Khalid Mohamed’s throwback to a conversation with the iron-willed Preity Zinta, who’s set to return to the movies with the partition-themed Lahore 1947 by Aamir Khan and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi.

Preity Zinta, Bollywood’s fearless and outspoken star, is making a comeback with Lahore 1947, produced by Aamir Khan and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. From her breakthrough in Dil Se to iconic roles in Kya Kehna, Salaam Namaste, and Kal Ho Naa Ho, she redefined the independent heroine with courage and wit. Known for taking on the underworld in court, balancing her IPL ventures, and embracing global life in Los Angeles with Gene Goodenough, Preity remains an enduring cultural icon. At 50, her resilience, charisma, and iron-willed persona prove she is still one of Indian cinema’s most powerful voices.

Early Life and Return to Cinema
Once in a bluish moon, it must be admitted that an actor during her prime, was undervalued, and merely rated a glamour doll.
With due apologies, the age-old trope that they don’t make them like her any more is more than applicable to Preity Zinta, especially in the context of most today’s all-style-little substance heroines.

She’s scheduled to return to the place where she belongs to with the Rajkumar Santoshi helmed and Aamir Khan produced Lahore 1947 – set against the backdrop of the partition –also headlining Shabana Azmi and Sunny Deol. Preity showed up at the Cannes film festival last year, ostensibly to promote the film. However, its release has been staggered because of the delays in post-production. Director Santoshi, infamous for his bullock-cart place, still must finesse the project which he will, fingers tightly crossed.

To recap, born in Simla, Preity’s father was an army officer who passed away following a car accident when she was 13. Even while her mother was bed-ridden for two years, the perky girl went on to graduate with a degree in English Honors and a master’s in criminal psychology from Simla’s St. Bede’s College.

Career Highlights and Challenges
Followed a stint in modelling for Perk chocolate and Liril soap. She was perhaps destined for the movies, commencing with Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se (1998). After a concatenation of high-grade entertainers, there was the self-produced romedy Ishkq in Paris (2013), co-starring the legendary French artiste Isabelle Adjani, aimed at the global market. Lucklessly, it tanked.
Meanwhile, investing in Prime League IPL cricket teams, she had hurtled into a relationship with one of Punjab Kings’ co-owner Ness Wadia, which ended after an ugly argument in public, leading to a controversy which raged on till it died a natural death.

Needless to assert, it has to be underscored that Preity Zinta was one film personality who had the guts to speak out bravely in court against the underworld during the Bharat Shah case who had financed the dramedy Chori Chori Chupke Chupke (2000). This was at a juncture when the mafia lords were making inroads into controlling Bollywood.
As it happened, she was last seen in Neeraj Pathak’s utterly forgettable comedy Bhaiaji Superhit (2018).

Personal Life and Personality
Two years before that, she had opted for a quiet marriage in Los Angeles with the American financial analyst Gene Goodenough, joking in an interview, “The press will have a great time punning on his name.” Surprisingly, they didn’t. Be that as it may, The Goodenoughs are now parents to four-year-old twins, Jai and Gia.
A chatter-chatter-chatter magpie mouth was her endearing quality really. She was her own walking-talking website, her own bio-data and tell you the details of all you wanted to know, except for the status report concerning her steady boyfriend Ness Wadia. She’d been seen with him in the open as they say, he was by her side when she wielded the jhadoo for the Clean Mumbai campaign, he was seated coyly next to her in a bus for a fleeting shot in Salaam Namaste, and voila, they’d been spotted canoodling in the Buddha Bar of Paris, but I hadn’t gone over to say hello, in fear of making her choke on her tres Francois meal of lamb chops and legumes.
The Simla-born sprite, unbeknownst to many, was a Shekhar Kapur discovery. He had auditioned her at a day-long session sponsored by Filmfare for the lead part in his pop musical, Tara Rum Pum Pum, which was alas shelved at the conceptual stage. Some tunes had been recorded with A.R. Rahman.
Shekhar Kapur had spoken in superlatives of the girl with the one deep dimple’ she made her debut as the girl who asks the radio reporter played by Shah Rukh Khan if he’s a virgin in Dil Se.
When Salaam Namaste clicked, the joke was that whenever Preity is shown pregnant on screen, the box office gods are deliriously happy. Earlier, she’d attracted the ticket buyers with her shaadi-se-pehle-maa act in Kya Kehna. In both cases, the ‘culprit’ was Saif Ali Khan.
So why am I hauling you back to Preity Zinta today? Because she’s 50 and perfect for parts which reflect her personality: iron-willed, upright and independent.

