Friday, April 17, 2020

Crossing the Kodambakkam Bridge -7

Nagma



Somehow the names of girls who came from Mumbai to Chennai to make a name crops up in my mind. One such was Nagma. Before she came to Tamil, she was a co-star in all time hit Baghi of Salman Khan and Suhaag with Ajay Devgn and Akshya Kumar. Then we got to know that she acted in Gharana Mogudu opposite Chiranjeevi and opposite NTR  in Major Chandrakanth. It was on the location of Kadhalan produced by K T Kunjumon and directed by Shankar, that I got  to meet Nagma. We clicked from the first meet onward as she still was doing Hindi films and so it served her purpose to be on the pages of Screen. The movie was a big hit. Prabhu Deva's choreography, Rahman songs and the plot, all fell in place. As the norm, everyone ran behind Nagma for dates. It was the time when Meena was established as a Tamil heroine but only difference was that she did not have skin show. Meena  was emerging as a constant factor in Rajinikanth films, Nagma made a breakthrough with Baasha directed by Suresh Krishna. It was an Amitabh starrer  Hum repackaged. The movie propelled Rajini to Super Stardom.

Going by the way industry behaves, Nagma should have been the toast of Kollywood. But her later films shows that she did not get the foothold . Apart from these two films. Nagma featured in many films with then heroes like Karthik, Prabhu , Sathyaraj, Bhagyaraj and even with Ajith and they were not duds either but it did nothing much to her career. At the same time, Meena was going steady at the box office. Producer Pyramid Natarajan even cast the Kadhalan pair with midas touch director P Vasu and with Rahman music , but it turned out to be a dud.

As with many actresses, personal life did play havoc. She acted in Ragasiya Police with Sarathkumar and went on to do films like Aravindhan and  Janakiraman with him. The gossip mills wrote about the torrid affair between Sarath and Nagma. Later it was about the breakup. Anyway, offers dwindled and Nagma moved over to Bhojpuri and Malayalam films. In the meantime her sister Roshni landed up in Chennai to get a break. But nothing great happened. On the way was Jyotika, her other half sister.
Later we read about Nagma's Art of Living classes and her conversion to Christianity and turning a promoter of the religion at Mumbai rail stations. Next was her political avatar in Congress and then been giving South States women wings leadership.  Here too, Kushboo had entrenched herself with the State and Central leaders and Nagma was given a different job.

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