The Rangeela girl Urmila Matondkar turns a year older on 4 February. But for most of us, she is also that young girl Rinky in Shekhar Kapur’s Masoom. Back then, I used to watch Masoom just to catch the three kids in the film, and of course the popular Lakdi ki kathi song.
But Masoom was not Urmila’s first film. Though, she did get noticed with the Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi starrer, Urmila had worked in two Marathi films earlier. Her first film was Karm in 1977 and she was only three years old in it.
Shabana Azmi, who played Urmila’s mother in Masoom says, “It was apparent from the very first day that Urmila Matondkar will become a Hindi film star.” The little girl who was so passionate about acting used to come well prepared for a shot. From her dialogues to her moves she used to be all ready.
Urmila was a child actor but nothing about her was like a child. She was a complete professional even back then and behaved like an adult. She took her work seriously and the rest was nothing but passion.
(This article is from The Quint’s archives and was first published on 4 February 2016. It is now being republished to mark Urmila Matondkar’s birthday.)