Pratibha Sinha, daughter of the great Mala Sinha, only has fond memories of Gudgudee and her director Basu Uncle (Chatterjee). “You know, Gudgudee was one of the last films that Basu Uncle worked on in his capacity as a director. I had the privilege of being cast in the central role with Anupam Kherji. It was naughty comedy about a midlife crisis and my character Chandni was a chirpy bubbly dreamer. I have very warm memories of working with Basu Uncle, Anupamji and the team of the film. I must share something very heartwarming during Gudgudee. I carry the distinct memory of Basu Uncle addressing me by my mother’s name (Mala) and her by my name. He was so endearingly absent-minded… and yes, his cute habit of chewing on his handkerchief when the camera was rolling, is, I guess the stuff of movie lore.”
She added, “He always treated me with a lot of affection and patience especially when I could not nail the verbose lines, the majority of which were ghost-written by him. He would rib mum and me on the rapid-fire ‘Spanish-Russian’ that he considered our spoken dialect of Nepali to be. He was like a child, raw, self-effacing and absolutely honest. I remember he was non-plussed when the late Satishji (Kaushik) and one of his ADs poker-facedly suggested that he should film the romantic song ‘Har pal chahe mera dil’ in Shakaari Bhandaar… that’s how unaffected he was by his peers’ opinions of his cinematic sensibilities and his artistic proclivities.”
Pratibha also has fond memories of her co-star Anupam Kher. “I had the privilege and joy of interacting with the multi-faceted and brilliant Anupamji both at a professional as well as at a personal level. He has the great capacity of interpreting, envisioning and executing a situation in a myriad different ways…. A very rare talent. He was extremely generous to me as an artist and loving as a person. He is extremely well read and is a brilliant raconteur, that singular quality of his which made me always look forward to meeting him. It was so humble and kind of him to actually demonstrate the art & the ‘craft’, that is the technicality of crying on screen, to me. They don’t make artists and human brings like Anupamji anymore. I really miss those days.”
