Yami Gautam Dhar: There was awareness amongst the actresses back in the 70s too – Times of India

Yami Gautam Dhar is happy with the kind of roles that are coming her way. From playing important and interesting roles in films, the actress is also getting opportunities to explore multiple genres and also essaying lead roles in movies. In her last interaction with us, Yami had mentioned, “I am happy that today there is a lot more awareness about our (women’s) place in films and the industry at large. One of the main reasons for this change has been the audience, who has been very welcoming. Actresses have spoken about it earlier, but it took some time for it to get channelised and executed, which has happened in volumes now and can be seen in recent releases like Gehraiyaan, Badhaai Do, Gangubai Kathiawadi.”

Yami feels that this isn’t something new, as this kind of awareness was also there with the actresses of the yesteryears. She shares, “While today things look evolved in our film industry. Yeh sab pehle bhi hota tha. In fact in the earlier eras where acting in films wasn’t a popular option for women, we still have examples like Durga Khote ji. We have a pool of actresses who became popular in those times like Madhubala ji, Meena Kumari ji, Waheeda Rehman ji, Vyjayanthimala ji, Smita Patil ji, Nutan ji, Nargis ji.. Hema Malini ji, Sridevi ji and so on.”

She adds, “While the awareness is lot more today, and the volume of women centric films is a lot more, even in those days I feel the awareness was there. I remember watching an interview of Zeenat Aman ji. It was an old interview (back in the 70s) and she said women are aware that they don’t want to be mere ornaments (in a film). They want to do something more. So you see, there has been this realization since long, but it just needed more time to channelise and execute, which has happened now.”