Anybody putting together a jury should have known better than to bring two of my old outspoken friends, Amol Palekar and Rahul Rawail, under the same roof. But obviously the people who decided that both men should be a part of the committee to choose the Indian entry for the Oscars weren't aware of the fireworks in store.
Amol Palekar may have gained fame as the plain guy-next-door in the late 1970s and early 1980s but in real life, he was never a pushover. He once walked into my office and told me, "I'm taking on someone very big." He was suing BR Chopra for non-payment of dues and BR was a very big name indeed in the early 1980s. There were counter-charges from the producer's side but the main point that emerged was that Amol Palekar was not the easygoing man one saw on the screen.
Amol also liked very strong women who always had a say in his professional life. His first wife Chitra did way-out things like going bald because she felt like it. When we'd go to their apartment in Gamdevi, Mumbai, to interview Amol, Chitra would sit in and participate in the conversation whether you wanted her to or not. Amol wouldn't have it any other way.
Their daughter Shalmoli was a little girl then and a meeting with Amol would usually turn out to be a family affair. Later, the Palekars moved into a lovely large bungalow in Juhu but the family began to fall apart. Amol divorced Chitra, and daughter Shalmoli, as most people know, moved to Australia where she lives with her lesbian partner.
The new woman in Amol's life was Sandhya, another strong woman whom he admired unabashedly, to the extent that when he directed Paheli for Shah Rukh Khan, many actors were put off because most times it was she who called the shots on the sets. Later too, when he directed a film called Quest, he told me how well Sandhya had written it and he praised the many layers it had. It turned out to be a film that was trying to say too many things about too many relationships, but it did bag a National Award.
It was generally accepted that Amol and Sandhya came as a package deal. It was, therefore, entirely believable when Rahul Rawail, who resigned from the Oscars jury which was chaired by Amol, charged that Sandhya would be present during the screenings and would discuss her take on the films with the other members. Rahul's remark that Amol was "obnoxious" would also be something that many would endorse. But Amol Palekar and "corrupt"?
"In all my 40 years, I have never been accused of corruption," said Amol in all his replies. "I haven't (just) accused him but have publicly given instances of it. Let him sit before me and discuss every statement of mine," retorts Rahul Rawail.
Now let's talk about Rahul. He is not an easy man to work with either but his amiable wife Rita has nothing to do with it. Years ago, Rajendra Kumar, a big man in his time, launched his son Kumar Gaurav (aka Bunty) in Love Story , with Raj Kapoor's erstwhile assistant Rahul Rawail as director. Those were the days when Raj Kapoor and Rajendra Kumar were so close that the former's daughter Rima and the latter's son Kumar Gaurav were even engaged for a brief while. Rajendra Kumar had anyway known Rahul as a child because one of the biggest hits of his career, Mere Mehboob, was directed by H.S. Rawail.
Despite all this, Rajendra Kumar as producer and Rahul as director clashed over the editing of Love Story . I remember Rahul coming to my place to tell me what had transpired between the two of them. Equally unrelenting, Rajendra Kumar had released the film without Rahul's name as director in the credit titles.
A rough taskmaster with his actors, Rahul was always hot-headed, extremely articulate and unafraid to take on anybody. All of which were in evidence the last couple of weeks when he took on Amol.
Not very surprisingly, Amol and Rahul have never been great friends; so this spat isn't going to make any change in their equation. "Before we met on the jury, I must have last met Amol some 30 years ago," laughs Rahul.
Worse, when they were on the jury together and Rahul was introduced to "Amol's wife" at the breakfast table, he was baffled because "Chitra didn't look like this when I last met her". The fiery Rawail didn't have a clue that Amol had changed wives since then.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author
