{"id":39251,"date":"2010-08-14T16:46:45","date_gmt":"2010-08-14T16:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.tehelka.com\/?p=39251"},"modified":"2010-08-14T16:46:45","modified_gmt":"2010-08-14T16:46:45","slug":"no-one-killed-rani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/no-one-killed-rani\/","title":{"rendered":"No One Killed Rani"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you heard the rumours that\u00a0Rani Mukerji<\/strong>\u00a0has turned into a recluse, that she sees no one anymore? That she is the new Rekha?\u00a0Aastha Atray Banan<\/strong>\u00a0set out to meet her on a rainy night and came away startled
\n

\"\"<\/a>
Photo: Deepak Salvi<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nMUMBAI IS FULL\u00a0<\/strong>of bored jibes about Rani Mukerji. She is over. She smells of failure. She is too short, too old to work in slick, new Bollywood. She is married to Aditya Chopra. She is just living with him like she did with Govinda. The senior Chopras hate her and she has to clear out whenever they are around. They don\u2019t care about her. Alongside snippets about her role in the forthcoming Rajkumar Gupta film, No One Killed Jessica<\/em>, fly fantastical rumours that she has turned into a Rekha-like figure. Could it be that the girl with the polarising tenor (love it, hate it, deal with it), the caper-loving Babli, the girl who played any number of overwrought, teary good girls has turned into a Garboesque recluse who \u2018vants\u2019 to be alone?
\n<\/strong>Rani is certainly not the kind of actress you trip over at Gloria Jeans in Bandra and chat up. A couple of weeks of phone calls are the investment required for an appointment. On the day, there is a tremendous downpour and Rani is late and you wonder. Has her poor run with men sunk her in self-pity? Has Rani succumbed to depression because of failure? Waiting outside in a Mumbai storm can foster any dark, Gothic ideas you might be nurturing. Reality turns out to be rather different.
\n<\/strong>In her opulently done Juhu pad, with huge mirrors and vintage rugs, the big, wide trademark smile is in place but Rani Mukerji is an unnerving presence. The warm hazel eyes are steely enough to make you squirm a little in your seat. The cruel tabloids may be dying to feature her in the \u2018where are they now\u2019 section but Rani\u2019s aura seems to have magnified several fold. Could it be that she has grown?
\nAt 32, she looks better than she ever has. Yoga has made her slender. Dressed in a short skirt and minimal makeup, she retains a regal air. Lauren Bacall once said, \u201cI am not a has-been. I am a willbe.\u201d Rani would approve of Bacall\u2019s style. It is unlikely she has read the quote though. She doesn\u2019t read, she says. Unlike several young ladies who manufacture reputations as frenetic readers and think that Jane Austen was a Victorian and thinks Omair Ahmed is a medieval poet, Rani says flatly that she does not read. \u2018I don\u2019t read much \u2014 I have an allergy to the smell of books. Really!\u2019
\nRani makes these revelations but this is no invitation to get closer. You are always painfully aware of the Lakshman Rekha<\/em> around her, one she will never cross and you better not even try to. She has no desire to be thought of as Everywoman. As she makes clear when you gird your loins and ask her about the rumours that she has turned into a hermit. She launches into a surprising and convincing discourse on the nature of fame and how it has changed in the 15 years that she has been in Bollywood. \u201cI blame it on Twitter. Everyone has become so accessible. Today, stars function and manage themselves very differently. They chart down everything they do daily. They give stories about themselves to the press and even about other stars! There are stories about stars buying a new phone, stars fainting\u2026 when did this all become news?\u201d she says part resigned, part disgusted.
\n\u201cWhen I started, things were done differently and film journalism was not about churning out tabloid titbits. To me, being exclusive and being mysterious is what makes a star. I guess that\u2019s why I haven\u2019t changed at all.\u201d She rarely calls herself a heroine, an actress or even the now-popular actor \u2014 only star.<\/p>\n

\u2018To me, being exclusive and being mysterious is what makes a star. I guess that\u2019s why I haven\u2019t changed at all,\u2019 says Rani Mukerji<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

UP, DOWN, ROUND ABOUT<\/strong>
\nEven committed Rani haters would find it hard to deny her star quotient. She arrived with Raja ki Aayegi Baraat<\/em>, but got noticed opposite Aamir Khan in Ghulam<\/em> (1998). Her breakthrough moment came when she bagged Kuch Kuch Hota Hai<\/em> opposite her now close friend Shah Rukh Khan, directed by another close friend Karan Johar. (She once described Shah Rukh as the best thing that ever happened to heroines.) With Sanjay Leela Bhansali\u2019s Black<\/em> and Mani Ratnam\u2019s Yuva<\/em>, Rani was once at the top of the Bollywood hill. But fame has been fickle. Despite her talent and the much sought-after girl-next-door vibe, things started going downhill soon after.
\nHeckled at by the press and critics, her alleged love affairs with the much-married Govinda and then the muchmarried Aditya Chopra, added fuel to the fire. Rani remained quiet through it all. And hence began a different rumour mill, which asked why (like Chopra whom only the shadow knows) Rani was never seen in public?<\/p>\n

