Zeenat Aman is a legendary name in the history of Indian cinema. The veteran actress who’ll be making her comeback to the silver screens with Manish Malhotra’s Bun Tikki recently graced the controversial couch of Koffee With Karan, along with Neetu Kapoor. Since Zeenat Aman shares interesting anecdotes from her career on her Instagram handle from time to time, the actress maintained that trajectory by revealing how she landed the role of Rupa in Raj Kapoor’s cult classic Satyam Shivam Sundaram.
Zeenat Aman recalled, “I was working with him as my co-star in a film called Vakil Babu where he was playing the title role. And he was deep into the script of Satyam Shivam Sundaram. In between shots he would be talking about what he had planned, what he wanted to do, how excited he was. And that really piqued my interest in every which way.”
The actress added that since she enjoyed a ‘western image’, it never crossed her mind that Raj Kapoor will rope her for the role of Pujari’s daughter, “He had given Bobby, which was a huge blockbuster at the time. I was already an established star, you know ‘western image’. I didn’t think that he would ever think of casting me in this role. It’s the daughter of a pujari!,” she continued.
She further shared, “One day we were shooting in Esel Studio, which is down the road from RK (Studio). After pack-up, I just dressed myself up in my version of what I thought he would think was Rupa. With tissue paper stuck on my face and make-up and braids, and ghaghra-choli. I went to RK Studios – he used to sit in his cottage and he had his Man Friday John. I said, ‘John, please tell sir, that Rupa has come.’ He said, ‘Who is Rupa? Call her.’ I went, he was really gobsmacked. I’ll tell you what he said later to Krishna-ji. He called Krishna-ji and she came in a little bit of time with gold guineas. They gave those to me as my signing amount. What he said, was that, ‘This girl is a huge star. She doesn’t need to do this. It’s her passion for this that makes me want to give her the part.'”
Zeenat Aman concluded by recounting another instance, “On an old song of Nargis-ji, ‘Jaago Mohan Pyaare’, he shot a whole reel, with his vision of Rupa. It is so exquisite what he shot. He wanted to show his distributors that yes, Zeenat Aman can be Rupa. All territories were interested.”
Zeenat Aman started her acting career in 1970 and gained recognition with the success of Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971) winning a BFJA Award for Best Actress. She continued her successful career with iconic films like Don and Dharam Veer, Qurbani and Satyam Shivam Sundaram. However, her on-screen presence gradually diminished after marrying Mazhar Khan in 1985. The couple stayed together until 1998, and they have two sons, Azaan Khan and Zahaan Khan.
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