USKI MUSKAAN AUR USKA GUSSA AAJ BHI MERE SAATH HAI ..... BY ALI PETER JOHN

I had climbed up two wooden staircases on Forjett Street in the heart of the city. I saw a young woman sweeping the floor. I asked the young woman if i could meet Smita Patil - Ali Peter John

She looked back and banged her broom on the floor and screamed , " Ali , have you gone mad ? I am Smita Patil " . That was begining of my close association with Smita which lasted till the last day of her life.

I watched her grow from a Doordarshan neez reader in Marathi and then grow into one of the most powerful actresses of what was called parallel cinema or art cinema and i saw het reaching new heights of excellence and win all the coveted awards . She had grown into an internationally known actress

And then i saw her going the commercial way with films like Mera Dost Mera Dushman . Namak Halaal , Shakti and films like Aakhir Kyon ? , Kasam Paida Karne Waale Ki , Saughath and many more and she had become a complete star .

I saw her falling in love witb Raj Babar , a married man and having no regrets about being the other woman in a man's life and even opted to be a mother of Raj's child. She had once told me in a hotel called Rajnigandha in Alibaug that she would die when she was thirty.

She fell seriously sick when she was nearing thirty and was rushed to the Jaslok Hospital from where she didn't return alive. She was thirty when she died and she was given a state funeral with her body taken to the Shivahi Park for her fans and admirers to pay their last tributes to an actress who had changed the image of the Indian actress.

We continued to be friends even when she was at the peak of her career. She took great pleasure in showing me her new cars . She made consistent enquiries about my health and the health of my family.

I was moved when a photographer called Raju Upadhyay was admited to the Sion Hospital and she not only visited him regularly, but did every thing possible to make him comfortable till he was discharged from hospital .

She was the first person from the industry who took my heavy drinking seriously and even fired me for drinking so much at my age . Her concern was always genuine, whether it was for Amitabh Bachchan or for a journalist like me .

If anyone feels that in the photograph below, she is talking about some sweet experience, it will be entirely wrong. In this photograph .

Smita is seen with me at the Ball Rooms of the Taj Mahal Hotel at a party and she is firing the life out of me for drinking a little too much on that evening and you will notice that i am looking at her in awe because no one had fired me like that in my long career.

And the women behind us in the photograph lost in her own world is the irrepressible Aruna Irani , another well wisher of my , who is now living a secluded life after spending fifty years of a colourful and controversial life .

AISE LOG KABHI KABHI HI KYON AATE HAI ? INKA BAAR BAAR AANA APNA JAADU DIKHAANA ZAROORI HAI ISS INDUSTRY KE LIYE JO BAAR BAAR KOI NA KOI BEEMAARI SE BEEMAAR HO JAATI HAI