Once the toast of the nation, now toast
A couple of days ago, news came out that 90s Bollywood actor Deepak Tijori has been thrown out of his house by his wife — who, he later realised, wasn’t his legitimate wife at all. This rather disturbing news was somehow brought out by a lot of publications in a half amusing tone making it a case in point for a drastic fall from grace — something that the media has been known to relish.
This entire thing made me think of how high Deepak Tijori’s peak was. In merely half a decade from 1990–95, Tijori starred in Dil, Aashiqui, Dil hai ki maanta nahi, Sadak, Beta, Khiladi, Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar, Pehla Nasha (his only lead role in a dud which was incidentally Ashutosh Gowariker’s directorial debut), Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na and Anjaam (italics indicates minor roles; these are identifiable names culled out from a much longer list).
He went from this to being a contestant in the first season of Big Boss in 2006 — which is the definition of the absolute nadir of an actor’s career. And, hold on, he was not even a first choice there. He replaced half-cricketer, half-actor Salil Ankola who was apparently arrested right at the beginning of the shoot.
Alright, there is no denying that Tijori was nowhere close to the star of the show in any of the above hits. But he, wittingly or otherwise, became the perfect foil for the hero — sometimes as a loyal friend (Aashiqui, Khiladi) and a number of times as the brash anti-hero (JJWS, KHKN). Being a die-hard fan of the movie Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar, I can vouch for the fact that Aamir’s gritty village bumpkin Sanjay Lal would have been thoroughly incomplete without the haughty antics of Tijori’s Shekhar Malhotra.
Tijori, however, is not alone in this list of actors with a veritable Midas touch who are now lost in utter oblivion.
Bhagyashree: This one is more of a one hit wonder. Who makes their debut with an evergreen classic like Maine Pyar Kiya, bags a best debut filmfare and gets nominated for the best female actor, and then goes on to star in a Bhojpuri film titled Uthaile Ghoonghta Chand Dekhle merely a decade and a half later? Well, Bhagyashree. Mostly because her acting skills left nothing much to write home about.
Ayesha Jhulka: Jhulka wasn’t a star but she was bubbly and could act. Two of her classics are in common with Tijori — JJWS and Khiladi. She also acted in a couple of other movies with Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty in lead roles garnering a fair amount of box office success, and then ran out of steam and favour a tad too soon. I wonder if Akshay and Aamir are still friends with Ayesha Jhulka, and what do they talk about when they meet?
I am sure there is a flurry of other names in this category but I will end this list for now with a special mention for another actress from the 1990s — Divya Bharti. Divya Bharti starred in well known movies like Vishvaatma, Deewana and Dil Aashna Hai, and immortalized herself with the dance number Saath Samundar paar. Before her unfortunate death at the age of 19, she was shooting for Mohra as the female lead — a role which later went to Raveena Tandon. If things had gone differently, Raveena wouldn’t be the mast mast girl, might have had never met Akshay Kumar and never had that tumultuous affair.
She, like the others in this list, left their very own impression on B-town as we know it today. Quietly. But surely.
