Waheeda Rehman to be feted with Dadasaheb Phalke award

Nonika Singh

Waheeda Rehman — the name spells, elegance, poise, beauty and of course immeasurable talent. As the 85-year-old veteran actor is chosen for the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Lifetime Achievement Award, I&B Minister Anurag Thakur is not alone in feeling “an immense sense of happiness and honour in announcing that Waheeda Rehman ji is being bestowed with the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Lifetime Achievement Award this year for her stellar contribution to the Indian cinema”; every cinephile is likely to rejoice at this wonderful news.

In times when politics often casts its shadow over the announcement of honours, Waheeda is one name which incidentally means incomparable, that can only be seen through the prism of merit. She finds mention in more than one list of Bollywood’s great actors. Seen in best of Guru Dutt’s films like ‘Pyaasa’, ‘Kaagaz Ke Phool’, ‘Chaudhvin Ka Chand’ and ‘Saheb Biwi Aur Ghulam’, who can say that we saw the best of her only in the much acclaimed films directed by her mentor? As the world celebrates Dev Anand’s birth centenary, who can forget his co-star in films like ‘Guide’, where she played a spirited woman unfettered by tradition long before women’s liberation became a fashionable word?

If in her heydays she was literally the chaudhvin ka chand, an unparalleled beauty camera loved to capture, she aged with great grace. Her silver hair shine with the luminosity with which she lit up films. She acted in over 90 films, many of which stand testimony to her prowess. If ‘Reshma Aur Shera’ won her a national award, ‘Khamoshi’ brought out the depths an actor can plumb.

On screen we have seen her grow from enchantress to a suffering wife to a mother of the same superstar, Amitabh Bachchan, with whom she was romantically paired in ‘Kabhi Kabhi’. Born on February 3, 1938, in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu, she has stood out with her artless flair for acting.

Quintessentially a private person, she does not care to talk about her personal life. Even books on her, critics feel, have not been able to draw out the person in her. But the wide range of her onscreen roles, more recently in films like ‘Delhi 6’, has made us privy to the fascinating shades of her charming personality. Her filmography anyway echoes the glorious innings of the Indian cinema that raised the bar in acting. Awards and honours acquire greater meaning when conferred upon artistes of such rare calibre.