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India Today
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- India Today
Dimple Kapadia: The return of romance
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated November 30, 1985)In 1973 she was the miniskirt-wearing Bobby-girl of everyone's dream and the silver screen's teeny-bopper goddess who came, conquered and went away. And then life imitated art through a dramatic marriage with superstar Rajesh Khanna—twice her age at that time, a total eclipse from films, the birth of two beautiful daughters, a traumatic separation, and her rising mermaid-like from the sea this year, in Kapadia is one of the most gorgeous women on screen today. But how has the Bobby girl grown into womanhood over the years? What strange imprints of experience her eventful life has left on her face that the film-goers now find so compelling? As a teenager, she was part nymph, part imp. At age 28, it is still Dimple all right, but blended totally anew. How did it happen?The change is of course something that the Dimple Kapadia of today would not readily like to admit. Because for the past three years since her return to movieland, directors obsessively thought of her—in the words of Saagar's maker Ramesh Sippy—"as Bobby grown over the years". No wonder the hemline was lower, but the neckline too was lower. But, alas, the real Dimple Kapadia is no grown-up clone of either Bobby, the fisherman's daughter in the screen Mills and Boon story of Raj Kapoor, or Mona, the "grown-over-the-years" Bobby-girl cast as an innkeeper's daughter this time round. Dimple has acquired a totally new persona in her second incarnation. It is more elusive than the old one, more complex, and perhaps more now, spread-eagled over a huge grey boulder after climbing 1,500 feet in one burst up a hill 80 km from Bangalore on the Bangalore-Pune highway, at the location of Feroz Khan's blockbuster-in-the-making, Janbaaz, Dimple surveys her face before a shot in a heart-shaped looking glass, and says: "I think all my life's story is condensed in my face. It is neither innocent nor coy. It speaks volumes." It does no sugar-candy actress in Bombay's film and today has got so much of tautness tied up with so much of beauty. Khan looks through his camera once for a close-up of her near the climax of the film, and mumbles almost to himself: "No other girl has so much of pent-up aggression."But it is not aggression alone that makes Dimple Kapadia unique, for there are far more intertwined shades of expression under the layers of Max Factor on her face. Says Mahesh Bhatt, the new and subversive messiah of serious cinema in Bombay's entertainment industry: "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." The valuable compliment could not have been timelier. Bhatt announced last fortnight that Dimple was the heroine of his next film, Kaash, with Naseeruddin can't believe it. It is perhaps the most serious artistic challenge I have ever faced in my career," cooed Dimple as the offer filtered in through long-distance telephone from Bombay to the lavishly appointed farmhouse of Khan on the outskirts of Bangalore, where the Janbaaz unit is putting up. She was feeling higher than the top of the cliffs where all the unreal movies had taken her for shooting dance sequences through heavy filters. "I feel like doing a step right now, yeah, great heady feeling to know that I can play a real character at last, I mean someone who exists in flesh and blood, may be in the next house down the lane."In Dimple, the yearning to play the "real character at last" is perhaps the natural backlash to the event-filled, high-voltage life she has all along led. The first taste of its unreality comes off as soon as one steps into the overpoweringly decadent home of the Kapadias at Juhu in are no familiar stacks of doubtful trophies in the living-room: only rows upon rows of cutglasses, Belgian and not-so-Belgian, punctuated by peeled off plaster on which apathy and sea-wind have wrought strange cobweb patterns. It could indeed be the ideal set for The Cherry Orchard; one only has to imagine the sound of the falling axe. And the male members of the family, father Chunibhai and brother Suhail, are almost never to be vague reply is: they have gone abroad for treatment. The ailment is deliberately left unspecified. What is more important is the tomblike silence that surrounds the inmates of the house—mother Betty, who is perennially cagey, and her two sisters Simple and Reem, who would shy away from any conversation on their illustrious didi on the ground that she is "her own spokesperson.""The life and happiness in our house came to an end the day I and Rajesh got married," Dimple now reminisces almost clinically. And it was really a marriage on which some of the weirdest film scripts could have been written. Rajesh Khanna was 32 at that time, flush from the success of a string of chart busters, and Dimple, at 16 and preening her feathers after Bobby, was just waiting to be swept off her feet in a whirlwind came to know him well precisely seven days before the marriage. We were going together to Ahmedabad for some kind of a show on a chartered flight. He sat next to me all along but did not utter a word. Just as the flight was about to