TLI Staff
New Delhi: Amol Palekar who’s known for his numerous middle-of-road films like Chhoti Si Baat, Rajnigandha, Chashme Baddoor among others, has also done a fair share of regional movies, mostly in Marathi language.
While Palekar did not face much problem acting in different languages for his cinematic roles, there was one particular language that he found extremely difficult to ace–Malayalam.
While appearing on kids reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Li’l Champs, Amol Palekar talked about his stint with renowned director Balu Mahendra and talented co-actors Purnima and Ambika.
“I remember working on this Malayalam movie directed by Mr. Balu Mahendra and I was fortunate enough to share the screen with the very beautiful Purnima and Ambika. I feel blessed that the movie turned out to be a huge hit but only I know how much effort and hard work I put in to learning and acing the language. Malayalam is such a difficult language to learn, I feel anybody who knows how to speak Malayalam, Hindi would be quite a cake walk for them to learn. If you ask me, I believe Malayalam has is one of the most difficult languages to grasp besides Marathi among the many other prevalent ones in this country.”
Amol Palekar also went down the memory lane, recollecting his shooting experience of Rajnigandha with the late Basu Chatterjee. Paired opposite Vidya Sinha, Amol Palekar revealed that movie had a fresh cast and it was the debut movie for his co-actors as well. “I was somewhat petrified yet extremely excited” revealed Amol.
“The movie comprised of a cast who were all relatively new to the industry including our director. Before starting to shoot, our director, the extraordinary mind that he is, suggested the main cast to opt for workshops which wasn’t as prevalent back in the day, so we used to gather at his place and do our rehearsals and all the actors developed a camaraderie that we share till date. I feel blessed that we did take him up on that offer because that marked the beginning of a beautiful friendship that is still alive, and I cherish every bit of it,” he added.