Mera Naam Marina

Chintuji is loosely based on real incidents from Rishi Kapoor’s life. The actor adds that Ryabinkina’s role would touch a chord of nostalgia with the audience. “We both very young when we did Mera Naam Joker. During shooting of Chintuji,we spoke a lot about the days gone by,” he says.

In Chintuji,director Ranjit Kapoor has tactfully used Ryabinkina’s role in Mera Naam Joker as a point of reference. “I am playing the wife of the Uzbekistan vice-president and wish to come to India to visit a shrine. However,I recall that this shrine is in the same place where I had once shot for a film with actor Raj Kapoor. And Rishi,who plays an emerging politician,comes to receive me,” says Ryabinkina.

In the film,she is frail and wheelchair-bound woman who is in the last stages of cancer. In real life,Ryabinkina adds,she is a healthy working woman. For the last few years,she had been dreaming of visiting India. “When the offer for Chintuji came I was more excited about meeting Rishi than acting in the film,” she smiles,her eyes twinkling. She was a professional ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet Academy when Mera Naam Joker happened,though Raj Kapoor cast her as a trapeze artist in a circus. “It was not a difficult part since a trapeze artist also requires a high level of flexibility,” she explains in faltering English.

Although she stopped performing at the age of 40,Ryabinkina teaches young girls the nuances of ballet at a government academy in between her movie schedules as an actor. “Even if age does not permit me to dance,I can still train the next generation of ballerinas. But acting is my prime passion these days,” she adds,having wrapped up shooting for her eleventh Russian film last October.