land, he turned towards me, looked hard into my eyes, and said he wanted me to marry him."There were very few young women then who could say no to the superstar's offer, for Rajesh was indeed at the zenith of his popularity. "What was I compared to him then? A one-trick pony!" But there were other reasons too for Dimple to be overawed by Khanna. Till end-1970, weeks before Raj Kapoor selected her for the role in Bobby, she had suppurating warts on her fingers which everybody took for fact family friend Raj Kapoor had one day come to their house to see her on hearing the rumour, and, according to Dimple, was so pleased to find that her affliction was indeed not leprosy that he at once decided to cast her as Bobby. "I really swung between the extremes. From the danger of being ostracised by the society, I almost overnight found myself as virtually the darling of the millions. I was thankful to my fate. So thankful that I could have accepted the hand of anybody at that moment."advertisementBut there was something oddly rebellious about Chunibhai himself, the scion of the family that owned the Killicks Nixon group of industries, who was driven out of the pack for his love of the horseflesh. But being a punter and a bookmaker was not what broke the camel's back. The wealthy Khoja family, which embraced Hinduism only with Chunibhai's father, Laljibhai, and which accepts the Agha Khan as its religious mentor even now, disowned Dimple's father the day he agreed to Raj Kapoor's proposal to let her sign for Bobby."When I was a child, my parents took me to Agha Khan, and he named me Ameena. Beautiful name, it means the dignified one". The marriage with Rajesh Khanna was hopelessly one-sided and almost totally lacking in dignity. Khanna put a ban on her acting career promptly after the marriage. But that was the time when, in the wake of Bobby's success, incredibly lucrative offers were coming her way, one of them being to play the leading role for the movie great Manmohan Desai."They were offering me Rs 5 lakh for a film in those days," she says. If true, it was decidedly the highest rate in the industry at that time paid to women artistes and only marginally less than the fees Dimple reportedly commands now—Rs 6 lakh."I was too young to realise the importance of Bobby for my career, but from the day I entered Rajesh's house, Ashirwad, I somehow knew that the marriage wouldn't work." Life at the oddly spacious Bandra bungalow, overlooking the sea, was full of experiences that seem like harrowing nightmares to Dimple now. Most notable of them was the arrival of "my first rival"—a glamorous star of the times—on the third month of the marriage."I was not in the least bothered by the procession of women who walked into Rajesh's life thereafter, but the marriage was certainly not based on any equality. It was a farce, but it took me such a hell of a long time to realise that!" Ironically, the slide-back in Rajesh's career also began with the the resounding success of Aradhana, Anand, Aap Ki Kasam, all released between 1969 and 1973, his career graph began finally dipping with Namak Haram, where Amitabh Bachchan, the man who would finally take over the mantle from him, was aided by the script to outshine him Daulat Duniya, Prem Kahani, Mahachor, Bundlebaaz—the bombs piled upon each other. "It was my first encounter in life with failure," Dimple says. "When a successful man goes to pieces, his frustration engulfs the entire surroundings. It was a pathetic sight when Rajesh waited at the end of the week for collection figures but the people didn't have the guts to come and tell him."There was an upheaval in the house every day, and almost every night battle scenes were being enacted. After their separation, the film press in Bombay even reported acts of gross sadism, such as Dimple being subjected to cigarette burns and whipping. No one denied the reports."I left the house thrice earlier, but every time I went back home I felt sorry about the whole thing and came back. Both Rajesh and I were unable to accept the failure of our marriage. But I realised I wouldn't survive as a human being if I lived there any longer. I got totally neurotic because I was prepared to do go to any extreme ...only in order to extract a smile from him."The most widely publicised marriage of the early '70s between Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia thus virtually came to an end when, one day in April 1982, Dimple, accompanied by her two daughters, Twinkle and Pinkie, then aged eight years and five years respectively, arrived in her parents' home, determined not to go back this time. Dimple was at last prepared to put up a fight. She had already negotiated with Sippy for the role in Saagar, paving the way for her Rajesh and Dimple are still fighting in court over virtually every issue: the custody of the children, alimony, share of property, share of investments, "for a share of even the most insignificant thing that we ever possessed between ourselves."Dimple admits of having an involvement with another person during the period that her marriage with Rajesh had lasted. "It was a selfish involvement. I was experimenting with myself. I had to. I wanted to find out what was wrong with me as a woman." She puts up a brave front, but the