In an interview with Bombay Times before her delivery,
in September 2024, Masaba Gupta revealed, “She (Neena Gupta) had to hide her pregnancy.
She was telling me how she (even) did a dance number in her eighth or ninth month.”
We asked Neena about it and which film it was.
She revealed, “It was for the TV show, ‘Mirza Ghalib’ (directed by Gulzar). There’s a scene where I am coming in a tonga and it was shot in a ‘ubad khabad’ road.
When I began shooting for the show,
I was only four months pregnant.
Even then, I did a dance number.
But during the seventh month of pregnancy,
they told me that a scene hadn’t been shot.
I had to sit in a tonga and shoot for it. I was very scared.”
Did people in the unit know that she was expecting? Neena Gupta answered, “No,
not many people knew. Gulzar saab knew from the very beginning.
I told him kyunki itni beimaani main nahin kar sakti na kisi ke saath.
I had told him about it way in advance.
He used to look after me like a father figure (smiles). Ultimately,
it’s an actor’s job to shoot, come rain or shine. Hence, I went for it.”
A popular line about Mirza Ghalib is actually one of his own: “Hain aur bhi duniya mein sukhanwar bahut achhe,
kehte hain ki Ghalib ka andaz-e-bayan aur” (There are many eloquent poets in the world,
but they say Ghalib has his own inimitable style).
Born in Agra towards the end of the 18th century, Mirza Asadullah Khan, better known as Mirza Ghalib,
moved to Delhi, the centre of Mughal rule,
as a child. Here, among court poets and nobility,
he made his name as an Urdu and Persian poet of renown in the Mughal court even as emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s reign was giving way to the rise of the British rule.
Bahadur Shah Zafar, himself a poet of considerable repute, hosted mushairas at which being invited to recite one’s works was an honour,
and Ghalib endeared himself to the emperor with his verses.
Naseeruddin Shah was in the capital recently to attend the Urdu festival Jashn-e-Rekhta.
After seeing the overcrowded venue,
the veteran actor said, “There was a time when I was doing plays in the NSD (National School of Drama), and nobody would come to watch.
Aaj behad khushi ho rahi hai.
Kaash main aaj natak kar raha hota.
Bahut khushi hoti hai Dilli wapis aa ke. ”
