'There was panic among my friends and relatives since I was out of reach.'
'My son-in-law Govind drove down to my home to check on my wellbeing.'
'When I opened the door, he joked, "Bhoot Bhoot!"'
Raakhee is miffed by certain sections of the media, who take advantage of her silence.
"Just because I don't react, some journalists think they can write anything. Someone wrote my husband Gulzar slapped me. I just may slap a defamation case on this," she tells Subhash K Jha.
"Another media outlet declared me dead. There was panic among my friends and relatives since I was out of reach. My son-in-law Govind drove down to my home to check on my wellbeing. When I opened the door, he joked, 'Bhoot Bhoot!'"
The elusive actor has just returned to Mumbai after a satisfying stint at the 55th International Film Festival Of India (IFFI) in Goa.
Not known to travel to any festival, Raakhee reveals why she made an exception for this one: "My first instinct was to say no. But then I was told that two of my films were being shown in Goa. One of them is my new Bengali film Amar Boss which has turned out well. The other is one of my earliest films, 27 Down. It was the first time I was watching the film since it was made."
What did she think of herself and 27 Down?
"Oh, I think very highly of it. I felt it was so ahead of its time. Do you know Director Awtar Kaul passed away a day before he was to receive the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi? The film is about a man who has to thwart his dreams to join the railways, like his father. I played a financially independent working woman with a mind of her own. This was a rarity back then, 50 years ago," she says.
About Amar Boss, she says, "I play the family matriarch who, despite her age, makes sure the family knows she is the boss. It is co-directed by Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy who recently had the big Bangla hit, Bohurupi. Shiboprosad also plays the male lead."
Raakhee is all praise for the organisers of the Goa festival.
"There were no glitches. I received a lot of love at the festival. Youngsters treated me like their own grandmother. It was relaxed and pleasant. The minister of information and broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnav is taking his job seriously," she says.
As for doing more films, Raakhee protests, "It's not as if I am not open to offers. But where do I fit in? I am certainly not playing the typical mother or grandmother whose only reason to live for her son. I will play a role of a woman with a mind of her own as I've done in Amar Boss."
"There is a narrative being propagated in a section of the media that I am no longer keen on working, and that I live outside Mumbai. None of this is true.”
