Saira Banu recalls Shammi Kapoor shouting at her in front of a crowd, making her weep harder: ‘I pulled up my dupatta…’

Recalling the time when the entire unit of Junglee relocated to the “heavenly outdoors” in Srinagar for the filming of the first scenes and the song “Kashmir Ki Kali Hoon Main” at Nishat and Shalimar Gardens, Banu observed: “There were thousands of tourists in the garden, mostly foreigners, strolling around and taking photographs. The shooting areas were carefully cordoned off to facilitate the filming process.”

Referring to this as her first experience with such a large crowd, Banu recalled: “In the song, there is a sequence where Shammiji is very angry with me and I turn around and I pick up his shoe and sing ‘Pyar Peh Gussa Karte Ho. Tera Gussa Humko Pyaara Hain’. Now as luck would have it, I couldn’t turn around and do the movement properly so I was getting into a fix.”

“Eventually seeing so many people around me I broke down into tears, seeing which my mother ran to me and sympathetically hugged me,” Banu said and quoted her mother as saying: “I always told you this acting medium is not for you, I tried my best to stop you, we have just started this shoot and it will be no harm if we can pack up our bags and give this up. Subodh Daa will not take it amiss. Let us go.”

“Meanwhile, Shammiji secretly winked an eye at Appaji and scolded me, ‘What is this? If you want to be shy and then break down like this you should have been at home in a Burkha!’ This made me howl and cry further, But then in a while, I pulled up my dupatta around my waistline in a show of defiance and uttered ‘Main Karke Dikhaugi’,” Banu recalled.

Heaping praise on Shammi Kapoor for helping her overcome her stage fright, Banu noted: “I must say Shammiji was a darling to give me that ‘push’ towards braving it in front of the crowds and Subodh Uncle took me aside and shared this confidence, ‘You know Shammi is so good in his musical numbers that we directors give him all the songs in our movies and only shared duets with the heroines. He is also so good at doing disguises in his roles but he has been kind with us and you that you have been giving three solo songs to do and a highlight disguise scene of a young Sadhu who tricks the hero’. He helped me so much in Junglee,” she concluded.

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