7 Unknown Facts About Guddi Which Completes 50 Years On January 1

Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Guddi  released  on January 1, 1971  is most celebrated for discovering a phenomenal  talent called Jaya Bhaduri.She  played a fangirl of  Dharmendra who wants to marry him. There are several interesting behind-the-scenes stories  about this  film.

1.     Jaya Bhaduri was  not the first choice to play Guddi.Moushumi Chatterjee was.She was a family friend  of  Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s friend singer-composer Hemant  Mukherjee and had just played a child bride  in  the Bengali  film Balika  Badhu with resounding success.Hrishida  felt she  was ideal for  the part.

2.     Jaya , fresh out of  the  FTII , was the  talk of the town. The  minute he saw her Hrishida  decided she  was his Guddi.  They  subsequently collaborated on other classics Bawarchi, Abhimaan and Mili.

3.     The then-unknown Amitabh Bachchan  was signed to play a role  opposite Jaya as  her fiancé. But after shooting with AB, Hrishida realized he was looking at a very special talent,a talent too  big to be squandered in such a small role. Overnight  AB  was replaced by Bengali actor Samit Bhanja .With AB , Hrishida decided to do Anand.

4.     Jaya who was 22 when she signed Guddi  carried  off the 16-year  old girl’s role with aplomb. She had a  real-life crush on  Dharmendra .And when Dharmendra who played himself entered the set of Guddi for  the  first time, Jaya hid behind the sofa, too nervous  and excited to face her idol.

5.     Hrishikesh Mukherjee  signed the  extremely talented Vasant Desai for the  first time to do  the  music  of Guddi.  Vasant Desai  got Vani Jairam  to be the  voice of Jaya Bhaduri. Two  of the  songs Bole re papihara and  Humko mann  ki shakti dena  went on to become all-time hits.

6.     The  last  song  in  the climax  of Guddi  was again sung by Vani Jairam. A Bhajan titled Hari bin kaise jiyun re. Hrishida found it to be a drag. He overnight replaced  it with his favourite  singer Lata Mangeshkar’s immortal Aaja re pardesi from Bimal Roy’s  film Madhumati.

7.     Since Guddi  was  set in the  film industry, the film  had  a gallery of   guest appearances  by Bollywood stalwarts including Ashok Kumar, Dilip  Kumar,  Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna,  Shatrughan Sinha, and  Pran . Hrishida  once jokingly told me, “Guddi  was my only  multi-starrer film.”