Mamta Kulkarni: The Worth Of Notoriety | Hindi Film Information

From display temptress to yogini, Mamta Kulkarni’s life has come full circle. Why did Mamta Kulkarni turn into untouchable for the movie business? At one time, she had the most effective banners (N. Chandra, Salim Khan, Keshu Ramsay, Rakesh Roshan, Harmesh Malhotra, Shakti Samanta). However alas, she didn’t have the manners to match the banners. A sure crassness was seen in her conduct. The business clung to the crudity and disregarded the woman’s apparent confidence earlier than the digital camera.
In one in every of his press interviews, Bharat Shah was as soon as quoted as saying, “Mamta Kulkarni is a free girl.” I do imagine the well mannered and soft-spoken producer-tycoon was misquoted. How can any particular person of such stature and energy convey himself to speak so “loosely” a few girl?
Mamta had all of it. Then she went and misplaced it to who is aware of what—maybe her ego? Or was it the need to succeed in the moon with out getting her ft snarled within the craters?
Every time Mamta Kulkarni opened her mouth, she would put her foot in it. She fought media battles with Manisha Koirala, Urmila Matondkar, and different actresses who typically stayed away from mudslinging. She took compliments too critically and didn’t know easy methods to react to them.
When Govinda made a uncommon reconciliatory gesture in direction of the remoted, self-crowned queen, she circled to inform the pleasant star that she didn’t a lot look after his publicly declared compliments. What’s extra, she went public along with her declaration that she didn’t need Govinda to go with her in public.
Naturally, the Hero No. 1 withdrew in embarrassment, considering, Mujhe kya padi hai? Who desires to exit of their approach to be good when the individual on the receiving finish is hell-bent on creating points out of non-issues?
The phrase “embarrassment” typically popped up in discussions concerning Ms. Kulkarni. Not that she was mentioned too typically in these days when she was a number one girl—until the dialog at a social gathering ran out of humor. Then the identify “Mamta” could be introduced as much as denote tacky provocativeness—the sort Mama’s boys NEVER convey residence until they need Papa to disinherit them.
How did Mamta burn her bridges? Her profession in Hindi movies began with a slap. The director S.A. Chandrasekhar, in her first movie Mera Dil Tere Liye, planted a thundering thappad on her face when she couldn’t get a shot proper. Mamta by no means forgot that slap. And I’m certain Mr. Chandrasekhar hasn’t forgotten it both, although I’m not too certain he proudly tells his mates that he’s the director who slapped Ms. Kulkarni’s approach to success.
The late director Kidar Sharma was rightly pleased with the truth that he as soon as chastised the erring Raj Kapoor on the units of Neel Kamal.
Way back, Mamta Kulkarni ceased to be taken critically. Whereas she laughed on the world for not taking her volcanic skills critically, showbiz moved on to brighter, youthful, and extra career-focused actresses who didn’t elevate a hue and cry about each slight, imagined or in any other case.
The most important mistake Mamta made was capturing her mouth off arbitrarily. In fact, random frankness takes its toll on a movie star’s profession. Now we have the examples of wannabe marvel girls like Sheetal and Moon Moon Sen, who claimed the entire present world was busy propositioning them—they usually had been most likely not mendacity (pun meant).

Women in all working locations, and never simply showbiz, get sleazy gives from potbellied perverts. Maybe this phenomenon is extra prevalent on the earth of flicks. The reason being fairly easy: handsome women and men are sometimes thrown collectively, bodily and emotionally, at out of doors and indoor areas.
Now, filmmakers don’t typically fall into the unique membership of handsome souls. So, they use the ability they maintain as star-making filmmakers to lure heroines into saying “sure” once they imply “no.” I knew of 1 film mogul who has an unwritten clause in his agreements about his below-the-belt wants with the brand new faces he often introduces. If a brand new woman works with this randy mogul, she is aware of what she’s moving into.
Wise, respectable heroines from well-adjusted properties—and that virtually covers the entire movie business—know easy methods to deal with such advances. They needn’t despair simply because males’s fundamental instincts come to the fore.
The minute Mamta Kulkarni squealed in opposition to Raj Kumar Santoshi’s amorous intentions, she sealed her profession’s destiny. Nobody within the movie business desires to the touch a troublemaker with a barge pole. Bear in mind the case of old-time actress Ameeta’s daughter, Sabia? Mom and daughter went to the press accusing a really outstanding and profitable star, Rajesh Khanna, of sexual harassment. The star’s fame suffered no dents in any respect (most likely as a result of his profession was on the decline anyway).
However Sabia misplaced every little thing. Business know-alls questioned what she was fussing about anyway.
“There’s an unbelievable quantity of sexual promiscuousness in showbiz,” a younger director avers. And he’s most likely proper. I’ve personally seen wannabe heroines hovering suggestively on the units of profitable administrators, with nothing to supply besides the plain. However nobody forces them into succumbing to sexual advances. Nobody forces himself on a reluctant starlet.
So, Mr. Santoshi may or may not have tried to get Mamta Kulkarni to half with extra than simply her histrionic talents throughout China Gate. What was the large deal anyway? {That a} director propositioned her? Or that he propositioned and chopped her position to smithereens when she stated no?
In any case, why convey the press into the matter? When two consenting adults focus on sexual issues, it’s strictly between them. Mr. Santoshi allegedly made a suggestion. Ms. Kulkarni refused. The matter ought to have ended there. However the press naively performed into her palms.
They first printed the faxed press handouts she despatched out in opposition to her director. They then quoted her retraction, the place she did a volte-face and exonerated Mr. Santoshi of unbecoming conduct. Later, when her position was supposedly chopped off, Ms. Kulkarni’s pearls of knowledge had been once more scattered in each journal on the town.

