Bollywood actor Raveena Tandon, who was recently seen in Karmma Calling, has opened up about turning down Chaiyya Chaiyya. Raveena said that she didn’t want to get ‘typecast’ and also revealed why she turned down films with Shah Rukh Khan. Chhaiyya Chhaiyya was shot on top of a moving train and was a part of Mani Ratnam’s Dil Se.
In an interview with BBC’s Haroon Rashid Raveena said that he was offered the song which now features Malaika Arora. Raveena said, “I had just done Sheher Ki Ladki, right? And it had become a very big hit. Organically, Chaiyya Chaiyya came to me and I remember SRK saying that ‘Mani sir wants to talk to you because he wants you to do the song for us’.”
She continued, “And I was in a very awkward situation because although I was dying to work with Mani Ratnam Sir but then just being offered an item song again, it would have been stereotyping myself and in those days people used to get typecast, you used to get stereotyped.”
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When she was asked, knowing the song’s legacy, would she have made a different decision back then, the actor said, “I knew the song was rock solid. There were no two ways, you just had to hear the song and completely fall in love with it. It’s actually a difficult spot. I believe in the parallel life kind of thing.”
Raveena said that she was supposed to do Darr, Desi Babu English Men, and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, all starring SRK, which she again turned down. However, she was all praise for Shah Rukh and said, “ I love him. He is one of the warmest people on this planet.”
Choreographer Farah Khan had previously revealed that Shilpa Shetty and Shilpa Shirodkar were also offered the song. On the show Moving in With Malaika, Farah said, “Malaika was nowhere on the radar. We had approached Shilpa Shetty Kundra, Shilpa Shirodkar and two or three other people. One feared the prospect of climbing on top of the train, one was not available.”
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