‘I Knew I Was on My Own Here. No Friends. Just My Confidence’
Simi reminisces about her B’wood years, having to make it on her own, and her many achievements that marked her being ‘ahead of her time’
Cinema history has been unjust to Simi Garewal. And she does a disservice to her achievements by not talking about them.
Look at her staggering range of directors, from Satyajit Ray (Aranyer Din Ratri), Raj Kapoor (Mera Naam Joker), K A Abbas (Do Boond Pani), to Subhash Ghai (Karz), Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Namak Haram) and Yash Chopra (Kabhi Kabhie).
In all these films, Simi was totally tuned in to the sensitivities of her roles. Her place in the Bollywood hierarchy could not be taken by anyone else. She is the ‘magnificent misfit.’
“I had to struggle on my own. Pam Chopra (wife of Yash Chopra) was my aunt. But that didn’t help me get a foot in the industry. I was on my own, and never allowed to forget it,” says Simi.
The actress recalled a harrowing incident where a recently launched Bollywood heroine and her mother met Simi at a filmy party. Seeing her alone and forlorn, this actress who had been living abroad for nearly all her growing-up years (just like Simi) made her feel at home. But within half an hour, Simi’s joy crumbled when she overheard the duo grumbling about Simi piling on them.
That incident changed Simi’s life and her perspective of Bollywood. “I knew I was on my own here. No friends, no sugar daddys. Just me and my confidence in my talent.”
Simi quit acting in 1988 after Rukhsat, which she directed. She has remained relevant through her enormously popular talk show, Rendezvous With Simi Garewal.
In an interview in the past, Simi said to this writer, “I look back on my life with much satisfaction. I've never been satisfied with doing just one thing. I was never only an actress, or a TV anchor or whatever. And when people said I was ahead of my times, I took it as a compliment. It meant I was doing things that weren’t in vogue.”
About her substantial but under-acknowledged contribution to cinema, the softspoken Simi says, “As an actress, many people remember me by Mera Naam Joker to this day. For others, I’m more the conniving evil woman in Karz, and for the rest, I may be the mysterious woman in Conrad Rooks’ Siddhartha. When I took to TV with It’s A Woman’s World, I never thought it would be so fulfilling. Rendezvous With Simi Garewal has been my most fulfilling endeavour.”
About her fascination with the colour white, the actress, recently in the news for the revival of her Ray classic Aranyer Din Ratri at the Cannes Film Festival, says, “I’ll continue to wear white. My fascination for the colour has been with me for as long as I can remember. Even as a child, my best party dresses were white. Today I can shop for clothes in other colours. But I can never wear them. If I wear any colour but white, I see a stranger in the mirror.”
How does she look back on her life and career? “With a sense of tremendous fulfilment. But I’ll be honest. I do feel sorrow sometimes. I didn’t do that one great, glorious film by which I’d be remembered forever. But hey, I did a lot of other things that got me immense recognition, including a talk show which is being emulated by all and sundry. It’s very flattering.”