Right here was a girl who was clearly not too certain about what she needed from her life or her profession. The best way Mamta Kulkarni incessantly attacked her colleagues and administrators, and the style through which she carried out herself within the press—posing with little on besides the music and the fragrance, and so forth—we didn’t need to be psychoanalysts to see how psychologically disturbed this woman was.
Relatively than curb her delusions of grandeur (“I’d slightly be a Lata Mangeshkar than an Anuradha Paudwal”), the press inspired Ms. Kulkarni to speak nonsense. Highlighting her most outrageous quotes, printing her most daring photos, and presenting her to the general public as some form of twisted Mae West and Madonna mixed, the media received its taste of “dement.”
Now we have Urvashi Rautela taking place the identical route in present occasions. Nobody is stopping her. Nobody stopped Mamta Kulkarni. Did anybody cease to suppose that this candy woman, making monstrous errors in her profession, really wanted assist, help, and strong recommendation?
It’s higher to have love than to have lust. As a result of if you incessantly doubt the intentions of your skilled colleagues, you place all of them on the defensive and drive them away. So that you performed chess with Aamir Khan on the units of Baazi, and he would drop in at your private home for lunch or tea. That’s okay. Aamir is a pleasant, no-hassles form of man. He typically socializes along with his co-stars. Why make a music and dance a few completely regular and wholesome prevalence, making it sound low cost, sleazy, and suggestive within the course of?
Friendships lose their wazan—their substance—when they’re talked about at size. I understood what Mamta meant when she stated she needed a husband like Aamir. Sadly, such candid confessions embarrass the innocent intent of the individual one adores. Mamta misplaced a good friend known as Aamir Khan as a result of she didn’t know easy methods to include her emotions.
She equally remoted herself from all her mates and colleagues, from Bobby Deol to Salman Khan, by both claiming that they had been “” in her or that she was not “” in them. All this bilge belonged within the garbage can. As a substitute, it made its approach between journal covers. Positive, male stars wish to have their little flings. It’s as much as the actress to deal with such sticky conditions with tact and discretion. Mamta lacked each qualities. This absence took its toll on her profession. She was branded a big-mouthed troublemaker.
Extra severe was the matter pertaining to Mamta’s, let’s assume, cultural inclinations. These days, it’s turn into socially acceptable for stars to cavort at personal and public features. However two years in the past, when Ms. Kulkarni danced for the then-chief minister of Bihar and his chosen friends, all hell broke free. As was the case with the infamous Stardust cowl, the woman panicked and backtracked. That was a strategic blunder.
As a substitute of claiming, “Sure, I did dance for Mr. Laloo Yadav and his mates. What’s unsuitable with that? Aren’t all my colleagues dancing at marriage ceremony, marriage, and engagement ceremonies of the excessive and mighty? No less than I’m not doing so at a sure Mr. Dawood’s personal do. I’m solely giving a bunch of political fogies their share of low cost thrills,” she denied it.
As a substitute of proudly owning it, Ms. Kulkarni claimed she was by no means in Bihar, even when everybody within the state and out of doors knew in any other case. Later, when the scenario escalated, Ms. Kulkarni admitted that she had certainly carried out for Rabri Devi’s husband.
She had all of it. However she threw it away. And the press did nothing to stem the tide. As a substitute, they sat again to look at the circus present, humoring Ms. Kulkarni the place agency steerage and a verbal reprimand may have saved her profession. As a substitute of debating along with her on the vastly irrelevant query of whether or not she secretly married an motion director or not, we must always have instructed her to maintain it to herself and focus on her profession.
When she claimed she was turning down prestigious assignments as a result of her position wasn’t substantial sufficient, we must always have circled and reminded her that she isn’t Meryl Streep, Sridevi, or Shabana Azmi. Why ought to she be supplied substantial roles, for crying out loud?!
Why does the press humor and pamper stars into believing their very own, typically self-written, mythology? That is what occurred in Mamta Kulkarni’s case. As a result of each outrageous assertion she made in opposition to everybody—from Rekha to Tinu Verma—was dutifully regurgitated within the press, Mamta Kulkarni really began to imagine she made sense, when all of the whereas the press was celebrating nonsense.
There’s a lesson in Mamta Kulkarni’s swift rise (didn’t she star in hits like Sabse Bada Khiladi and Karan Arjun?) and languorous decline. The sharks management the movie business. They’re going to get greater and extra highly effective on this century. To outlive within the rat race, a star aspirant wants a thick pores and skin and lengthy, fluttering eyelashes. The previous in order that she will be able to ignore the lewd passes and crude propositions. The latter in order that she will be able to act the wide-eyed babe-in-the-woods when confronted by a pass-master in moviedom.