Mandakini Makes A Comeback

Raj Kapoor’s Ram Teri Ganga  Maili  made an instant star  of its debutante leading lady Mandakini. Playing an innocent pahaadi  girl Mandakini  rendered  audiences  stunned with her bold  voluptuous  waterfall  scenes  that left little to the imagination.

Sadly  underneath all that overt oomph no one noticed the sensitive  actress that she  was. After such  a spectacular  beginning Mandakini signed a host of  inconsequential roles in  tawdry  multi-starrers and by the end  of mid-1990s, it was  curtains for Mandakini.

She was  briefly linked  to Dawood Ibrahim , an association she denied  vehemently. Finally Mandakini married a former Buddhist monk, Dr. Kagyur T. Rinpoche Thakur, and embraced Buddhism.

To hear of her “comeback” all of a sudden earlier this week, seemed  a  bit  odd. However contrary to the hype this is not a comeback  at all for the former actress.

“Mandakini’s son Rabbil has  directed  a music  video  for a song entitled Oh maa for which he  requested his mother to come  out of  her  shell. She agreed  only  for her son, and that too after much persuasion. Otherwise  she has no interest in  the  Indian entertainment  industry at all,” says a source.

The  inglorious  end to Mandakini’s career   after  such a spectacular beginning was truly tragic. Raj Kapoor was saddened  by the arbitrary  offers that  his discovery  accepted after Ram Teri Ganga Maili. He  had expressed  his serious misgivings about his  protegee’s  choices. Apparently Mandakini  approached Raj Saab for  Henna. He politely refused.