26 April,2023 07:09 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
Rohini Hattangadi (left) in the 1982 film, Gandhi
The auditions for lead pair in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) - to my mind, in terms of relevance/impact, the greatest film ever set in India - were held in London, with three batches of finalists for the part.
Rohini Hattangadi screen-tested for Kasturba Gandhi, with the British Ben Kingsley, who eventually played the Mahatma. She beat Bhakti Barve and Smita Patil for Kasturba's role - who had, in turn, auditioned with the English actor John Hurt, and Naseeruddin Shah, respectively.
The scene they performed was that powerful one from Gandhi, where wife Kasturba (âBa') refuses to clean toilets in the Ashram in South Africa. The Mahatma loses his shit over it. She calms him down. They reconcile shortly after.
Hattangadi was in her mid-20s, when she landed this role, that won her the BAFTA (only Indian actor so far). Age-wise, the casting made sense. The film is set over multiple decades of Gandhi's life. Along with, of course, his life-partner's, who passed away at 74, at Aga Khan Palace, Poona (where the film was also shot).
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Attenborough was the don of British stage. This could've drawn him to Hattangadi - herself a gold-medallist from National School of Drama (Naseer was a year senior), who had chiefly performed in theatre, "barring about three to four films, before Gandhi".
Still, she got offered the part much after the London audition. This is when Attenborough watched her on stage, in Raakh Charitra, where she plays a 45-year-old inn-keeper in the second act, and an 82-year-old lady in the first and final acts.
Given my own vintage, I have no idea how - in the times of hardly any media - the global success of Gandhi (eight Oscars; Best Film at all top awards) must've been received locally. With Hattangadi, a star was born, I assume.
Not quite, she tells me: "Firstly, there was no major network of reps/agents in America to tap into at the time." Also, there were hardly any international roles for brown skin folk, regardless.
Director James Ivory did contact Hattangadi for Heat and Dust (1983). Only to realise she was a youngling. He didn't wish to use make-up for the old woman's part. It is to Hattangadi's credit then, if Ivory actually thought the Young and Old Kasturba in Gandhi were different actors!
In Bombay, however, what followed were a series of pitches for the same part: "Both young and old, madam; young and old," she recalls. Meaning, she'll be young in short flashback, oldie for rest of the movie - playing mother; pretty much.
Hattangadi has throughout played onscreen mom to heroes way younger than her: "Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra, Dharmendra⦠Mithun too, although he may be a couple of years junior to me." No - he's not!
She got used to long-assed script-narrations of her "important role", as if the film centred on her. But she was only needed for 10 days' shoot! That's because the script was being narrated from her character's perspective - not the film's - she realised in time.
Living through the spectacular mess that '80s âBollywood' could well be, on occasion, where pampered stars wouldn't land up on set for days - producers bleeding through their nose. Hattangadi has the funniest stories!
In contrast to her films in the more authentic, parallel cinema - "the likes of [Govind Nihalani's] The Party (1984), or [Rabindra Dharmaraj's] Chakra (1981), where leads were also glorified extras, staying on for background shots!"
Given her talent, did she feel short-changed, I asked Hattangadi - now that she's old enough, in life, to patiently reminisce/regret. "You go with the flow," she delivers an essential lesson.
She craved creative challenges, yes. But found it relentlessly in theatre, that she practises still. And that, I can tell, grounds her immeasurably. As we speak, she's on her way to perform the Marathi play, Char Chaughi, that's been packing halls across Mumbai.
Or even TV, when you consider her serial, Char Divas Sasuche, over 13 years, remains the longest running in Marathi. She appeared in an episode of the detective comedy, Karamchand (1985), as a young teacher, dealing with a paper-leak case, who also falls for the eponymous sleuth (Pankaj Kapur)!
This is also what inspired series-director Pankaj Parashar to cast Hattangadi as the wily villain, in '80s punk-cringe wear, that she styled herself, for Chaalbaaz (1989). It's her most hated-loved role - opposite Anupam Kher.
Never mind that the two first starred together as doddering geriatrics, in Mahesh Bhatt's Saaransh (1984), after Gandhi, when Hattangadi was still in her 20s!
Even for her debut, director Saeed Mirza asked her to pick between the protagonist's sister, or mother - for Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan (1978). It's been 45 years. I watched her this week as the potential grandmother-in-law of Salman Khan, 57.
Isn't she the âA K Hangal' among female actors? Offscreen, she's short, soft-spoken, quintessentially desi-mom in her demeanour (I think Kamal Haasan as Chachi 420 is modelled on her!). Maybe it's the round face. But that's now!
When she once cribbed to director Basu Bhattacharya about ageing so much, repeatedly for the screen in the '80s, he said she should be glad: "It takes natural grace to pull off an older person this convincingly. Sanjeev Kumar was the only other actor who could."
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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