Raveena Tandon rejected ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya‘ song from SRK’s film ‘Dil Se

Monitoring Desk

MUMBAI: Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon revealed that she refused to work on the hit song ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya‘ from superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s film ‘Dil Se‘.

‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ is considered to be one of the most iconic Bollywood songs because of its video. The Mani Ratnam-directed sequence showed Shah Rukh Khan and Malaika Arora dancing on top of a moving train.

Raveena Tandon, in an inteview with the BBC, revealed that she was approached to perform in it, but refused the offer thinking she would be stereotyped by doing an item song.

“I had just done ‘Sheher Ki Ladki’, right? And it had become a very big hit,” she was quoted saying in an Indian Express report. “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 added, “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.”

The actress said she would’ve made a different decision back then.

“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 Tandon added.

The ‘Mohra‘ star revealed that she turned down hit Shah Rukh Khan starring projects ‘Darr,’ ‘Desi Babu English Men,’ and ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.’

Raveena Tandon spoke highly of Shah Rukh Khan by saying she loves him and is one of the warmest people on this planet.