Moushumi’s career began with Tarun Majumdar’s superhit Bengali film Balika Badhu. She was 19 at the time, but in this lovely story based on Rabindranath Tagore’s short work Samapti, she played a much younger child bride. Later, Jaya Bhaduri played the same role in Uphaar. In fact, Moushumi’s fate seems inextricably linked to Jaya’s.
Moushumi tells me that she was signed on to do Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Guddi, the 1970 film with which Jaya became an immediate and endurable cine icon. According to Moushumi, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, a family friend of her father-in-law singer-composer Hemant Mukherjee, saw her and immediately offered her Guddi. Thereafter Moushumi had no idea what happened. Without her knowledge, the project was passed on to Jaya.
Guddi was not the only film Moushumi lost to Jaya. In 1972 Gulzar began shooting Koshish with Sanjeev Kumar and Moushumi. Then overnight, as it were, Moushumi was replaced by Jaya. No explanations were provided by any one of the parties involved in the illicit talent exchange program. When years later I asked Moushumi point-blank about Koshish, she turned uncharacteristically diplomatic on me: “I would never compromise with my dignity for a role. Koshish is a chapter best forgotten and buried. Many years later Gulzar (no ‘Saab’ please note) signed me for Angoor with the same co-star as Koshish Haribhai (Sanjeev Kumar). There is something called justice in this world.”
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This evasive answer is so uncharacteristic of the outspoken Moushumi. Amitabh Bachchan once told me he was always nervous to work with her, as one never knew what she would say next. Their films together like Benaam and Manzil were flops. Decades later they finally had a hit together in Shoojit Sircar’s Piku. Mr Bachchan said she had not changed at all. She says, “I don’t need to change. I am still the same moon-phat Indu. I have never hesitated to call a spade a spade. People are scared of my unstoppable tongue, especially people who spend all their energy and time trying to be diplomatic.”
Diplomacy is one thing Moushumi doesn’t subscribe to. When she was directed by Aparna Sen in The Chinese Wife, Moushumi accused her director of being jealous of her looks, hence making her look old and haggard in the film. Aparna sensibly didn’t react.
Ever since her debut in Hindi cinema with Shakti Samanta’s Anurag, Moushumi has been associated with hit films. Her second Hindi release was Raj Khosla’s Kuchche Dhaage . Khosla was so impressed with Moushumi’s potent mix of impishness and oomph that he signed her again for Prem Kahani with Rajesh Khanna. But the hero wanted his favourite heroine, Mumtaz, and Moushumi to be out.
“The story of my life,” Balika Badhu giggles.
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