Guide with Waheedaji

Enlighten, a film society, arranged a screening of the landmark Hindi film ‘Guide’ at Cinemax, Versova. I am a member with them. Generally they show movies on Sundays at 10am. But this program was to not a routine one. Guide was being shown in Waheedaji’s presence and she was to be honored with an award from Taj (tea makers), after the show. So other than the film itself, seeing grand old lady in person was a tremendous attraction for me. Though I had seen this film quite recently on DVD, but I did not want to miss it for being in the same space as Waheedaji.
I was a little late. As I got inside the theatre the scene between Kishore Sahu and Waheeda Rehman in the ruins was on.Revisiting any film there is always something new to learn or discover. I was so thoroughly bowled over by the dialogues of that scene and then every scene later on. I found the ‘lines’ so realistic, sharp, pat on, entertaining and yet within the boundary of the scenes and the characters. In some I noticed that comic scenes were written well, sometimes romantic scenes moved me… this film is no ordinary celluloid. It is perfect in all areas, be it different point of views between Rosie and her husband, Raju and his uncle (mamaji), crowd jeering at Rosie walking with Ghunghroos, Raju pleading with Nalini in the bedroom or a long soliloquy by Raju guide to Rosie. All are T perfect; not a word more, not one less.In my life Guide enjoys the status of my maximum viewings, five. No other film has been given that kind of respect by me and yet it was difficult holding back tears on many occasions. To put it on record my eyes don’t well up always because of emotional scenes; but many times a great shot or perfect strike of a chord on a visual or even a perfect cut can do it.After red color ‘The End’ filled the screen, Waheedaji was made to sit facing the journalist Bhavna (I guess). She was barely 6 ft away from me. Bhavna asked her a question, which turned out to be three times the length of Waheedaji’s answer. I have seen it with journalists that they start showing off their own knowledge through their questions. Poor things! I have seen many people doing that in the past. Just check out the intelligence and depth of questions, ‘what did you feel when you signed this film?’, ‘tell us an anecdote while on shooting with Vijay Anand’, ‘how was working those days?’… in fact much better quality of questions came from the audience!In a few minutes the setting was moved in the lobby of Cinemax, as next film show was to start. I stood on the side as all the chairs had been taken by the youth brigade reporters. Right at the back were some 15-20 DV Cams aiming at the stage. Waheedaji entered and immediately a loud commotion among the young journo brigade started. It sounded like many animals fighting for a single piece of meet. There was chaos. I couldn’t hear anything. Then a young man took the mike. He was representing Cinemax and kept addressing Waheedaji as Waheeda Rehman, without any respectful Indian suffixes, like ‘Ji’. He called the lady Waheeda Rehman more than once in his own American culture or uncultured ways. I asked the girl sitting next to me if she knew his name. She didn’t. I just wanted to give the ‘a-- hole’ a little respect here in my space. Suddenly some people stood up in front and entire gang of journos picked up their cameras and moved forwards to grab the meet. There was no order left. There was more growling, pushing and shoving. At one point I made up my mind to ask Waheedaji, ‘whether English and Hindi versions of Guide were shot together, some of it together or entirely separately.’ I stood up to speak; but I was growled down. Quite easily, I gave up, thinking, I will get my answer from some other source. But it would have been nice if she heard me when I addressed her and she addressed me back in return, in the bargain I would have got my answer straight from the person involved. Din was so persistent that at a point she also told the young ones that in India we have to show respect for elders and what she saw was not right.Later the ‘chai wala’, err, a representative of Taj tea came up and said that they wanted to give away their first award to a person who really matched up to the stature of ‘Taj tea’. That filled up my cup of patience. It was my cue to get up and try to find my way through. I looked around and found a safe passage. Chai wala was saying, ‘now I request Waheedaji to come here and accept this award. He couldn’t go to her? She was right there. The ‘Chai wala’ was handing over a silver kettle to Waheedaji. I felt suffocated. I wouldn’t be surprised if last scene of Pyasa was playing in Waheedaji’s mind. It surely was playing in mine.Last thing I remember was, a reporter fully stretching his arm with a microphone (read bowl) towards Waheedaji and begging, ‘please madam, ek byte ka sawal hai’.