Waheeda Rehman - Early Life

Early Life

One of the most prominent actresses of the golden era, Waheeda Rehman was born into a traditional Tamil, Urdu-speaking Muslim family in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu, British India. She and her sister learnt Bharatnatyam at Mumbai's Sri Rajarajeswari Bharata Natya Kala Mandir, where Guru T. K. Mahalingam Pillai, doyen among nattuvanars taught and performed on stage together. Her father, who was a district commissioner, died while she was in her teens.

It is a common misconception that Rehman was born in Hyderabad. “It’s a long story,” she says, “When I was in Chennai, I did two Tamil and four Telugu movies. In the first one, Kaalam Maari Pochu along with Gemini Ganesan a bilingual film which was made in Tamil and Telugu as Rojulu Maraayi, I did only a folk dance number in both Tamil and Telugu versions. However, it went on to become a hit! I was in Hyderabad celebrating its success and Guru Dutt happened to be there. He was on a lookout for new faces and heard that I could speak in Urdu. It is because he spotted me in Hyderabad that people assume I was born there.”

Her dream was to become a doctor but, due to circumstances and illness, she abandoned this goal. Instead helped by her supportive parents, she hit the silver screen with Telugu films Jayasimha (1955), followed by Rojulu Marayi (1955) and Tamil film Kaalam Maari Pochu (1956). It is in Vijaya-Suresh's Ram aur Shyam (a remake of Telugu movie Ramudu Bheemudu) in 1967 that Waheeda acted again under the direction of the topnotch Telugu director Tapi Chanakya who incidentally directed her movies Rojulu Maaraayi in Telugu (1955) and Kaalam Maaripochu in Tamil (1956).