\u2018She became too uppity after she got famous; that led to her downfall. You shouldn\u2019t let fame get to you,\u2019 says film critic Khalid Mohamed<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sipping hot water out of a mug which has the phrase \u2018drama queen\u2019 in big, black letters, Rani looks stoic when asked why she has not cleared the air. \u201cI possibly couldn\u2019t have given a clarification every week. It\u2019s not in my nature to call up a journalist and say, \u2018why did you say this about me\u2019. They questioned my character and that really bothered me. I am sure directors got turned off and may have not offered me movies. When I get married, I will tell everyone,\u201d she says.
\n\"\"<\/a>So she is not a recluse but who are her friends in the industry? The girl next door who has acted in some of the soppiest, why-can\u2019t-we-all-get-along movies of the decade, answers, \u201cFriendship is a complex word. I can only tell you who my real friends are when I am old and my children have left me. The people who will spend time with me then will be my true friends.\u201d As for now, there is her family whom she shares this house with.
\nFilmmakers who have worked with her, like Kunal Kohli, vouch that Rani has always been reticent and seriously invested in her family. Her Lakshman Rekha<\/em> is not a new phenomenon but it just suits the new \u2018loser\u2019 narrative to make it seem so. At some point in the conversation, she says, \u201cWhen you are on the top, people want to bring you down. And they will say anything to do so. But I believe in karma, and it will all come back to them.\u201d This is the same cosmic and vengeful balancing of scales that Rani\u2019s detractors have also been wishing for her. Well-known film journalist Khalid Mohamed says, \u201cShe became too uppity after she got famous and that led to her downfall. I know a co-star of hers who told me that Rani started telling him \u2018how to act\u2019. But see, she came tumbling down. You should not let fame get to your head.\u201d Others are more compassionate and a little more logical. Rauf Ahmed, the first journalist who Rani gave her first interview, speaks of her fondly and adds, \u201cthe media is cruel. Even if you mess up once, they take you down badly. And then the whole Aditya Chopra rumour hurt her. And she is so talented, that\u2019s what makes this so sad.\u201d
\nBut \u201csadness\u201d is not an emotion Rani subscribes to. Instead, you see a small, slightly injured but visibly annoyed human being, who is not going to give her detractors the satisfaction of seeing her retreat without a fight. \u201cI don\u2019t need to sign many movies just to prove I exist, even though this may be the worst time in my career. I don\u2019t need to go to all social events \u2014 I go if I am really needed; if someone just sends me a message on my phone, why will I go? I have done my time doing that. But there\u2019s no limit to what I can do.\u201d
\nAND STRAIGHT AHEAD<\/strong>
\nIn Rajkumar Gupta\u2019s No One Killed Jessica<\/em>, a film inspired by the Jessica Lall case, Rani plays an investigative television journalist. Would she do a meaty role in a movie even if it wasn\u2019t the lead? In an industry where actors prattle off practised, meaningless answers about meaningful roles, Rani makes it clear that she is not interested in crumbs. She says definitively, as if she has it all planned, \u201cNo way. I will always be the star in a movie I am in. I\u2019d love to do a movie with an ensemble cast, but a star always is the star. Whatever role I would do would become the lead, right?\u201d
\nAnd that\u2019s another reason why it\u2019s unnerving to sit across Rani. It\u2019s because the coy, politically correct Rani we got so used to hearing about, has metamorphosed into a grownup. The girl who has made a career of being adorable, is no longer interested in pleasing people. Today, even though she has just one release lined up, she is unfazed. But now that Rani has stopped playing cute, can she make a career of it?
\naastha@tehelka.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you heard the rumours that\u00a0Rani Mukerji\u00a0has turned into a recluse, that she sees no one anymore? That she is the new Rekha?\u00a0Aastha Atray Banan\u00a0set out to meet her on a rainy night and came away startled MUMBAI IS FULL\u00a0of bored jibes about Rani Mukerji. She is over. She smells of failure. She is too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":39275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[5725,6154,6155,6156,412,6077,6157,6158,1437,6159,6160,5855,6161,6162,6163],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}