IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LIFE

It’s been a platinum innings for Kamini Kaushal, who at 90 plus won critical acclaim for her act in Kabir Singh. Farhana Farook profiles the veteran MATINEE TIME

- Farhana Farook

Her life script is perhaps more dramatic than the films on her resume. For someone, who created her own puppet theatre at the age of 10, young Kamini Kaushal herself became a puppet in the hands of destiny. She was barely in her 20s, and on the threshold of stardom when her sister passed away. She was asked to marry her brother-in-law. Young Kamini took on the responsibility of her bereaved nieces, thus silencing her dreams for the wellbeing of her family. And she honoured this commitment through the duskiest of phases. She even sacrificed her love for Dilip Kumar because she couldn’t ‘dump’ her husband and family to follow her heart. “I’d taken on the girls. I wouldn’t be able to show my face to my sister. My husband, a fine human being, understood why it happened. Everyone falls in love,” Kamini once confided in an interview with Filmfare. She didn’t allow the heartbreak to limit her life. She went with the drift, exploring motherhood, movies, writing, hosting TV shows and even turned producer. “If it doesn’t change, it’s not life,” she rightly says. What remains unchanged though is her desire to live fully. At 93, she impressed critics with her act as a discerning grandmother in Kabir Singh. Completing 75 years in the industry, it’s a game well played by Kamini Kaushal...

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