Relooking at Sonali B; don’t mind!

Ever since I heard the anecdote in Bhopalmdashabout a guy in the 1990s who died jumping off one of the cityrsquos lakes because Sonali Bendre was once visiting town and he couldnrsquot see hermdashIrsquod been meaning to ask Bendre if she knew about this herselfldquoYeh sach hai Is it true How can someonehelliprdquo Bendre sighs Although the rsquo90s were a decade defined by such Bollywood fanculture Irsquom certain this is only among several crazy things shersquos heardexperiencedShe reveals ldquoTherersquod be fan mails We wondered to test if it was in actual blood Irsquod be shattered if it was Best to appreciate and leave it at that How can people place humans on such a pedestal that theyrsquoll fall from anywayrdquoBendre must be from Bandra I assumed for her Maharashtrian surname She moved to Bombay in fact with her middleclass family only after Std X Boards in GoaHer father was an ldquohonest officerrdquo in the Central governmentrsquos public works department Which meant regularly getting transferred across the country at short notice hard times includedMost government homes bear the best addresses Not so in her case ldquoIt was a rough neighbourhood between Wadala and Antop Hill Unsafe for me and two sisters shersquos the middle onerdquoShe started with ldquobeing scared of Bombay and then falling in love with itrdquo The same could be said for her accidental life in BollywoodfilmsBendre walked the ramp once in Ruia College A model coordinator spotted her for a facebleaching product What followed were several print and TV ads Her ldquomoralisticrdquo parents were opposed to this ldquononprofessionrdquo She was naturally comfy before the camera the gaze ldquofelt like a hugrdquoHer first paycheque was Rs 25000 Enough for family to move to a better neighbourhood Lokhandwala She asked her parents for three years to scope out the sceneAfter which she could always return to pursue more mainstream careers Such as the civil services Shersquos loved her life in showbiz sinceOne of her ad filmmakers was writerdirector John Matthew Matthan Which is how she landed Matthanrsquos Sarfarosh 1999mdasha deeply researched entertaining copdrama examining crossborder arms tradeldquoIrsquom the filmrsquos comic reliefrdquo Bendre told Matthan when offered the role of the fiery lead Aamir Khanrsquos loveinterest Among the takiakalaams refrains in the script she picked ldquoDonrsquot mindrdquo that she says throughout the movieldquoIf you remove my humanising relationship what remains is a documentaryrdquo Bendre tells me As we speak itrsquos 25 years to SarfaroshThat was a very different kinda mainstream Bollywood film for its time Even the hit song featuring Bendre Hoshwalon ko khabar kya that she considers her lifelong favourite was the leadrsquos backstory compressed into a trackRather than a song for songrsquos sake Which Bendre participated in so many of that her rsquo90s playlist might rank among the decadersquos bestldquoThatrsquos the ironyrdquo she says ldquoIrsquod get acidity thinking of performing to tracks on screen Irsquod never trained in dance Here I am best known for songs whether or not those films workedrdquoMy underrated favourite Bendre number is Pyar kiya to nibhana from Major Saab She adores Sambhala hai maine from Naaraaz So silken dardbhara rsquo90s noThe track shersquoll be most remembered for is of course Humma Humma from Mani Ratnamrsquos Bombay 1995 It inadvertently invented the recurring lsquoitem numberrsquo thereafter ft heroine not in film only in songShe did it also to prove a point Shersquod had a tough time mastering dance with lsquomasterjirsquo Saroj Khan for English Babu Desi Mem 1996 around thenmdashand she was playing a bardancer in that Shah Rukh Khan pic ldquoBeing the quintessential heroine opposite the male star was the only way to be in the rsquo90s Those were the films getting made Even playing dumb in real life was a survival tacticrdquo Bendre recallsI sense what she meansmdashobserving her 25 years since Sarfarosh in the second season of Vinay Waikulrsquos The Broken News on Zee5 based on the BBC series PressShersquos the ethical spine of the show as the channel editoranchor Amina Qureshimdashdignifying television news with such effortless quiet elegance Perhaps more than Indian TV news deserves so at the moment You wanna see so much more of herIn 2018 it appeared we might lose Bendre She got diagnosed with fourth stage of cancer that she bravely fought and survived What changes when you get this close to deathmdashI ask this often to people as I ask Bendre 49She says ldquoWhen time is limited and you donrsquot know if yoursquoll make itmdashtherersquos an immense amount of clarity in your head All the bullshit is out Thatrsquos when your priorities become so clear And then you survive itmdashyou start healingldquoA question like this comes and it reminds you lsquoOh my god Irsquod got that clarity and I began clouding it As we do once we start living and getting caught up in those various things all over again So thanks for asking the questionrdquo she answersI feel the same way about the way the world dealt with the pandemicmdashand behaving two years hence as if nothing happened She agreesMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper