would envy. Almost everyone who was anyone was there, including her spotboys, her hair dressers, her helpers anyone who helped her during 15-years of her career. People wondered and kept wondering what the grand reason was (even Dilip Kumar kept asking people what the hoo-haa was all about). But Madhuri never tired of flashing that beautiful smile, giving up nothing. She never once hinted/acted that it had anything to do with her marriage.
The party was over. There were people who were happy. There were others who were not. And Madhuri and her secretary kept smiling and went back to work, work and more work. The rumours, however, kept growing. The gossip mills worked overtime. Madhuri then hosted another surprise party for the journalists, all kinds of journalists “but no questions and no answers” she requested. But I had not forgotten Pandit Bindeshwar Bhalerao. And then it suddenly happened. Bhalerao’s prediction came true. Madhuri went on a long vacation to America where her brother and sister lived. Her parents also accompanied her and so did Rakesh Nath. And one morning every newspaper everywhere was flashed with the news of India’s No.1 actress Madhuri Dixit’s marriage with Dr. Sriram Nene, a doctor in America. Madhuri had taken everyone by surprise but Bhalerao. He knew it was to happen and it had happened like he had said. His Prince Parrot rarely went wrong in picking up cards for certain people according to reasons which were and are still mystifying. Doctor and Madhuri Nene came back to Mumbai and hosted yet another party and then went on a much-deserved vacation to Honolulu or “some Lulu” (I don’t remember names of such places which sound better as homes for cute little animals.)
Things gradually got back to normal. But Bhalerao’s other predictions had to come true. He had said Madhuri the actress would enter the most crucial phase of her career. A time when she would blossom as the actress par excellence. The pessimists said she should just complete her films on hand and then settle down in America. She had given enough to Hindi films. The optimists said she would come back in better films, in better roles, with better directors.
The optimists won. Madhuri made it very clear that she was still in films, still in the tough race - not to keep her position as the No.1, not to make as much money as she could, not for all the glamour, grandeur and the glory. She had seen all that to boredom. She now wanted to prove herself as a versatile actress. She had had enough of all the running around trees (there were no pretty trees left around anywhere in the world where she didn’t dance). She now wanted the real Madhuri to emerge and prove that she was an actress who would only thrive on challenges. She would not be a part of the rough and tumble of the rat-race. She would go all out to prove that an actress could come out with her best even after marriage. “In Hollywood actresses come out with their most outstanding roles even after three or four marriages. I have had only one and I am sure I will have only one. But I will do my best to keep this one great marriage with Ram (that’s what I call Dr.
Nene) and my career going parallel, going to the best of my ability. There will be no sacrifices or sufferings to keep the one or the other happy. There will be no play acting, only love and understanding.
Madhuri is now back before the cameras, back to create an image that will silence her critics (the few that she has) once and for all.
My mother always said that a happy marriage makes the bride look much more glorious than she was before her marriage. Madhuri proved it to me when I met her after all the running around, all the hungama of one of the most-talked about marriages in the history of marriages. She looked like a pari (fairy). All other words in English failed to describe her when I met her on the sets of one of the very first good films she’s doing in her second innings, Yeh Raaste Hai Pyar Ke. It was a long time since we had talked. She knew I knew her since she was eight. She said she had nothing to say now and she would talk at length at the right time to the press and added “I don’t want to hurt them. But there is so much that has happened during the last one year. Things which once looked like a dream, things which I had least expected. Frankly, I have still not got over it. The blessings God has showered on me is unbelievable. Thank you, God. So let’s talk about my career which has reached the most crucial phase. I am doing just five or six films and I am doing them because I want to, as I said again and again prove that my best is still not over. Madhuri was certainly made for much better things. The first film I am awaiting the results of is the much-talked about Gaj Gamini made by MF Husain, the man who gave me the world which was his world infact. I could never imagine a thing like what Husain Sahab has done would happen.
