“Mamta Kulkarni Can Never Be Involved With Drugs”

No one knew of  Vickey Goswami’s alleged involvement with drugs until the cops swooped down on him, not even his wife Mamta Kulkarni.

Goswani friends(former friends?) recall him as  am affable soul.

“He was very close friend of many Bollywoodians including Shah Rukh Khan and Chunky Pandey. Vickey was a regular at filmy parties and that’s how he met Mamta who,by the way is a gem of a person,” says a senior filmmaker who has worked with Kulkarni.

He vouches for her unconditional commitment to her marriage with Goswami. “I doubt she knew anything about his  alleged involvement with drugs. Mamta was always a god-fearing straightforward and honest no hankypanky girl. The way I knew her she would never get involved in crime.”

Bollywood actresses have over the years been involved with men from the underworld without knowing what they were getting into. Even Monica Bedi  claims she was unaware of Abu Salem’s activities. She also claimed that there was no coercion from Dubai to cast her in Bollywood films(a  claim stoutly refuted by filmmakers who got that dreaded call from Dubai to cast her) .

In an interview with me Monica had said, “ I’ve done more than twenty films in various languages. Surely all of them couldn’t be given to me out of fear. I hope from now on whatever work I get will be on merit alone. I’m getting good work. I’m happy for that. So I’ll continue to be a part of this field (Bollywood ).I love Mumbai. And I’d love to continue in this field. I’ve my my own home in Mumbai now.”

In fact Monica played the innocent card to the hilt when I spoke to her. Though Raj Kapoor’s discovery Mandakini never spoke about her alleged involvement with DawoodIbrahim it is said that she too was unaware of what he was getting into when she accepted Dawood’s friendship.

“She was seedhi-saadhi bholi-bhali ladki, yaar. Got carried away by all the expensive gifts that she got from him. By the time she realized the truth it was too late,” says a co-starMandakini adding that the Dawood association ruined her career. “Pressure from the underworld may get the girl a few stray roles. But in the long run it makes the girl pariah among producers. Imagine a Raj Kapoor heroine reduced to doing films like Aag Aur Sholaand Naag Nagin!”

The  myth that underworld pressure can make heroines’ careers in Bollywood is  broken by  names of actresses who have been involved, knowingly or unknowingly with the wrong sort of guy.