Kamal Ghorui
Veteran actor Rakesh Bedi, currently enjoying the success of the ‘Dhurandhar’ franchise, recently hosted filmmaker-choreographer Farah Khan at his Mumbai home for an episode on her YouTube channel. During their candid conversation, Farah revisited their early days in the industry, recalling a time when actors often worked without pay. She quipped, “Rakesh, do you get paid now? I guess you do. When they all started their careers, nobody used to pay them.” To this, Bedi responded, “The times were different.”The discussion turned to the 1982 film Saath Saath, starring Deepti Naval and Farooq Shaikh. When asked whether he was paid for the project, Bedi revealed, “I did not even get paid for the conveyance. In fact, many a times, we used to take food from our home,” adding that it was the only film where he received no payment at all.Directed by Raman Kumar and produced by Dilip Dhawan, ‘Saath Saath’ follows the journey of Avinash Verma, an idealistic young man, and his wife Geetanjali Gupta, the daughter of a textile mill owner, as they navigate the realities of married life.Farah also shared that despite knowing Bedi for years, they hadn’t met in a long time. Reminiscing about her teenage years, she revealed she was just 15 when Bedi was studying at the Film and Television Institute of India. She fondly recalled gatherings at Javed Akhtar’s home, where industry aspirants would often meet. “FTII se yeh log roz aate the Javed uncle aur Honey aunty ke ghar free ka khaana aur free ki daaru peene, aate the vahan par toh we used to meet all of them (They used to come every day from FTII to Javed uncle and Honey aunty’s house for free food and free drinks, and that’s where we would meet all of them),” shared Farah.