They requested him to explain what he had said himself. He pronounced that the time to come, 1999, onwards was going to be the most auspicious year for Madhuri Dixit. He did not say much about her career, “because I don’t know anything about films and I know that all of you are more interested in Madhuri’s marriage and her future, both as an actress and a wife than anything else. When will you people improve?” It convinced the gathering that Madhuri was born under some star (whose name I couldn’t get and didn’t ask because of all kinds of fears his followers had instilled into me). He then came up with the truth which said that Madhuri was about to enter the most auspicious period of her life and “it was written and it couldn’t be changed.” He first told them that 1999 was the year in which Madhuri would get married. The crowd, especially the women, heaved a sigh of relief. “It is high time she got married. She is 30 after all,” one elderly woman said. “If she doesn’t get married now she may be a spinster like so many other actresses of our times who didn’t make their choice at the right time,” another woman said. Their talk continued. Bhalerao then came up with some more details. He solemnly said that she would not get married in India but she would certainly marry a doctor from her own caste. The women clapped with glee. I don’t know what pleasure this belonging to the same caste gives people from different castes. Bhalerao was treated with a great deal of respect that day. A majority of the people sitting listening to him were steadfast fans of Madhuri. Pandit Bindeshwar Bhalerao and his Prince Parrot left after having a hasty and heavy meal. The happy audience even got a ripe guava for Prince Parrot.
Time passed and the millions of Madhuri fans from all over the world waited for that priceless announcement from Madhuri or her clever secretary Rakesh Nath. Their curiosity increased when Madhuri threw her first and most lavish party, a party royalty anywhere would envy. Almost everyone who was anyone was there, including her spotboys, her hair dressers, her helpers anyone who helped her during 15-years of her career. People wondered and kept wondering what the grand reason was (even Dilip Kumar kept asking people what the hoo-haa was all about). But Madhuri never tired of flashing that beautiful smile, giving up nothing. She never once hinted/acted that it had anything to do with her marriage.
The party was over. There were people who were happy. There were others who were not. And Madhuri and her secretary kept smiling and went back to work, work and more work. The rumours, however, kept growing. The gossip mills worked overtime. Madhuri then hosted another surprise party for the journalists, all kinds of journalists “but no questions and no answers” she requested. But I had not forgotten Pandit Bindeshwar Bhalerao. And then it suddenly happened. Bhalerao’s prediction came true. Madhuri went on a long vacation to America where her brother and sister lived. Her parents also accompanied her and so did Rakesh Nath. And one morning every newspaper everywhere was flashed with the news of India’s No.1 actress Madhuri Dixit’s marriage with Dr. Sriram Nene, a doctor in America. Madhuri had taken everyone by surprise but Bhalerao. He knew it was to happen and it had happened like he had said. His Prince Parrot rarely went wrong in picking up cards for certain people according to reasons which were and are still mystifying. Doctor and Madhuri Nene came back to Mumbai and hosted yet another party and then went on a much-deserved vacation to Honolulu or “some Lulu” (I don’t remember names of such places which sound better as homes for cute little animals.)
Things gradually got back to normal. But Bhalerao’s other predictions had to come true. He had said Madhuri the actress would enter the most crucial phase of her career. A time when she would blossom as the actress par excellence. The pessimists said she should just complete her films on hand and then settle down in America. She had given enough to Hindi films. The optimists said she would come back in better films, in better roles, with better directors.
The optimists won. Madhuri made it very clear that she was still in films, still in the tough race - not to keep her position as the No.1, not to make as much money as she could, not for all the glamour, grandeur and the glory. She had seen all that to boredom. She now wanted to prove herself as a versatile actress. She had had enough of all the running around trees (there were no pretty trees left around anywhere in the world where she didn’t dance). She now wanted the real Madhuri to emerge and prove that she was an actress who would only thrive on challenges. She would not be a part of the rough and tumble of the rat-race. She would go all out to prove that an actress could come out with her best even after marriage. “In Hollywood actresses come out with their most outstanding roles even after three or four marriages. I have had only one and I am sure I will have only one. But I will do my best to keep this one great marriage with Ram (that’s what I call Dr.
Nene) and my career going parallel, going to the best of my ability. There will be no sacrifices or sufferings to keep the one or the other happy. There will be no play acting, only love and understanding.
Madhuri is now back before the cameras, back to create an image that will silence her critics (the few that she has) once and for all.
