‘Simi Garewal got a bungalow, I got a watchman’s room…’; This actress was forced to live in 44 degree heat, sacrificed everything for director, she is…

Veteran actors Sharmila Tagore and Simi Garewal were once considered sensation in Bollywood. These beauties of the 70-80 era showed their glamour at the 78th Cannes Film Festival these days. Do you know the duo became a part of the Cannes Film Festival? The reason behind this is the 1970 film ‘Aranyer Din Ratri’, which was screened in the Cannes Classic section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Sharmila Tagore and Simi Garewal attended the event, which was hosted by renowned filmmaker Wes Anderson. The screening of the film brought back old memories for the stars. Talking about the film, Sharmila shared an unheard anecdote from the shooting.

During her early days when Sharmila Tagore was shooting for ‘Aradhana; alongside Rajesh Khanna, she had a call with Satyajit Ray. Recalling her conversation with him, the veteran actress told The Hollywood Reporter India, He said, ‘Will you work in my film? I need a month of your time, in the month of May.” Without thinking, I said yes. Then when I hung up, I said, ‘Oh my God, I have committed to Shakti Samanta because he was making ‘Meri Sapno Ki Rani’ in May.”

She further recalled, “Rajesh Khanna was very busy because he had won a talent contest and had made commitments to 12 producers. So he had to give dates to everyone and they were all making a film. His dates were very precious. I said, ‘Shakti ji, I have to do this film. Somehow I negotiated and came to Satyajit Ray and then went back to another film.’ Sharmila Tagore, who made her acting debut with Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apur Sansar’ (The World of Apu), could not say no to the filmmaker. The actress told that I always looked at him with a little respect, like you do to your father.”

The 80-year-old actress said, “When we were shooting for the film, we were all staying in different places because there was a lack of space. Simi Garewal, Kaberi Bose stayed in a bungalow in the neighboring village. Satyajit Ray and Soumitra Chatterjee stayed in a different place. I, Samit Bhanja, Subhendu Chatterjee, Rabi Ghosh stayed in another place. I stayed in the watchman’s room. There was a water cooler there. It was very hot at that time. You can’t even imagine how hot it was. We would shoot only from 5:30 am to 9 am and from 3 pm to 6 pm in the evening. The rest of the time we were just bonding. We became good friends. It was a very difficult place.”

Sharmila also explained the reason why the filmmaker chose the month of May. She said, “He wanted that time. He wanted a special look and it was possible only in May because the rains would come soon after and before that everything would be green.”

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