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'I wanted to be accepted...I realised I was the outsider'

Simi Garewal has been in the show business for a long time. Though she is now known as a television personality, she began her career as a film actress. Few know that she has even acted in a Satyajit Ray film.

She took up direction when she found that her unconventional looks stood in the way of her getting plum roles. Her documentaries on Raj Kapoor and Rajiv Gandhi brought her back into the limelight.

Simi has not looked back since then. Her Rendezvous with Simi Garewal, which brings the high and mighty to her studio, is one of the most successful talk-shows on Indian television.

Simi Garewal, in conversation with Kanchana Suggu.

Why did you become an actress?

When I was five-and-a-half years old, the first and only Hindi film I saw was Awaara. So fascinated was I by this whole concept of moving images, story and music that I just wanted to be an actress. Then we moved to England and I studied there. In England, the only films that we got to see were Satyajit Ray films at festivals.

I thought all Hindi films were like Awaara. I loved the idea of portraying reality the way Ray did. I loved pretending to be somebody else. I thought it was a nice way of living many lives.

Was it smooth sailing after that?

Not at all! When I announced that I wanted to become an actress, my parents were dead against it. I had to put up a huge fight. My father was in the Army -- he was a brigadier. In those days, people in the Army used to look down upon films. Finally I was given a year. During that time, my parents got separated. My sister stayed with my dad in England and my mom came with me to India.

After coming here I realised I couldn’t speak Hindi. This had not occurred to me earlier. I had to learn Urdu and Hindi. Initially it was very difficult for me.

This place was like another planet. I felt as if my spaceship had landed here from some other place. Often I felt like telling my mother, 'Let’s go back...' but I didn't.

How was working in Mera Naam Joker?

Mera Naam Joker is really special to me. A girl, who had idolised Raj Kapoor since her childhood, was actually working with him! It was like meeting somebody from your pichla janam (last birth).

He had invited me over to his place. I had only seen him in black and white films earlier. So when I walked into his house and saw him in person -- with his blue eyes -- it was something else. I knew that I was with a man who had great knowledge about everything related to films. I decided I was going to learn from him. I made him my guru.

And what did you learn from him?

I used to sit beside him silently for hours just listening to everything he said. Then, when he offered me Mera Naam Joker, I said yes. I have learnt film-making from him. Not only did I learn what to do, I also learnt what not to do from him. I learnt how to edit and how not to edit. We used to have so many arguments while he did the editing. And later, when I made my film on Raj Kapoor (Living Legend: Raj Kapoor), I got the opportunity to do the editing the way I wanted to!

I also learnt the dedication to cinema from him.

How many films have you acted in?

I did about 65 films.

Why did you quit acting?

This industry is very youth-oriented. Every year, there are so many young girls coming in. I didn’t like the idea of doing a character role. I didn’t want to play so and so's mother or aunt. No way! That’s not how I saw my life. I think I am far more intelligent to waste my brains on a silly job like that.

And it was not like I needed to act for my dal-roti. My fascination, as I told you, after seeing Raj Kapoor and Satyajit Ray was creative control. I couldn’t stand just being an actress anymore. I started feeling like a puppet. The director says, Nacho, I dance. Then he says, Idhar dekho, Aise chalo -- I hated it.

Then you decided to be a director yourself...

Yeah! Slowly I got sucked into this wonderful world of direction, writing and production. I am just happy that I got into it. It is so very satisfying and fulfilling.

Do you think your sophisticated looks and personality typecast you?

Yes, it definitely made a big difference. No question about that. My timing was all wrong. I was far too westernised. I had a heavy British accent. For me, it was a tough job trying to change my personality, to fit into a mould, which didn’t even feel like a great mould. It was not that I was progressing further. In fact I was retarding myself.

Did you realise this after some time?

No it was just the case of 'If you can't beat 'em join 'em.' I wanted to be accepted. I realised that I was the outsider and that was the norm. I realised this was the way they conducted themselves, the way they dressed, the way they spoke, the way they did their hair…everything. It's always a struggle trying to be what you are not.

