When I was looking to cast the female lead for my film Nuvva Naku Nachav, I came across stills of an actress playing the lead in an unreleased Hindi film — that girl was Aarti Agarwal — and I decided that she would play the lead.
“When I got in touch with the movie’s producer, he didn’t have the film’s rushes so, I sent my cousin, who lived in the US at the time, to Aarti’s home with a video camera to film the girl, so that I could get a better look at how she would look on screen. The moment I saw the footage, I realised she was perfect for the role and so, this NRI girl, who was sitting at home thinking that her career in films was over, suddenly got her big chance.
“I flew her down to Hyderabad and made her train for the role for a month before shooting began. The film turned out to be a huge hit and I cast her in many more of my films which turned out be super hits.
“But towards the final years of her career, Aarti had started losing control over herself. She started putting on weight and found it impossible to lose it.
“In this industry you need to be in shape to survive. Only actress Savitri got away with being plump because of her extraordinary talent. Aarti too had talent, but unlike today’s actresses who continue to work on their strengths to keep growing, she stagnated.
“Her parents too didn’t help as her father put a lot of pressure on her to succeed. And while she wanted a personal life of her own, he just didn’t allow it. I tried talking to him once on sets and wanted to give him some advice, but he was not interested. Very few people listen. So I kept my distance.
“After tasting success, Aarti and her father didn’t realise there was failure too. We, in the industry, taste both success and failure and learn to deal with them, but both believed they had a one-way ticket to only success.
I gradually lost touch with her. Recently, I heard that she was trying to make a comeback into films.”
(As told to Gayatri Reddy)
