<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jun/Mayank-Shekhar-new_e.jpg" alt="Mayank Shekhar" width="150" height="76" />I find it ironic, if not hilarious, hearing about India&rsquo;s most sanskari filmmaker, Sooraj Barjatya, negotiating the length of his heroine&rsquo;s skirt!&nbsp;
This is for the magical track, &lsquo;<a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/bollywood-news/article/elnaaz-norouzi-on-making-her-hindi-singing-debut-with-hua-music-has-always-been-close-to-my-heart--23635492" rel="nofollow">Mere rang mein rangne wali</a>&rsquo; in Maine Pyar Kiya (MPK, 1989), which progresses with the girlfriend, Suman, wearing multiple clothes her boyfriend, Prem, has gifted on her birthday. There&rsquo;s a sartorial countdown to the song, with a sensuous/risqu&eacute; dress, saved for the finale.&nbsp;
<iframe title="Thought Sooraj Barjatya Was A Groom! Bhagyashree On Maine Pyar Kiya &amp; Raja Shivaji | EXCLUSIVE" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XOMToc6_ZlI" width="696" height="391" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
While being narrated the script, Bhagyashree (Suman) said no to the last attire, altogether. Sooraj tried to persuade her, citing Hema Malini&rsquo;s short dress in the Kranti number, &lsquo;Zindagi ki na toote ladi&rsquo;.&nbsp;
Bhagyashree argued, &ldquo;The boy has to see the girl, right? Why does the audience?&rdquo; And that&rsquo;s how the choreography ends, with Suman, turning her back to the camera, in a satin sheet &mdash; for a seductive reveal, that&rsquo;s for Prem&rsquo;s eyes alone. It&rsquo;s an iconic moment, alright.&nbsp;
Several actors have publicly claimed to have been considered for Prem&rsquo;s part &mdash; Prosenjit Chatterjee, Deepak Tijori, Sanjay Kapoor, Vindoo Dara Singh, even Piyush Mishra! Salman Khan bagged the role, eventually. But you never hear of a frontrunner for Suman, but Bhagyashree.
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/jun/Jijabai_e.jpg" alt="Jijabai in the recently released &lsquo;Raja Shivaji&rsquo;" width="1280" height="720" /> Jijabai in the recently released &lsquo;Raja Shivaji&rsquo;
Sooraj was that convinced. She wasn&rsquo;t. And he&rsquo;d go over to Bhagyashree&rsquo;s home for multiple narrations, reworking the MPK script as she desired, including the said song picturisation.&nbsp;
Bhagyashree tells me, &ldquo;I was in awe of my dad, who had three lines of educational degrees on his [business] card&mdash;law, engineering, CA, masters&hellip; I needed at least one line. Just BCom wasn&rsquo;t enough.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Bhagyashree belongs to the royal family of Sangli. Her dad, being Vijay Singh. Her own official name, as she puts it, &ldquo;Her Highness Princess Bhagyashree Patwardhan Raje.&rdquo; Having composed music for a couple of films, Vijay, evidently, has an artistic side. Bhagyashree remembers, Lata Mangeshkar, &ldquo;who was from the same region&rdquo;, and sang for Vijay, addressed him as &ldquo;Raja Sahab&rdquo;.&nbsp;
Trivia nuts will know the movie Kabhi Ajnabi The (1985) for cricketer Sandeep Patil&rsquo;s debut. Who produced and directed the film? Bhagyashree&rsquo;s father, Vijay.&nbsp;
Royalty is also how I last watched <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/entertainment/television-news/article/tanya-mittal-reacts-to-amaal-mallik-controversy-clears-air-on-bhagyashree-row-23635410" rel="nofollow">Bhagyashree on the big screen</a>, in the Marathi hit, Raja Shivaji (2026). She plays Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj&rsquo;s mother, Jijabai, wherein the Maratha warrior grows from a little boy into Riteish Deshmukh.&nbsp;
But Bhagyashree looks ageless. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s not true; we worked hard [on the look],&rdquo; she smiles, but adds, &ldquo;[Cinematographer] Santosh Sivan did say it takes a lot of effort [to make you look old]!&rdquo;&nbsp;
Bhagyashree grew up in the &ldquo;heart of South Mumbai, next to Eros cinema, off Churchgate.&rdquo; Because of certain &ldquo;family issues,&rdquo; she relocated to the suburb, Juhu, where Amol Palekar was her neighbour.&nbsp;
And that&rsquo;s how we first saw her, onscreen, in the children&rsquo;s TV series, Kachchi Dhoop, that Amol was directing. His leading lady disappeared. The set was in place. Bhagyashree was brought onboard the night before shoot. Guess who played her love-interest in the 1987 Doordarshan show? Filmmaker Ashutosh Gowariker.&nbsp;
Two years later, of course, Sooraj&rsquo;s MPK stormed into cinemas, with a fresh pair leading the young romance of the generation. Bhagyashree says, &ldquo;First love, at that age, is the most innocent &mdash; unmindful of name, fame, money, status &mdash; the sorts you see in films like Sairaat, Saiyaara&hellip;&rdquo;&nbsp;
Only, that she&rsquo;s talking about her own life, which mirrored MPK&rsquo;s script, which she was shooting, alongside &mdash; while deeply in love, with her boyfriend from school, Himalay Dassani; certain about marriage, despite resistance from her family.&nbsp;
The couple, still in their teens, went ahead. Her parents disassociated. And Bhagyashree was already pregnant, when MPK released. Her son Abhimanyu was born two months later.&nbsp;
Yet, that overnight stardom in the monoculture of 1989, when popular cinema was the only mainstream, must have been something else, I ask Bhagyashree. &ldquo;I was scared, if the fame will overwhelm this home I&rsquo;ve created,&rdquo; she sighs.&nbsp;
Every step leading to her first-floor apartment was loaded with fan mail, in sacks, left behind by postmen. Once, she went over to shop for her baby &mdash; &ldquo;at Benzer or Amarsons,&rdquo; she can&rsquo;t recall. The employees whisked her away from the backdoor. Crowds had ransacked the store from the front-door, attempting a glimpse of her.
But she&rsquo;d picked family over pictures, and quit the movie industry. Salman once reminisced at an event that, with this lead pair halved &mdash; he found no work for six months either.&nbsp;
To the point that his dad Salim posted a fake/speculative ad/announcement of his film, with GP Sippy, that materialised into a project, subsequently (Patthar Ke Phool).&nbsp;
Bhagyashree did briefly return to Hindi films with her husband as lead (Qaid Mein Hai Bulbul, Tyagi, Paayal). &ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t fare well. I tried. You move on.&rdquo; That said, time hasn&rsquo;t touched her greatly. She looks the same from MPK. And Salman&rsquo;s still the superstar!
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com The views expressed in this column are the individual&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;t represent those of the paper.

What’s it about the overnight star of Sooraj Barjatya’s Maine Pyar Kiya; she left the movies right after, but that love never did…

Back in time with HH Bhagyashree!

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Back in time with HH Bhagyashree!

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