Throwback Thursday: Rajnigandha
- By Priyanka
- May 7, 2020
- The P&P Project
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Let’s throwback to ‘Rajnigandha‘ this week, a 1974 film that starred Vidya Sinha, Amol Palekar and Dinesh Thakur. Though always having enjoyed the song, I only got around to seeing the movie in late Nineties. And the impression that it made on me then still holds true- how refreshing was the styling in the movie? It really was a palette cleanser from all the visual overload then and now.
Styled in handloom saris, bindi, braided hair and minimal jewelry, the actor’s look perfectly mirrored the style of the character she played- an educated, middle class woman in the Seventies. The colors and patterns definitely attested to the time. It’s as if the simplistic, non-fussy story-telling was aided by just as simplistic, non-fussy visual clues.
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Vidya Sinha In Rajnigandha, 1974
The saris and hair-do might not have left much leeway for the actor to go glam, but that didn’t stop her from working a dramatic cat-eye through out the movie- asleep, washing her face or out and about, the winged eye-liner remained, un-smudged and consistent. You’ve got to love that!
Through the span of her career she came to be known for a certain look- simple Indianwear, pulled back hair (most of the time) and a look that essentially said ‘the (good) girl next door’. Having briefly modeled for textiles and consumer goods before her debut in movies, she perhaps had an innate ability to make a look her own.
Do you have a favorite moment from the movie? I have a few, and among them is this still that triggered the post.
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Vidya Sinha In Rajnigandha, 1974
P.S: With these throwbacks, the intent is to go down a memory road, picking certain movie moments that stood out to me personally for their style. The intent is not to however deep dive in to an actor’s filmography or review the films in question.