Free Conversations with Waheeda Rehman by Nasreen Munni Kabir, Waheeda Rehman Page B

kuch bheegi bheegi’ by Jaidev and Sahir. You perform the dance in the wedding scene where Jarnail Singh and his band of dacoits see you for the first time.
    WR: I liked that song very much. Lachhu Maharaj choreographed it so beautifully. His mudras and bhavas were very delicate. The facial expressions were soft and Lata Mangeshkar sang the song with such sensitivity that she made it easy for me to convey the right tone and mood.
    The dance itself was not difficult. However, the way it was filmed was technically complicated. I danced on a large mirror that had been painted black, but the mirror reflected everything and so lighting the set was tricky. The end result, however, created a mysterious and interesting effect.
    NMK: Have you noticed how often Hindi films, particularly the older ones, have a song performed for an audience within the story? The heroine is dancing and the hero sits among the onlookers. Or the hero is singing and the heroine, looking embarrassed and awkward, is a guest at a party. We could call it a performance within a performance.
    I have always wondered if the popularity of this setting is a harking back to cinema’s theatre origins by recreating a performance and an audience.
    WR: I have no idea why this kind of setting became popular. There are many examples—the hero plays the piano and sings a sad song. Or the heroine is dancing while the hero mingles among the party guests and watches her dance.
    I know that distributors used to worry if a film only had five songs, and so film-makers would be more or less obliged to add a few more songs. Perhaps the party scene was an easy scene to add.
    NMK: I suppose it could fit into any story and so we see it in all sorts of films.
    You have worked in the black-and-white and the colour film eras. Did the switch affect the way you worked?
    WR: When we started shooting colour films—and I was told this later—the film speed, the emulsion’s sensitivity to light, was not very high. As a result, they needed hard lights and reflectors, and these were very harsh on our skin and eyes. It was uncomfortable for us actors.
    When colour-film speed increased, the lighting became softer. That helped a lot.
    NMK: Is it true that black-and-white photography required youto wear colours like yellow or red to enhance the contrast?
    WR: Yes, it is true. Strong and dark colours helped to increase the contrast and we were particularly asked not to wear pure white in black-and-white films. They said it reflected light. We mostly wore pastel blues, off-whites and pale greens.
    NMK: Colour photography took over Indian cinema very late, as compared to Hollywood. So you have both black-and-white and colour films being produced side by side till the late 1960s. When colour photography did take over, one can honestly say the films were not sophisticatedly lit through the 1970s and ’80s. The lighting wasn’t very good, the zoom lens didn’t help and even the make-up, especially for male actors, exaggerated the problem. Faces were powdered white while you could see the hands and neck of the actor were his natural colour.
    I remember visiting a film set in the early 1980s and hearing the camera assistant cry out: ‘Full light!’ And all the lights went on and every inch of the set was lit with the same intensity. No shading, no pools of darkness to create atmosphere.
    WR: You’re right. It took time for Indian films to be photographed properly in colour. For colour to work well, the lighting has to be subdued and soft. In the early days they wanted to show as many colours as possible—everything had to been bold and brash. It was to show they were making a film in colour rather than making the story work.
[we laugh]
    Many years after I had more or less stopped working, I returned to the sets for Karan Johar’s
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham
. When I saw the set, I wondered where all the lights had gone because the lighting was so soft. I was told they now use reflected light.
    I