Dimple Kapadia, the gorgeous diva who didn’t nurture her career

When I saw Dimple Kapadia in Kalpana Lajmi’s Rudaali, I compared her with Shabana Azmi. This was for me the highest praise possible, as I consider the Azmi to be incomparable. What was really interesting was that Shabana agreed with me.

We all thought Dimple was destined to go that extra kilometre on the road to stardom with her killer looks and extraordinary talent. But like many truly beautiful women, Dimple didn’t take herself seriously enough. Our conversations during the days of her Rudaali and Lekin were like this:

Me: “Gosh, you are so beautiful.”

She: “Oh stop it. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

Dismissive of her USPs. I have seen it in many beautiful and talented women. Aparna Sen sails in the same low-self esteem. She still doesn’t believe she is beautiful.

Aparna Sen who made many memorable movies with Shabana wanted to cast Dimple “very badly”. But it didn’t happen. Like many things that should have happened to this gorgeous woman who is completely oblivious to the effect that she has on men, and women too.

I think Dimple is petrified of doing non-Hindi films. In Bengali, she agreed to do Mrinal Sen’s Antareen only on the condition that she wouldn’t have to speak her own lines. She also did Vikram in Tamil with Kamal Haasan as it was a promise she had made while shooting Saagar with Kamal.

While shooting Rudaali I think my dear friend Kalpana Lajmi was besotted by Dimple. For months on end it was ‘Dimpu this’ and ‘Dimpu that’. After Rudaali was released Dimple moved, leaving Kalpana quite hurt.

Dimple does that a lot. When she wants something she goes all out for it. Then she loses interest abruptly. Dimple would incessantly call Lataji and Gulzar Saab, the producer and director of Lekin, for the role of the ghost Reva in the film. Dimple was not just excited about playing such an unusual role(“do you know, ghosts don’t blink? I had to stop myself from blinking all through the shooting”) but also about shooting for those exquisite Lata Mangeshkar songs: Yaara sili sili, Suniyoji araj mariyo, Kesaria balma and Main ek sadi se baithi hoon….

Lekin, that was it. Dimple moved on. She remains a restless soul. She can’t do the same thing for too long without getting bored.

“You keep asking why I don’t do more films. I keep giving the same answer every time. I could tell you it’s because I don’t get roles that excite me. But that is not the real reason why I don’t do more films. I just don’t feel like doing the same thing for six months or one whole year,” Dimple once confessed.

Mahesh Bhatt spoke to me about Dimple in Kaash and her lack of focused energy. “She would be doing the perfect shot and then she would get bored and the energy would sap away right in front of the camera.”

The marriage to the biggest superstar of Indian cinema Rajesh Khanna didn’t last either. I don’t know if Dimple got restless. But the marriage was an overnight decision. She had the world at her feet after Bobby. But she threw it all away to be Mrs Rajesh Khanna. Eleven years later she made a comeback with the awful Zakhmi Sher. A year later Ramesh Sippy tried to immortalize Dimple in Saagar. But missed the opportunity to do so.

It is dangerous for a director to fall in love with his heroine. This has happened repeatedly with Dimple.

Many times she wasn’t even aware of it. It is truly dangerous to be Dimple Kapadia.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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