separation must have left her a very insecure person. And she never got over her sense of guilt for having been the cause for her family's being cast off by her grandfather, and then the humiliating raids complete with metal detectors and sniffer dogs. Chunibhai reportedly became a changed man afterwards, withdrawn into a shell, and shy of company. "I was the favourite child," Dimple chokingly says, "and everything went wrong in my life."Saagar, Lava, Patal Bhairvai, Arjun, Manzil—Dimple has been deluged with work ever since her return to films. And, in the three years, she and Rajesh have done their best to make sure that they don't have to run into each other. It is only early this year, during the dubbing of Lava, that they met on the staircase of the dubbing studio. "He looked pale and thin. I invited him for a cup of tea and he said he'd come. But 15 minutes later, when I enquired, I was told that he was gone."However, Dimple is not nostalgic but regretful for having taken so much in her stride, "having suffered at the hand of blind emotion, and inertia". But the gap of 10 long years has landed her up in the new realities of the film industry which has only lately emerged out of a long period of absolute male domination and is again on the lookout for faces, lovely feminine faces, well-scrubbed and glamorous, which can set the wheels of moviedom in motion all over Kapoor, Dimple's co-actor in Janbaaz, reveried: "She is the most beautiful woman on screen since Madhubala." That may or may not be true, with a close contender like Rekha still being around. But it was left to Perez Khan, whose Qurbani hooked the nation on to disco fever and the pretty face of Zeenat Aman a few years ago, to give vent to the most accurate assessment of Dimple: "You look at her on a long shot. You see a good body, but there are many such that you're sure to find all around. Move the camera closer. Well, a remarkable face, something that always seems freshly washed, but made somewhat alien-looking with that longish nose of hers and the watery eyes. But now look at her big close-up. It is not at all the face of a woman who is acting her part: she is a woman who is just dying to be herself on screen."In an industry dominated by its cerebral Shabana Azmis and highly paid mannequins like Jaya Prada and Sridevi, Dimple Kapadia is the unabashed announcement of a return of to India Today MagazineTrending Reel
India.com
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
‘Raj Kapoor tailored…' Dimple Kapadia opens up on ‘painful' process of getting...
'Raj Kapoor tailored…' Dimple Kapadia opens up on 'painful' process of getting… In the glitzy and glamorous world of Bollywood, where the dazzling lives are often in the forefront, what happens behind the scenes is usually more than what meets the eye. Behind the blockbuster hits and the unforgettable characters, there are stories of personal struggle and resilience that don't come into the spotlight. Today, we are talking about one such actor whose story talks about how she was making waves in front of the world. however, what was happening behind the scenes was something nobody knew The veteran actor, Dimple Kapadia, stepped into the film industry in 1973 and became an overnight sensation with her cult classic, Bobby. Becoming the face of a new era, Dimple's innocent face, strong screen presence, and expressive eyes captivated the hearts of millions; she even started the trend of Polka dot fashion. But behind this charming and elegant actress was a teenage girl navigating her way into the stardom of cinema by enduring pain, emotional setbacks. In an interview, Dimple openly shared how her appearance was tailored for her on-screen presence. 'Bobby was an iconic film. The director was very special. He tailored my entire look. I had a very small forehead, so he made me remove some of my hairline, which was painful.' She further added, 'He gave me the widow's peak, and all my clothes were bought from abroad. He was very fond of Archie comics. This also speaks about how meticulous Raj Kapor was with the details. He wasn't just creating a heroine, he was also creating a fashion icon. Dimple's outfits, especially her polka dot blouse, still resonate with the youth and have become a trend in pop culture. But what makes her story extraordinary is that this film made her a sensation and defined her career. In another interview previously, she also shared how her struggle ended up being the reason behind getting this iconic role, 'I was around 12 and suffering from leprosy. I had a mark on my elbow. A family friend once told me, 'I'll make sure you're ostracized from school.' I didn't even understand what that meant at the time,' she recalled. This situation caught Raj's attention. He heard about a beautiful girl suffering from leprosy and wanted to meet her. Out of that setback came an opportunity,and that's how I got Bobby.' While Bobby marked Rishi Kapoor's debut and became a box-office hit, it was Dimple's only film in the 1970s. After that, Dimple stepped away from the limelight after getting married to Rajesh Khanna. In 1980, she again made a comeback, returning to the screen with Ramesh Sippy's Saagar, proving that she might have gone away from the limelight, but her impact still sustains.
Time of India
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
When Twinkle Khanna addressed comparisons with parents Rajesh Khanna, Dimple Kapadia: 'Would you ask an actor after 5years if they can compete with Amitabh Bachchan?'
Rajesh Khanna is considered and was called 'The first superstar of Hindi cinema'. The stories of his stardom and female fan following are crazy. Meanwhile, Dimple Kapadia had her own charm which she continues to exude till today. She's remembered and loved for a wide range of movies right from 'Bobby' to 'Saagar' and many more. Clearly, when their daughter Twinkle Khanna came into the industry, comparisons were bound to happen. Soon though, Twinkle left acting and now she's a well-known author, called 'Mrs Funny Bones'. She's carved a niche for herself and has her individuality which goes beyond being Rajesh Khanna, Dimple Kapadia's daughter and Akshay Kumar's wife. But when Twinkle had started her career, she had reflected on the comparisons with her parents. She had also revealed that she never wanted to be an actor. She said in an interview with Lehren, "I hadn't even thought of becoming an actress back then. I wanted to be an accountant. I have grown up among actors since childhood, hence I was never attracted towards fame. I just felt it was coming to me." However, with time, she started enjoying acting. She added,"I just felt that let's see if I find joy in this (acting). After about two years, I really started liking what I was doing, so I continued." But had acting not worked out, she had a backup plan: 'If I wouldn't have been able to become one, then I would have been a physiotherapist. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Officer Wrongfully Stops Young Male - Cop Is Arrested After His Dashcam Footage Shows What He Did Crowdy Fan Undo I never studied it, but I have a lot of interest in it. I read a lot of things and I can tell people about common injuries. " Talking about how the stardom of her parents helped her, the actress had said, "It supports me in a way that a lot of people think twice before acting fresh with me. I got my first break easily, but after that you are on your own like everybody else." However, at that time, she didn't feel it was fair to compare her with the stardom of her parents. She admitted, "I am very proud of what they have done, I think it's a very big achievement. But I can't be compared to them. There is a long way to go. And, you are talking about careers which lasted for 10-20 years, I have just begun. Would you ask an actor after 5 years of being in the industry if they can compete with Amitabh Bachchan? They have been around for a long time and it will take me that much time. " Check out our list of the latest Hindi , English , Tamil , Telugu , Malayalam , and Kannada movies . Don't miss our picks for the best Hindi movies , best Tamil movies, and best Telugu films .
Time of India
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
When Dimple Kapadia made bold comeback to films after her failed marriage with Rajesh Khanna; stirred controversy with onscreen kiss with Rishi Kapoor
Imagine being a regular teenager on day, and the next, the whole country is copying your style! That's exactly what happened to Dimple Kapadia after her movie Bobby hit the screens. Suddenly, everyone wanted her short skirts and the way she knotted her polka-dot shirts. Then, in a real-life fairy tale twist in 1973, this 15-year-old fan married the reigning king of Bollywood, the superstar Rajesh Khanna , who was twice her age at 30! Their love story blossomed, and soon they welcomed two adorable daughters, Twinkle Khanna and Rinke Khanna . And just like that, Dimple, the dazzling new star, stepped away from the bright lights of the film industry to embrace her new role as a wife and mother. A Bold Comeback After Separation However, the actress separated from Rajesh Khanna in 1982 and two years later, in 1984, she made a bold comeback into films with Ramesh Sippy's Saagar. The film starred Rishi Kapoor opposite her. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo While her comeback film featured her in a swimsuit – a decision seen as daring for a mother – Dimple preferred to focus on the movie's overall quality rather than just that particular scene. She believed that motherhood shouldn't be a barrier to an actress making a comeback. Rekindled On-Screen Chemistry and Off-Screen Buzz During the filming of Bobby, there were strong rumours linking her romantically with Rishi. Their captivating on-screen connection in the film fueled speculation about a real-life romance between the two young actors. In Saagar, Dimple and Rishi shared a few kissing scenes, which were considered quite bold and drew considerable attention from the audience at the time. Rishi was reportedly concerned that the intimate scenes he filmed with Dimple might make his wife, Neetu Kapoor , feel insecure. To avoid this, he decided not to tell her about the kissing scene in their movie. However, Neetu's