Maya Alagh

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.

Today’s article is on an actor who is a qualified doctor by profession; she faced rejection in the film industry and yet managed to make a mark playing mother roles in Hindi cinema.

Doctors turning actors is not new with well-known actors like Dr. Kashinath Ghanekar, Dr. Shriram Lagoo and the recent Dr. Manushi Chillar making a career in films.

Rejection or failure is also a common phenomenon in the movie industry and stalwarts like Mithun Chakraborty, Vidya Balan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, etc have faced it in their initial days.

Motherly roles are integral part of Bollywood and all top actresses from Nargis to Rakhee and from Beena Banerjee to Anjana Mumtaz have made it their domain.

One actor who fits perfectly in to all the above three factors – professional turned actor, faced rejection initially and then played mother roles – is the one and only Maya Alagh.

Maya Alagh was born in Kanpur on 30th March and completed her education from Loreto Convent Intermediate College in Lucknow and went on to become a professional doctor. Later, she married noted businessman Sunil Alagh balancing her personal and professional life. All this while she was away from the world of lights, camera and action.

But a day changed her life when she was waiting in the office of her husband Sunil and was spotted by actor Dalip Tahil who used to do ad films in those days. Maya was a beauty and her radiant looks could give competition to any top actress of that time. Dalip approached Sunil and asked him if his wife would be interested to act in his ad. Maya couldn’t let this opportunity go and agreed to give an audition. But surprisingly, she was rejected. The reason was that she didn’t look like a lower middle-class housewife. Not entirely wrong as Maya Alagh was so classy that she just couldn’t look lower middle class in front of the camera. But this rejection led to an acting spark in her. The lady, who was till now a professional doctor and a homemaker, decided to face the camera and started modelling for various campaigns and in late ’70s, she became famous as the face of Promise toothpaste.

Soon enough, Maya Alagh got a movie offer and the very first film she signed was Thodisi Bewafaii (1980) with superstar Rajesh Khanna. Though Shabana Azmi had the lead role opposite Khanna, Maya Alagh played a pivotal part in it. Coincidentally, she played a doctor in this film.

In the coming years, Maya Alagh made her name on television appearing in Doordarshan serials like Singhasan Batisi (1985), Chotti Badi Baatein (1986) and Sanjay Khan’s magnum opus The Sword of Tipu Sultan (1990).

In the early ’90s, Maya Alagh became a regular face in TV serials and films. Around the same time, she played mother to most of the top actors in Bollywood. Her first notable release after Thodisi Bewafaii was Feroz Khan’s Yalgaar (1992) in which she played Kabir Bedi’s second wife and Sanjay Dutt’s step mother. Later, she acted in many Hindi films like Aaina (1993), Chandramukhi (1993), Betaaj Badshah (1994), Guddu (1995), Ram Shastra (1995), Sanam (1997), Kudrat (1998), Wajood (1998), Kachche Dhaage (1999), Albela (2001), Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein (2001), Andaz (2003), LOC Kargil (2003), Page 3 (2005) and Umrao Jaan (2006).

All this while, she continued to be active on television working in some successful serials like The Great Maratha (1994), Jai Hanuman (1997), Heena (1999), Kitty Party (2002) and above all the multistarrer Andaz in 1995 which was one of the first television serial to cast many big names from Bollywood.

In 1998, she was also part of the Indi-pop albums which gave various hit numbers like ‘Chui mui si lagti ho’, ‘Kudi jach gayi’, ‘Yeh hai prem’, etc. She featured as the lead hero’s mother in all these songs.

From mid 2000s, Maya Alagh cut down on her movie assignments. Her last known film was J.P. Dutta’s Umrao Jaan in 2006, which was a box office disaster. After this, Maya Alagh became very selective and would take up those roles which truly excited her. One TV series she worked was the popular Adalat (2010) starring Ronit Roy. She also appeared in the long-delayed film I Love NY (2015) starring Sunny Deol and Kangana Ranaut, which was a washout.

Maya Alagh was always invested in her family and acting was just a hobby she pursued. Her husband Sunil Alagh was once the CEO of Britannia Industries. They have two daughters Sawari and Anjori. Sawari is married to the media tycoon Sameer Nair and together, have a daughter Midori.

Anjori Alagh stepped into the shoes of her mother as an actress and debuted with Vikram Bhatt’s Life Mein Kabhi Kabhi (2007) and later, was cast again by Vikram in his successful horror film 1920 (2008). She shifted to television after this movie.