Saira Banu calls Shammi Kapoor ‘a darling’ for pushing her to overcome her fear and perform in front of crowds for ‘Junglee’ song

Saira Banu’s debut film ‘Junglee‘ completed 62 years on October 31. Marking the film’s anniversary, the legendary actress took to social media to recall how she joined movies and ‘Junglee’ with Shammi Kapoorended up being her maiden film. As a continuation post, Saira has now recalled memories during the shoot. The actress confessed that when a lot of crowd gathered during a song shoot, she was quite scared and was scolded by her mother that she shouldn’t have pursued acting.But here’s what Shammi Kapoor did then!
Banu shared, “Kashmir Ki Kali Hoon Main were to be picturised at the breathtaking Nishat and Shalimar gardens. There were thousands of tourists in the garden mainly foreigners roaming around and photographing themselves. The shooting areas were carefully cordoned off to simplify the shooting work. This of course was the first time that I faced such crowds and the first time. In the song, there is a sequence where Shammiji is very angry with me and I turn around and I pick up his shoe and sing “Pyar Peh Gussa Karte Ho. Tera Gussa Humko Pyaara Hain”. Now as luck would have it I couldn’t turn around and do the movement properly so I was getting into a fix. Eventually seeing so many people around me I broke down into tears.”
Shammi Kapoor then decided to play a prank on her. She added, “Meanwhile Shammiji secretly winked an eye at Appaji and scolded me, “What is this? If you want to be shy and then break down like this you should have been at home in a Burkha!” This made me howl and cry further, But then in a while, I pulled up my Dupatta around my waistline in a show of defiance and uttered “Main Karke Dikhaugi”. I must say Shammiji was a darling to give me that ‘push’ towards braving it in front of the crowds and Subodh Uncle took me aside and shared this confidence.”
Kapoor and director Subodh Mukerji were so confident about Saira though. She added, “You know Shammi is so good in his musical numbers that we directors give him all the songs in our movies and only shared duets with the heroines. He is also so good at doing disguises in his roles but he has been kind with us and you that you have been giving three solo songs to do and a highlight disguise scene of a young Sadhu who tricks the hero. He helped me so much in “JUNGLEE”.”
Subodh Mukerji who directed ‘Junglee’ is Rani Mukerji’s father Ram Mukherjee’s brother.