Vyjayanthimala Quotes

Today’s dancers are not dignified. There’s a lot of talent but they are getting ample help. In our time you had to get the steps right, the words right and the movement right. Otherwise you had to start all over again. Today even if they miss a step it can be adjusted at the editing.

I don’t know if I am wrong, but singing slightly out of sur is also in vogue these days. And these pelvic movements and gestures are too much for me.

In those days, dances were dances and songs were songs. Film dances always had a semi-classical or folk element to them and songs were all about soul-stirring lyrics and haunting music. These days, they are more about technique and technology, often it's the camera that's dancing, the synthesiser that's singing. Not my cup of tea.

I was cast as a college girl and that wasn’t really hard to play as I was very young then. I was treated as a child on the sets. When the movies finally hit the theatres, all the newspapers carried reviews that said, ‘What natural acting.

Of course, there's also politics — "though far less so than before," admitted the three-time MP, who now is a member of the BJP.

But first I was made to learn music, because music and dance go together. You can sing, but you can’t dance without music...

My dances were not like today’s, which have progressed with an Indian and Western combination or fusion which has become repetitive. You cannot tell one dance from the other. Everyone wants to be Michael Jackson. But I like some of them like that ‘Radha kaise na jale’ from Lagaan. I like classical stuff.

My first colour sequence was in what was then called ‘Geva Colour’ for the dream sequence in Nagin.

That's because I simply carried on dancing, [she said]. It was my first love, and thanks to my taskmaster of a grandmother (Yadugiri Devi), I had never stopped my Bharata Natyam.

[[w:Raj Kapoor|Raj Kapoor was a true showman. He knew exactly what he wanted from me and Rajendra Kumar in Sangam, whereas Devsaab (Anand) had his own style his own mannerisms. I learnt so much from Dilipsaab especially mannerisms, like the way of delivering my Bhojpuri lines.

Sangam had many firsts. The first technicolour film, the first film to have two intervals — in a way I was a part of history.

I was surrounded by dance, music and religious chants, so it was that kind of a mood. Our family was very culturally-minded, especially my grandmother. She was also quite the disciplinarian. She made sure I practiced daily for hours.

I think I was born to dance. That’s what my grandmother told me. So it was always in my system.

aAs a creative artiste dedicated to a spiritual art form I was deeply pained by the communal violence in Gujarat.

If Bharatanatyam helped my movies, I cannot say the same about films helping my Bharatanatyam.