If Shammi aunty, or Nargis Rabadi as she was orignally called, had read the many obituaries that were written for her, she would have just dismissed them saying, “Oh, you give me too much credit.” She was that chilled out.
I recall interviewing her, when I was a greenhorn, at her home in Bandra and she was a riot. She had just split with her filmmaker husband Sultan Ahmed, but she didn’t mope around. In fact, years later, when Dimple Kapadia split from Rajesh Khanna, Shammi aunty told me, “Both of us are gutsy women. We left our rich husbands’ homes without taking a single penny.” Yeah, Shammi had walked out with her held high and she never looked back.
Years later, I was working with the Cine Artists Association where Asha Parekh was one of the office-bearers. And I would frequently bump into Shammi aunty at Asha’s residence in Juhu. Every meeting was a joy because she would always find something funny to say.
One day, she told me, “I have quit eating rice.” When I asked her why she had done that, she told me it was a mannat. “I will include rice in my diet only after Asha gets married,” said Shammi aunty to me.
I didn’t meet her through the last 15 years of her life and I do not know whether she had started eating rice again. However, I know that today being Women’s Day, the one woman one should salute, should be Shammi aunty.
After all, she had the guts and gumption to leave her husband’s home without asking for any alimony. What’s more, she was more courageous than some of today’s baby-doll wives who hang on to their husbands by turning a blind eye to the man’s indiscretions.
Shammi would never have stood for that.
RIP Nargis Rabadi aka Shammi aunty.