My mother always said that a happy marriage makes the bride look much more glorious than she was before her marriage. Madhuri proved it to me when I met her after all the running around, all the hungama of one of the most-talked about marriages in the history of marriages. She looked like a pari (fairy). All other words in English failed to describe her when I met her on the sets of one of the very first good films she’s doing in her second innings, Yeh Raaste Hai Pyar Ke. It was a long time since we had talked. She knew I knew her since she was eight. She said she had nothing to say now and she would talk at length at the right time to the press and added “I don’t want to hurt them. But there is so much that has happened during the last one year. Things which once looked like a dream, things which I had least expected. Frankly, I have still not got over it. The blessings God has showered on me is unbelievable. Thank you, God. So let’s talk about my career which has reached the most crucial phase. I am doing just five or six films and I am doing them because I want to, as I said again and again prove that my best is still not over. Madhuri was certainly made for much better things. The first film I am awaiting the results of is the much-talked about Gaj Gamini made by MF Husain, the man who gave me the world which was his world infact. I could never imagine a thing like what Husain Sahab has done would happen.
But he has made it happen with his own genius and I respect his genius, I always will. We are working out plans to release a film like Gaj Gamini but with a man of such great fame all over the world I think we will be able to make the money we have spent and also expose our art, our culture, our traditions, a kaleidoscope of so many colours and characters one more outstanding than the other.
Husain Sahab is so determined about releasing Gaj Gamini which he calls his tribute to the Indian women, that he will even at his age, carry the tins of Gaj Gamini all over and find ways and means of releasing the film. I hope he succeeds because I’ve never seen such passion, such courage, such sensitivity in a man at 86.
Madhuri for whom Gaj Gamini is a very very different experience from all the Dhak Dhak and Ek Do Teen films which she has done so far.
Madhuri is also excited about Deepak Shivdasani’s Yeh Raaste Hai Pyaar Ke which is a deeply intense film about one man in a double role and the two women in his life, Madhuri and the pretty Preity Zinta. She is working with Deepak, Ajay and Preity for the first time. It is these challenges that she is waiting for and I hope she gets them during the time she has at hand.
Then there is another film the entire industry is talking about, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas. Says Madhuri, “I always knew Sanjay would grow into a good director when he was Vidhu’s assistants during the making of 1942 A Love Story. But he went on to become a much better director in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Devdas is a very tough subject, a very sensitive subject. The more I see it or think of it I am jittery. But I am sure Sanjay has something serious and sensitive up his sleeve. He is the kind of director you don’t have to worry about. You have to only play into their hands. I am going to do just that. I am also very happy I will be working with the beautiful Aishwarya Rai for the first time. We are still waiting for Devdas (the actor who will play Devdas) to come back from the bar. I am sure Devdas is going to be one of the most significant films of our times. This is the third time a film is being made on this subject. That’s the power of Sarat Chandra’s subject. Every character will have to be very careful to make a film that will make a very strong impact. This is the kind of chance you never get twice.
And what Rajkumar Santoshi with whom I have the pleasure to work with in Pukar is doing is something no one can easily understand. He is making a film called Lajja. It has nothing to do with Tasleema Nasreen’s controversial novel of the same name. It is Raj’s own idea. The cast of the film will give you a rough idea of what Raj is upto - Anil Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Aishwarya Rai, Mahima Chaudhary, all the strong Rajkumar Santoshi favourites and Manisha Koirala in the role she was waiting for all her life. I too have a good role but it is still too early to talk about Lajja. And now that filmmakers have come to know that she is here filmmakers are all excited again.
Madhuri will be spending her time between America and Mumbai. She cannot live for long without Ram, she says (blushes). E-mails, long love letters, any and every other way to prove true love have reached a record which no two lovers could have touched, not even all the great lovers who live because of their great love stories.
The Nenes also have a goal in their lives. Madhuri wants to spread light into as many lives as possible through her performances and Ram wants to save as many lives as possible as a well-known surgeon in America. This is one marriage where love has begun taking shape after marriage and they say such marriages are the real marriages or that is what the enlightened ones say.
