Rati Agnihotri recalls hardships on Ek Duuje Ke Liye sets: ‘We had blisters on our feet’

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Rati Agnihotri also revealed that K Balachander had helped her understand the scenes because she didn’t speak Tamil properly. Rati said, “There was one shot where Kamal spins a top on my stomach and I am supposed to be squirming and laughing as it’s tickling me. Then there’s another one where his photo is burned, but I mix the ashes in a teacup and drink it. I didn’t know I could have done it another way — Balachander sir didn’t give me an option.”

She continued, “He would tell me to be defiant in certain scenes, but I didn’t know what defiance was. So, he said, ‘Be angry.’ I don’t know how I portrayed the emotions of a young woman in love, those death-do-us-part emotions — back then, I didn’t know what they were in the first place. I followed my director’s instructions and that’s why I was able to deliver.”

Working with an artiste like Kamal Haasan was both a challenging and intimidating experience for Rati Agnihotri. Admitting she was a little “scared initially,” Rati Agnihotri said, “But he never made me feel anything but comfortable. Kamal is such a brilliant actor, very helpful on set and with my scenes. The song in the lift, ‘Mere Jeevan Saathi’, was fun to shoot but tough at the same time. We had to wrap up in eight hours in a tiny lift inside the Taj in Chennai. While jumping around and moving, we had to be mindful of the camera angles so as to not get cut off. Even today, people remember EDKL and my character Sapna. Every film gives you something, but EDKL has given me everything.”