Lataji, Nargis, Simi Garewal:  The Three Legendary  Ladies In  White Of Bollywood

There are  three  Bollywood  ladies  of  legendary repute who  preferred to wear  only one  colour.Lata Mangeshkar, Nargis  and  Simi  Garewal were  known  to  wear only white. What was this fascination  for and fixation on  one colour  all about?

I once asked  Lataji and she confided : “I don’t know why, but I’ve always  preferred  to  wear white sarees. It gives me  a sense  of  peace  that no other colour can.Whenever  I recorded  a song in  a saree  of  a different colour it went didn’t go well. It’s  not that I shun  non-white sarees. But  people  are  so used to seeing me in  white that they are taken aback when I wear  another color. I wore a  coloured sari once to a recording. The chorus girls laughed so hard I swore never to dabble in colour ever again. After that I said, ‘Rang hatao, Lata.’  From childhood I preferred white.

About her  friend Nargis Dutt, Lataji said, “She always wore white saris with matching accessories. And since white was my favourite colour she would send over the door-to-door sari sellers from Lucknow to my house. I have never seen her wearing non-white.”

Nargis Dutt  was  know  as  the  ‘lady in white.’  While  conversing with her  wonderful husband  Sunil Dutt  once  I asked  him about her favourite colour.  Dutt Saab laughed, “It is  not her favourite colour. It is  the only colour for her. I’ve hardly ever seen her wearing  any other colour. I  like  white too. But no one can carry  it off the way she can.”

Simi Garewal  is also known  to wear  only  white. Says the  sophisticated  actress who has played  everyone from an  enchantress in Siddhartha  to  a vamp in Karz.   “I’ll continue to wear white. My fascination for the colour has been with me for as long as I can remember. Even as a child my best party dresses were white. Today I can shop for clothes in other colours. I once bought myself two black suits. But I could  never wear them. If I wear any colour but white I see a stranger in the mirror.”