Happy birthday to Urmila Matondkar.

Urmila Matondkar had always remained underrated actress.

The viewers of Bollywood films wish happy birthday to Urmila Matondkar on 4th February, 2014. Urmila Matondkar had always remained underrated actress inspite of providing landmark performances in her illustrious career. She started her career as child artist in Shekhar’s Kapoor’s off-beat film Masoom in the early 80s. Although Shekhar Kapoor made the film with intellectual performers like Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi, the commercial audience had enjoyed the film to the fullest extent. Bhupinder Singh’s song “huzur is kadar bhi na itrake chaliye”, Anup Ghoshal’s song “tujhse naraz nahi zindagi” composed by RD Burman still remains a landmark in Indian film music. In the same film Urmila Matondkar’s lips in the song “lakri ki kaathi” is still remembered by cinematic crowd in India. Urmila was sublime in Ram Gopal Verma’s ghostly venture “bhoot”. She played the role of the unsatisfied soul who got into the body of another individual to take revenge against the ghastly murder committed some time back. Her performance in off-beat films had compelled producers and directors to cast her in complex roles in serious films like Pinjar, Tehzeeb, etc. In Tehzeeb she complimented the powerful performance of Shabana Azmi, who was considered the greatest Indian actress of all times by eminent director Tapan Sinha. If those performances show the depth of acting of Urmila Matondkar, their performance in commercial films show her adaptability in any form of situations. She was brilliant in the film Rangeela opposite Amir Khan and Jackie Shroff. The film was commercially successful and Urmila adjusted her stylish image to perfection in the film. She was successful in many commercial films including Daud, opposite Sanjay Dutt, Judaai opposite Anil Kapoor and Sri Devi, to name a few. Even her dance numbers in films like China Gate had amazed the viewers. But she had remained underrated all along her career. Neither she was considered the competitor of Juhi Chawla or Kajol in the mid 90s, nor Rani Mukherjee or Preeti Zinta in the late 90s, nor Katrina Kaif or Priyanka Chopra in the present period. Whenever complex roles are created, producers and directors think about Urmila Matondkar, but when the films end up in success, her name is forgotten. Urmila Matondkar should ignore the publicity and reaction of media towards her and continue the good work that she had done till date.