Veteran actress Bindu recently looked back at one of the most memorable moments from her career revealing how she once stopped the shooting of Joshila (1973) for nearly two hours after being asked to wear a bikini without any prior notice.
Speaking in a conversation with Vickey Lalwani, Bindu shared that she was surprised when she reached the sets of Joshila and discovered that the scene required her to wear a bikini. Since she had not been informed beforehand, she refused to continue with the shoot.
“I stopped the shoot for two hours because I wasn’t ready to wear a proper bikini. A bikini is a bikini. I told Yash ji, ‘Please… you never told me about this earlier.’ I only came to know about it after reaching the set.”
Bindu recalled that the entire unit had to wait while she called her costume designer to the set. Director Yash Chopra, however, handled the situation calmly and suggested an alternative that made her feel comfortable.
“Then Yash ji said, ‘Stay inside the water as much as possible. We’ll shoot it that way and take only the side and back shots.’ Poor Dev Anand ji just sat there quietly and didn’t say anything. The shoot remained halted for almost two hours. I kept wondering what he must be thinking. But Yash ji reassured me, saying, ‘We’ll manage. Don’t worry.'”
The actress added that after the scene was completed, she asked cinematographer Fali Mistry for his opinion. “They put me in the water, took the shots from there, and then filmed only the side and back. Afterwards, I asked cinematographer Fali Mistry how it looked. He said, ‘Don’t worry, you look good, not vulgar.’ Once Fali ji said that, I felt reassured.”
Bindu’s anecdotes offer a glimpse into the working style of Hindi cinema’s golden era, the memories which continue to surprise fans decades later.
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