But you played a tribal girl in Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Dinratri. What was that experience like?

That again was like a dream for me. In my mind, I had always looked up to two personalities: Raj Kapoor and Satyajit Ray.

There’s this incident I remember distinctly. Satyajit Ray had come to RK Studio for a party. I noticed him staring at me throughout the evening. Everybody else also noticed it and I was very happy about it. Later, I found out that he had just seen Mera Naam Joker. Raj Kapoor had a special screening for him and he loved the first part of the film -- which was mine.

Within a month I got a letter from him. He wanted me to come to Calcutta for a screentest. He said, 'It's only a screen test. Not for your acting abilities because I have no doubt about that.' He was very sweet. For the first two months, I was walking on air. It was so exciting.

We were shooting in a forest where there was no electricity or running water. But we didn’t care about the discomfort. We were on a different mental plane because we were working with Satyajit Ray. There would be flies in the water and we would just pick the flies up and throw them away. There would be spiders everywhere. But nothing seemed to bother us. Ray had this unique ability of seeing a sophisticated person like me and imagining her as a village tribal woman. How many people actually have this kind of vision?

Many years ago you did this television show called It’s A Woman’s World -- how did that happen?

I was invited to do it. We were the pioneers of sponsored programmes. It was such a wonderful show. I did it in a magazine format. We had various sections such as grooming, fashion, agony aunt, astrology. The Indian viewers had never seen anything better than what Doordarshan handed out to them. They had not been exposed to foreign television that time. So It's A Woman’s World was a real treat for them.

But the Press lashed out at me. They said it was far too glamorous. They slaughtered my programme, so much that I lost all heart. I decided to stop. And then when I did stop, all these people came back to me saying, 'Why did you stop? It was such a great show!' They literally murdered my show.

You seem to be close to the Kapoors.

Yeah, I am very close to all of them. They treat me like family.

What were your experiences during the making of the documentary on Raj Kapoor?

The only difficulty was that he was not keeping well at that time. I used to worry about whether the film would be completed or not. His breathing problems would start in the middle of the shooting and then we had to cancel shoot for days altogether.

So that was one major worry. Otherwise he was extremely cooperative. I would give him instructions like, 'Walk from here to there,' or 'Sit here,' and he’d say, 'Yeh kya karva rahi ho buddhe se!' But he would do it. He was so amazingly cooperative.

The ultimate test for me was when I had to show him the film. We had to go to Chembur for that. My sister and I were really nervous. And to add to my nervousness, he had invited everybody from the studio to watch it -- the cameraman, the soundman, lightman, the production people -- everybody. There were about 15-20 people sitting there.

And then the show began. Everybody was riveted by it. Raj Kapoor extended his arms from the bed and I kneeled in front of him. He embraced me and said, 'How can I thank you?' I started crying. After that, till the day he died, he would ring me every day and say, 'You know so and so saw your film and loved it.' He would say, 'I don’t care if I live or die because after I am gone, there is a film like this about me.'

We were very good friends. He used to talk about his death over and over again. He would describe his funeral, about how it would all happen. It did happen very much like that.

You did get a lot of appreciation for your documentary...

Yes, I got great reviews. It was first released in England. I did the documentary for Channel 4. All the hurt and pain I went through during It's A Woman’s World was wiped out by the praise I received for The Living Legend: Raj Kapoor.

After that, you decided to do the Rajiv Gandhi documentary, right?

Yeah. When I went to see Rajiv for the documentary, he told me he had just seen the Raj Kapoor one and that he liked it very much. He too, was very cooperative. I remember asking him whether he wanted to read the script and he said no. When I asked him why, he said, 'Trusting is better than reading.' He was just wonderful to work with. I worked for almost four-and-a-half years with him. I went along with him everywhere, to China, to Pakistan…and almost all of India.

What happened to the Lata Mangeshkar documentary you were going to make? Do you still plan to do it some time in future?

