Deepa Sahi

QAMYAB – THE FORGOTTEN GEMS OF BOLLYWOOD

Qamyab is our humble tribute to all those lesser-known actors, one hit wonders and junior artists who we see umpteen times but don’t know about; beyond their faces. These actors have been an integral part of Bollywood but didn’t get their due. This series is our sincere attempt to put a name to these faces, familiarize them to our readers and celebrate their achievements in life – however big or small. We believe that every artist contributes in his/her own way to the cinema’s success. Qamyab will explore the unknown lives of such actors and artists as we believe even these forgotten gems of Bollywood deserve their due recognition today.

Some actors tend to get permanently tagged to their onscreen characters. Like Amjad Khan could never shake off his ‘Gabbar Singh’ persona. Mithun Chakraborty is still referred to as Disco Dancer. Similarly, an actress got permanently tagged with the name Maya or Maya Memsaab. She is Deepa Sahi, an actor with tremendous potential who deserved far more success than she got in Bollywood.

Born on 30th November 1962, Deepa Sahi was born in Dehradun in a family with Army background. She was the youngest sibling in her family and was raised in Meerut. Her elder sister passed away at just eighteen years. This personal loss triggered the independent spirit in Deepa and she decided to live life on her terms. After her family shifted to Canada, Deepa continued to stay in India and was awarded a gold medal in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics.

Deepa joined the National School of Drama (NSD) with a dream of becoming a director but she was such a charming beauty that she started receiving acting offers even as a NSD student. Deepa decided to direct her first film sometime in early ’80s with Nana Patekar and Hema Malini in the lead. But unfortunately, the project failed to take off due to financial constraints. It was then Deepa shifted to acting.

Starting off with theatre, Deepa Sahi collaborated with noted director Govind Nihalani making her debut in a small role in his film Party (1984). Her next film with Nihalani was Aaghat (1985) in which her performance was critically acclaimed. But it was Govind Nihalani’s 1986 television series Tamas which put the spotlight on Deepa Sahi. She received accolades for her character Kammo, an independent-minded lower caste woman in times of 1947 partition of India.

Around that time, she met director Ketan Mehta known for his award-winning films like Bhavni Bhavai (1981) and Mirch Masala (1986). Deepa worked with Ketan for the first time in Hero Hiralal in 1988 in which she had a strong supporting role. They came close and married in the same year. It is the second marriage for both of them.

Quite naturally, Deepa went on to star in most of Ketan’s subsequent films. Their first release post marriage was the controversial Maya Memsaab based on the novel Madame Bovary. Deepa played a married woman who craves for true love and ends up having multiple affairs with other men. Maya Memsaab became highly controversial due to an explicit lovemaking scene between her and then newcomer Shahrukh Khan (SRK). A gossip magazine wrote some unsavoury article on them hinting at a one-night stand between the two just to get in to their character. Both, Deepa and SRK, maturely chose to maintain a dignified silence on this malicious rumour.

Maya Memsaab was released in Indian theatres with the sex scene chopped off and received tremendous critical acclaim. Deepa won the National award for Best actress that year and this performance is considered her best till date. The name Maya got tagged to her permanently.

During this time, Deepa was also working in hard core commercial movies like Dushman (1990), Trinetra (1991), Hum (1991) and Bhookamp (1993). Her ‘Bhabhi’ character in Mukul Anand’s Hum is still memorable. Surprisingly, she played Mithun Chakraborty’s mother in Harry Baweja’s Trinetra, which most of her fans felt was not a good career move.

After Maya Memsaab, Deepa Sahi started multitasking on various aspects of filmmaking. She turned co-producer in 1993 with Maya Memsaab. Later, she wrote the screenplay of Ketan Mehta’s Oh Darling Yeh Hai India (1995) in which she appeared as the lead heroine again with SRK. The movie, a political satire, was a box office bomb. Ketan then cast her as Jackie Shroff’s heroine in the musical thriller Aar Ya Paar (1997). Deepa’s chemistry with Jackie was much appreciated but the movie couldn’t do wonders at the box office.

Deepa had a fascination for computers and in late ’90s, she started her own animation studio named MAAC which was in to special effects, 3D animation and CGI. This was India’s first animation studio of its kind. From 2000 to 2002, she became the CEO of Maya Entertainment and saw it grow exponentially. In 2009, she and husband Ketan launched Maya In-Studio Training at Filmcity, Mumbai which provided advanced training on studio ready modules.

Taking a break from her growing business, Deepa decided to finally realise her dream of directing a film. The movie was titled Tere Mere Phere (2011) and featured Vinay Pathak and Riya Sen in pivotal roles. Deepa wrote the story herself and the film was shot in beautiful and unexplored parts of Himachal and Kinnaur Valley. Tere Mere Phere was released in a crowded week along with five other new movies (including Dev Anand’s swansong Chargesheet) which affected its box office business. Nevertheless, Deepa garnered a lot of praise for her direction. Her long-nourished dream had come true!!

In the last decade, Deepa cut down her acting assignments appearing only Ketan Mehta’s Manjhi – The Mountain Man (2015) in which she played ex- prime minister Indira Gandhi. “I always admired the lady and so it was a pleasure to portray her on screen”, she said in one of her interviews. Her digital studio company was responsible for the 3D conversion of Ramesh Sippy’s iconic blockbuster Sholay (1975).

Today at sixty years, Deepa Sahi leads a busy life as the owner of Maya Group of companies with interests in film production, digital studios, training centres, etc. The name Maya still hasn’t left her after three decades. And rightly so!!