‘Mirror mirror on the filmy wall, who is the current ‘dream-girl’ amongst them all?’ This million-dollar sawaal was answered by the eternal ‘dream-girl’ Hema Malini herself. Spontaneous, as usual, madame Hema responded, “None other than Deepika Padukone, sitting right here with me is today’s ‘dream-girl’”.
But then Hema quickly sprung a smart repartee when she added, “At the same time, I am not saying that you should remove the ‘dream-girl’ title from me, because I made my acting debut in the film industry with that accolade,” which elicited thunderous laughter from the invited audience. The special multiple occasion was the ageless ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’ heroine Hema-ji’s birthday on which, her authorized biography titled ‘Beyond The Dream Girl’ meticulously penned by Ram Kamal Mukherjee was launched by mega-star Deepika ‘Padmavati’ Padukone. Interestingly, this is Hema’s 50th year as an actress, while Deepika completes a ‘decade’ in Bollywood, having made her debut with ‘Om Shanti Om’ (2007). Not surprisingly, the ‘Chennai Express’ girl, seemed to be in awe of madame Malini. Padukone said, “I love Hema-ji not just for her acting calibre, but also for the amazing human being that she is, which I have experienced so many times. She is very special not just to me but all of us, young women, who have always looked up to her.”
According to author Ram Kamal, a former acclaimed editor-journalist, the bio-book includes unknown facts about her career as well as touchy and touching facets of her personal life. “Like for instance, in her very first movie a Southside film-maker detested her name Hema Malini and her screen-name was finalised as ‘Sujatha’. By a twist of fate, Hema was later rejected and was replaced for that same role,” revealed Ram.