Possibly the greatest influence on me in childhood and those early girlhood years was Meena Kumari. By the time I was nine years old, I had a special place for her in my heart. I call this time my ‘Meena Kumari phase’. Mama was very fond of her, so Didi and I got to watch most of the Meena Kumari films.
It was the Meena Kumari-Rajendra Kumar duo that impacted me the most. I was taken with everything that the two felt for each other on screen. To me all that was real.