20 years after Bobby, ‘unlucky' Rudaali changed Dimple Kapadia's fortune; broke the idea of ‘glamorous' heroine and established her as an actor

Indian Express

08-06-2025

Dimple Kapadia was only 14 when Raj Kapoor decided that she had every quality of becoming the next big star in Hindi movies. After the debacle of Mera Naam Joker, he needed a hit to get RK Films out of the massive debt. He needed a film that had the capacity of changing his fortune and so, he decided to launch his 21-year-old son Rishi Kapor and Dimple in Bobby. By the time the film released, Dimple was 16, and even before she could actually experience her success, she got married to the superstar of that time Rajesh Khanna. Reading this in 2025, one would wonder why her marriage was a hindrance to her enjoying her success, and the truth is as orthodox as it could be.
Rajesh wanted his wife to be a mother to his children, while he went out and worked in the movies and still had the privilege of being called the father to his daughters – Twinkle and Rinke. 'I had no problems with my wife working. But when I married Dimple, I wanted a mother for my children. I didn't want them to be brought up by servants. And I had no idea of Dimple's talent; Bobby had still not released,' he told Movie magazine in 1980. His declaration resulted in Dimple giving up a highly promising career in the movies. Many years later, she made a comeback with Ramesh Sippy's 1985 film Saagar, after she moved out of Rajesh's house. Dimple continued to work through the 1980s as she was a single mother responsible for her two daughters. After films like Allah Rakha, Bees Saal Baad, Pati Parmeshwar and many similar titles which were equally forgettable, Dimple became popular but it was only after Kalpana Lajmi's 1993 film Rudaali that Dimple started her career as a celebrated actor. Rudaali fetched Dimple her only National Film Award for Best Actress.
Rudaali was unlike many of her previous projects where makers often cast her to increase the glamour quotient of their film. Dimple knew what she wanted to be as an actor, and she was finally getting her due. 'I suppose I was always associated with glamour. I had taken that for granted so my entire energy went towards projecting myself as an actress, building up myself as an actress and I wanted to be recognised as an actress,' she said on The Pritish Nandy Show in the early 1990s.
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Rudaali had her playing the role of a rather unfortunate woman named Shanichari. She got her ominous name from those who lived around her because they believed that she was the carrier of bad luck. 'Apne baap ko kha gayi (She killed her own father),' they said and made her believe that a newborn was somehow responsible for her father's death. Her mother abandoned her as a baby, and since then, she grew up around men who were always ready to pounce on her. Dimple's Shanichari grew up defending herself from harassment and ended up in a village where an upper caste zamindar believed that he was doing her a favour by asking for consent, instead of assaulting her. She is bullied, manipulated by the so-called leaders of the society and when a local priest forces her to take on a massive debt that leaves her distraught, Shanichari has no choice but to work as a bonded labour. But despite all these troubles in her life, she never sheds a tear.
Contrary to the title Rudaali, which is used for a professional mourner, Dimple's character has never cried. She is not even one of those who mulls over her troubles. It's almost like she has accepted this troubled life as her normal and does not even believe that things could ever get better. She plays Shanichari like a woman who can't afford to be fragile, vulnerable. She always has to keep her guard up for she can't depend on anyone. In moments where life shows her its darkest side, she is disappointed but she never breaks down. Dimple has a strange resolve on her face as she plays Shanichari. She can empathise with this woman's pain but completely understands that breaking down won't do her any good.
Mahesh Bhatt, in a 1985 interview with India Today, implied that Dimple Kapadia had been through so much in her life that she did not need any training to be an actor. 'Dimple Kapadia has gone through so much in her life that she need not read up the text books of method acting to play a real woman. She only has to be herself,' he said. In a significant scene in Rudaali, when Dimple's character befriends a woman from a neighbouring village, who forces her to cry just to let out her emotions, she detests the thought of expressing emotions in a public manner. This was strangely common between Dimple and Shanichari.
Since her separation from her husband in the 1980s, Dimple fiercely guarded her personal life. There have been very few interactions where she candidly spoke about her family. A year before she signed Rudaali, Dimple gave a rare interview to Pritish Nandy where she spoke about her sister Reem's suicide in 1991, and her brother Suhail's drug problem. Talking about Reem's suicide, Dimple shared that she was yet to cope with it. 'With my brother's drug problem, yes, it was very difficult. It was the first time it happened in our family and he was destroying himself and my parents were completely destroyed. There was so much violence all around and today he is alright, he is back to normal. But those years were really bad,' she said. Dimple was dealing with a lot in her personal life when she decided to take up Rudaali and Shanichari almost became an outlet for her emotions.
Dimple Kapadia wasn't always the wisest when it came to selecting her roles but things started to change when she appeared in films like Rudaali and Lekin. She limited her appearances and after 2001's Dil Chahta Hai, she became conscious about her choices. Luck By Chance, Finding Fanny, Being Cyrus have been some of her most applauded films in the last few years.
Sampada Sharma has been the Copy Editor in the entertainment section at Indian Express Online since 2017. ... Read More