reaction after the film's premiere was quite unexpected. Instead of being upset, she told Rishi that she was unimpressed with his kissing and jokingly said he seemed like a bad kisser, much to his relief. After Bobby became a massive success, the pairing of Rishi and Dimple was incredibly popular, and gossip columns buzzed with rumours of a romantic relationship between them. Years later, in his autobiography, Khullam Khulla, Rishi revealed that Neetu admitted feeling insecure when he and Dimple were cast together again in the film Saagar. However, Rishi clarified in his book that Neetu had no reason to worry. He explained that while his relationship with Dimple might have been slightly more than just friendship during the making of Bobby, a decade had passed since then. At the time of Saagar, Dimple was a mother of two, navigating life after her marriage, and Rishi himself was happily married with two children. Fading Stardom and a Difficult Decision After Dimple and Rajesh Khanna had been married for some time, Rajesh's movies started to flop in the 1970s and 1980s. This made the once hugely popular actor struggle with failure, and it created problems in his relationship with Dimple. Even though Dimple tried hard to fix their marriage, she couldn't, and they separated in 1984. Later, Dimple confessed that marrying such a big star had been a mistake. Stay updated with the latest Best Hindi Movies , Best Tamil Movies , Best Telugu Movies , Best english Movies , Best Malayalam Movies
Express Tribune
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Saagar Shaikh praises Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy
Designer Hassan Sheheryar Yasin (HSY), who recently marked his Hollywood debut in the comedy series Deli Boys, interviewed the show's lead Saagar Shaikh on Instagram. He kicked off the session by asking Saagar about his experience working with Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy on the MCU show Ms Marvel. "She's so great. I didn't get to work with her as much as I would've liked to because she directed episodes 4 and 5 and all the reshoots. I was there in 4 and 5, but I was only there for the reshoots for six weeks," Saagar said. "She's so precise and calculated and knows exactly what she wants from a shot. And she's just a powerhouse within one person. She's amazing to work with." As for how he would define his character in Deli Boys, the 38-year-old actor said that Raj Dar is the exact opposite of his Ms Marvel character Aamir, who is a devout Muslim. "It's very, very different. My character [in Deli Boys] is a wild card. He's an older brother, but he's also a lazy guy who grew up rich and is okay just getting allowance for the rest of his life." During the interview, Saagar also shared his insights on craft and culture, and the impact of AI on art. "I think craft and culture go hand in hand," he said. "AI has no real culture; it's taking humanity out of art, and craft is all about humanity. Sometimes, you have an idea and while you're in the moment creating that idea, it allows you to implement other ideas. AI will never do that. It's just a robot. You tell it a command and it follows. It's not going to add humanity to the product." At the end of the interview, the American actor had a message for his fans in Pakistan. "I love you guys. I'm excited to visit Pakistan whenever I can. I hope to be there soon," he said. Also in conversation HSY's interview with Saagar comes after another brief conversation with Poorna Jagannathan, who began by defining the drama series The Night Of as her most seminal body of work. "The story was amazing. When we shot it, Trump wasn't in power. But when it came out four years later, Trump was in power, there was a Muslim ban, and Islamophobia was rampant," she said. "The cultural impact in the conversation that The Night Of started shifted the way that I viewed myself as an actor. I've always tried to pursue works that reverberate the way The Night Of has." She concluded her answer with a joke, "Which is why I'm in a cocaine drama now." Moving on to career influences, Poorna cited Nicole Kidman as an actor she draws inspiration from. "She's a method actor, and in Big Little Lies, she embodied the role. She mentioned two roles that she couldn't leave behind - Big Little Lies and Virginia Woolf adaptation The Hours. Whether she was on set or at home, she carried those characters everywhere. So working with her, watching her, and seeing her process influenced me as an actor. I went on to another set and I was a very different actor there because of her." Poorna, who has dabbled in both drama and comedy, mentioned that she doesn't look for comfort when it comes to her acting roles. "It's not so much my comfort level, it's what I take home. For comedy, I don't take anything home. But for drama, I do," she said. "I have a family, so it's been very important to strike a balance between life and work. I feel like comedy just helps me balance it out better. I don't take any of it home."