The Conversation at Mehboob Studio
These qualities had inspired quite a few chat fests with the actor. Here’s looking back, then, once more at a conversation with Preity Zinta conducted at Mehboob Studio: Whether it was Aamir Khan during the shoot of Dil Chahta Hai or Saif Ali Khan during Kal Ho Na Ho and Salaam Namaste, there had been a blitz of reports about her affairs with her leading men. Flashing fire, she retaliated, “Yeah, I was even married off to Aamir Khan by the media, I was shooting for Koi Mil Gaya with Hrithik Roshan those days, and everyone on the sets looked at me curiously, wondering has she, or hasn’t she?
“It was the same story with Saif. Look he’s a darling, a buddy and that’s it. Why must two colleagues jump into bed? Honestly, it’s the cheapness of yellow journalism to write about someone like me who’s always been forthright and honest about every little aspect of her life. I have a lot of self-respect. If I am seeing someone, I’ll tell you even before you ask me about him. So yes, I am seeing Ness Wadia, and everyone knows that. Beyond that point, I’ll say the rest of what we do, what we say to each other, is our private life and absolutely no one else’s business.”

Calming down, she continued, “Okay, I’ve always been in throes of an affair with my heroes. What a joke! After a few months, when it’s proved that the rumors were a case of no smoke and no fire, journalists apologise, try to patch up and say that they’ll make up for the damage. The wild stories would be headlined on the front page but the clarification, the apology, whatever would pop up on Page 4 and the print would be so small that I would need a magnifying glass to read it. I wish I was asked more about my job, the film industry.”
Okay, so what were the positive aspects of the film industry? Her answer: “The most positive aspect is that we’re making films which are being shown all over the world, finally we’re exporting our film culture. Audiences in the west are relating to our kind of family values, which explains for instance why the dubbed German version of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was a huge hit in Europe. Our movies are conveying facts such as that we respect our women. And when our parents age, we don’t send them to old people’s homes. Our movies cut across all language and geographical barriers -- believe me entertainment is a unifying force. Got that?”

Got it. What are the aspects she didn’t like about job? “Aah, that’s easy,” she snapped. “I don’t like the commercialization of the news related to stars. There was a time, when stars used to see their names in the newspapers and feel wow, I’ve made it there. Newspapers and gossip magazines were separate entities, today you can’t tell the difference because there’s none.”

Silence ensued, I looked reddish in the face, she looked at the studio wall and whistled impatiently. Next Right? Of late she’s been criticised for her dress sense. “You’re making that up,” she replied. “What’s wrong with the way I dress? I don’t agree with you at all. I personally investigate every costume of mine for every film. I don’t think they are bad from any angle. Next!”

How come she wasn’t a part of Farhan Akhtar’s Don, after having acted in his Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya? To that, she remarked, “Farhan’s a pal. Probably none of the roles suited me in Don. It’s not as if he’s the only director I’m working with. I’m working with other directors, he’s free to work with other heroines.”

After Koil Mil Gaya, she wasn’t included in Rakesh Roshan’s Krrish either. Her logic was, “Since it’s a sequel, I can’t be a part of Krrish, but I’m doing a cameo in it.”
How important is to be in the good books of top filmmakers? According to her, she never plans and plots. She’d rather be in her own good books.

Can there be anything like a true friendship in showbiz? Of course, there can be friendships, she shrugged, adding like there can be back stabbers. Regarding marriage, she said candidly, “When I will, I won’t think about it, I’ll just do it. I want to get married, have children and live happily ever after. But right now, only my two films – Jaaneman and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna – are on my agenda.”

Could she tell me about the four events which changed her life?
Promptly, she riposted, “The first was losing my father. Second was entering the movies. The third were the bomb blasts in Sri Lanka during our Temptation concert tour there. And the fourth, was witnessing the Tsunami tragedy right in front of my eyes.”
What would she do when she was in the dumps? “Read books and before you ask me who my favourites, they’re Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, Carlos Castaneda’s The Art of Dreaming, Betty Mehmoody-William Hoffer’s Not Without My Daughter, Omar Nelson Bradley’s A Soldier’s Story. And I usually listen to my own film songs like Jeeya Jale (Dil Se), Bhumro Bhumro (Mission Kashmir), Maahi Ye (Kal Ho Naa Ho (Veeer Zara) and My Dil Goes Mmmm (Salaam Namaste).”

Unstoppable, she chattered on about the most gorgeous men in her life, “Hmmmm, I’d say Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Abhishek Bachchan and Arjun Rampal. See no one else would jabber on like I have. Please don’t misquote me.” I didn’t.