PS: Pandit Bhalerao Bindeshwar is a roving Pandit as I said. He has not walked into our galli for months, not after Madhuri’s marriage atleast. The people in the galli are waiting anxiously. I am one of them. I am not going to make fun of him this time. I am going to listen to him seriously, seriously only when he talks about the future of Madhuri Dixit.
And thank you Madhuri for staying back and spreading sweetness and light. Thank you, Dr Sriram Nene for giving her permission to stay on to spread light. You don’t know what a great favour you have done to millions who are still the victims of the great Madhuri mania. We need Madhuri more now than at any other time when darkness continues to threaten this industry which was created to spread light, only light.
Ali Peter John
Source: Screen India (April 2000)
Husain Sahab is so determined about releasing Gaj Gamini which he calls his tribute to the Indian women, that he will even at his age, carry the tins of Gaj Gamini all over and find ways and means of releasing the film. I hope he succeeds because I’ve never seen such passion, such courage, such sensitivity in a man at 86.
Madhuri for whom Gaj Gamini is a very very different experience from all the Dhak Dhak and Ek Do Teen films which she has done so far.
Madhuri is also excited about Deepak Shivdasani’s Yeh Raaste Hai Pyaar Ke which is a deeply intense film about one man in a double role and the two women in his life, Madhuri and the pretty Preity Zinta. She is working with Deepak, Ajay and Preity for the first time. It is these challenges that she is waiting for and I hope she gets them during the time she has at hand.
Then there is another film the entire industry is talking about, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas. Says Madhuri, “I always knew Sanjay would grow into a good director when he was Vidhu’s assistants during the making of 1942 A Love Story. But he went on to become a much better director in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Devdas is a very tough subject, a very sensitive subject. The more I see it or think of it I am jittery. But I am sure Sanjay has something serious and sensitive up his sleeve. He is the kind of director you don’t have to worry about. You have to only play into their hands. I am going to do just that. I am also very happy I will be working with the beautiful Aishwarya Rai for the first time. We are still waiting for Devdas (the actor who will play Devdas) to come back from the bar. I am sure Devdas is going to be one of the most significant films of our times. This is the third time a film is being made on this subject. That’s the power of Sarat Chandra’s subject. Every character will have to be very careful to make a film that will make a very strong impact. This is the kind of chance you never get twice.
And what Rajkumar Santoshi with whom I have the pleasure to work with in Pukar is doing is something no one can easily understand. He is making a film called Lajja. It has nothing to do with Tasleema Nasreen’s controversial novel of the same name. It is Raj’s own idea. The cast of the film will give you a rough idea of what Raj is upto - Anil Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Aishwarya Rai, Mahima Chaudhary, all the strong Rajkumar Santoshi favourites and Manisha Koirala in the role she was waiting for all her life. I too have a good role but it is still too early to talk about Lajja. And now that filmmakers have come to know that she is here filmmakers are all excited again.
Madhuri will be spending her time between America and Mumbai. She cannot live for long without Ram, she says (blushes). E-mails, long love letters, any and every other way to prove true love have reached a record which no two lovers could have touched, not even all the great lovers who live because of their great love stories.
The Nenes also have a goal in their lives. Madhuri wants to spread light into as many lives as possible through her performances and Ram wants to save as many lives as possible as a well-known surgeon in America. This is one marriage where love has begun taking shape after marriage and they say such marriages are the real marriages or that is what the enlightened ones say.
PS: Pandit Bhalerao Bindeshwar is a roving Pandit as I said. He has not walked into our galli for months, not after Madhuri’s marriage atleast. The people in the galli are waiting anxiously. I am one of them. I am not going to make fun of him this time. I am going to listen to him seriously, seriously only when he talks about the future of Madhuri Dixit.
And thank you Madhuri for staying back and spreading sweetness and light. Thank you, Dr Sriram Nene for giving her permission to stay on to spread light. You don’t know what a great favour you have done to millions who are still the victims of the great Madhuri mania. We need Madhuri more now than at any other time when darkness continues to threaten this industry which was created to spread light, only light.
Ali Peter John
Source: Screen India (April 2000)
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