Let me be honest with you. After the Raj Kapoor documentary, it was he who asked me to make a documentary on Lata Mangeshkar. He said, 'If you think that I have an ego, the person with the biggest ego is Lata Mangeshkar.' I told him that I didn’t know Lataji too well. He even called her up to say that I wanted to make a film on her.

Later, I contacted Lataji myself and she asked me to go ahead with the idea. So I started doing my research. During the course of my research, I met a lot of people from the film industry. And the kind of stories I heard were horrifying. Nobody was prepared to come out and endorse them, but they were willing to come and tell me confidentially.

And then I said to myself, 'I don’t even admire her so much. I got reports from people which I don’t know are accurate or not that she said, 'Mujhe itne paise chahiye' I was in two minds.

Now documentaries are not money-making propositions. She started being difficult and so I decided to shelve the whole thing. First and foremost, from what I hear about her, she is not someone I would want to make a documentary on -- she is a bit of a hypocrite -- so I didn’t want to get into making a film on her. The very next week I decided to make a film on Rajiv Gandhi and I went ahead with it.

Are you planning any more documentaries?

Right now, I have a long list of people I want to make documentaries on, but I am too busy. I don’t know when I am going to do it, but I will do it. I have already done a lot of research.

How did you come up with the concept of Rendezvous?

I met some people and I observed that when I met them alone, they were on the defensive, but the minute they were with their family, they felt safe and secure. That’s how I came up with the idea. I thought it was interesting to bring people on with their loved ones -- their parents or partners. I thought that relationship was a concept everyone could relate to, whether you are in India or in US. These were the elements which I thought were interesting for a talk show.

Do you face problems getting people to appear on your show?

Never. They might say, 'Not now, some other time,' but I don’t mind that.

And what about getting your guests to talk openly?

So far, I've had no problems whatsoever. I think that's because what I am on Rendezvous is very much like what I am in real life. It’s just an extension of me.

How does it feel interviewing friends? Don't you sometimes know the answers to some of the questions?

But the audience doesn't. The thing about interviewing friends is that you know a little bit more, so you can really go after them. You can say, 'Come on I know this about you.' But that's all. The end product has to be as interesting, professional and informative as any other interview.

Has anybody ever asked you to edit some parts?

No. I think people understand that once they are on the show, everything they say or do becomes my property.

But yes, this happened once. I asked Chintu (Rishi Kapoor) whether he was his children’s favourite actor. He said that he wasn't but Salman Khan was. Apparently his daughter was very upset because her favourite actor had changed to Shah Rukh Khan and she was worried that her friends would tease her. So he requested me to remove that part.

Who are your most memorable guests?

I would say all of them. Some people were more of a challenge, because of their status. Like I would say Rupert Murdoch was a huge challenge. He usually doesn't give interviews, so getting him on my show was really a big deal for me.

When we started off the interview, he was very formal, very businesslike. But within the first 6-8 minutes, he started getting better and by the end of it, he was totally relaxed. He was laughing and joking. And that is exactly what interviewing is all about. The interviewer should be able to make his guest feel comfortable.

Were any of your guests difficult?

Some of them were challenging, but not difficult. Jayalalitha was a challenge. Benazir (Bhutto) was a challenge. But I would definitely not call them difficult. They are all educated and articulate people.

Could you name five guests you really enjoyed interviewing?

I enjoyed the interview with Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya. I also enjoyed the one with Jayalalitha. It was amazing. I couldn’t believe that we were both singing. We were oblivious to all cameras. It was like two friends talking. I got the same feeling with Benazir Bhutto. A time comes in the interview when you feel there is no light, there are no cameras and no other world exists other than you and your guest. That happened with both Jayalalitha and Benazir Bhutto.

And in the end when you say, ‘Thank you for this Rendezvous,’ you breathe and look around. That is when you realise that this is real.

The Rupert Murdoch and Ratan Tata interviews were also memorable. So was the show with Anil and Tina Ambani.