Yami Gautam Dhar: There was awareness among actresses even in the 70s – Times of India

She is happy with the kind of roles Yami Gautam Dhar is getting. By playing important and interesting roles in films, the actress is getting an opportunity to explore multiple genres and also play lead roles in films. In her last conversation with us, Yami had mentioned, “I am glad that today there is a lot more awareness about our (women’s) place in films and industry. One of the main reasons for this change has been the audience, who have a lot to offer. The actresses have talked about it before but it took some time to get channelized and executed, which is now in volume and the recent releases like Gehraiyan, Badhaai Do, Gangubai Kathiawadi Mein can be seen.”

Yami feels that this is not a new thing, because this kind of awareness was there even in the actresses of the past. She shares, “While today in our film industry things seem to be evolving. All this happened before. In fact in earlier eras where acting in films was not a popular choice for women, we still have examples like Durga Khote ji. We have a pool of actresses like Madhubala ji, Meena Kumari ji, Waheeda Rehman ji, Vyjayanthimala ji, Smita Patil ji, Nutan ji, Nargis ji.. Hema Malini ji, Sridevi ji.

She adds, “Today awareness is very high, and the amount of women centric films is very high, even in those days I think there was awareness. I remember watching an interview zeenat aman Yes. It was an old interview (in the 70’s) and he said that women know they don’t want to be just jewelery (in a movie). They want to do something else. So you see, this feeling has been happening for a long time, but it needs more time to channelize and implement it, which has happened now.”