She is describing how she preps for a shot. “Rule number one, no pyar ki baatein, no jhagra. Sit quietly— phone silent, mind focused, body sharp. Then the director will say, ‘Lights. Camera. Action.’ And you go, dhapak!” That is how Geeta Tandon talks.
The 40-year-old stuntwoman has been working in the Hindi film industry for over 15 years now, but had it not been for social media it is unlikely that she would have been thus catapulted into visibility and ready recall. So what if she has worked in popular films and shows such as Chennai Express, Singham, Saas Bahu aur Flamingo, The Family Man and Madgaon Express.
Bollywood stunt artiste Geeta Tandon. Picture courtesy Geeta Tandon
Tandon has been jet-setting across India for Citadel, where she is Samantha Ruth Prabhu’s stunt double. Her Gulkanda Tales and Chhaava, a Vicky Kaushal starter, will be released soon.
Tandon’s social media accounts are full of stunt shots — her getting hit by a car, running into a glass wall, swinging a cable wire… “It takes two days to design a car-crash set; five to six hours to arrange a jump with cable and harness,” Tandon tells The Telegraph over a Zoom call from her house in Malad, Mumbai, where she lives with her two children. “When we come to work, we are keenly aware of the producer who has to pay for the set per day, the action director who has vouched for us and our own reputation — izzat ka sawal hai,” she continues. “In the end, taaliyan bajni chahiye,” etc. etc.
Bollywood stunt artiste Geeta Tandon.
Indeed, Tandon walks the talk and also talks non-stop. “I don’t come from a sapne-dekhna, future-planning-karna type of family. Never!” says Tandon with a dismissive wave of her hand.
And that’s just it. Her hard-luck great-guts story seems to keep winning her fans. Be it mental health or life after divorce, sponsors are happy to mine her life experiences.
Bollywood stunt artiste Geeta Tandon.
Tandon was only 15 when she was married off. Seven years and two children later, she got divorced — that’s when her life seems to have truly begun. Says Tandon, “After my divorce, I thought to myself, this is my chance — kuch karke dikhao ya baith jao.” Tandon speaks passionately, her words come out fast, clipped at the ends.
“I used to do bhangra at weddings,” she says with a smile “Then one day, someone asked me to do action work.” And that’s how it all started. She was 27 at the time.
“I had never seen a film set before — lights, vanity vans, so many people…,” Tandon continues. “I was so excited that I forgot to feel scared.” A decade and a half later, her eyes still light up and her pitch climbs higher when she talks about her work. “I started with saas-bahu serials,” she says. Then Bollywood happened. Bipasha Basu’s Corporate was her first film. Then came Luck, De Dana Dan, Saaho and soon the list became too long to keep track of.
Bollywood stunt artiste Geeta Tandon.
But her Instagram page chronicles the journey.
Tandon continues, “The action side is the most important part of Bollywood. But also the riskiest.” Her face is serious now, eyebrows all crunched up. She talks about safety measures. How, when on set, entire teams of stunt artistes work together to ensure each other’s safety. She says, “In Chhaava, there were about 150 stunt artistes present on set at a time just for the action work.”
Even then, people get hurt. Many die. “I got my face burnt, spine fractured, tailbone broken — it happens,” Tandon says with a stunt shrug. She was advised six months of bed rest after her spine injury but she could not wait that long. “There were bills to pay and by god’s grace, I recovered in a few months,” she adds.
Already a veteran in the industry, Tandon is apparently not one to be star-struck. But then in her line of work she is stuck to them. Her social media pages are full of pictures of herself with the stars — Diljit Dosanjh, Irrfan Khan, Malaika Arora, Sakshi Tanwar, Tollywood actor Dev. Perhaps they make a subtle visual point about her success, the place she has earned in the “industry”.
Some stunt rage spills over. She says, “Many think that spending dollars and bringing gore stuntmen will make your films better, when we do the same job on shorter notice, with the same intensity.” She continues, “They barely give us a day to practise but these foreigners get even six months sometimes… Lekin hum jaan ki baazi lagate hai. Neither white skin nor angrezi baatein prepares you for this life if you don’t already have it in you.”
King Khan comes up. “Shah Rukh sir toh mahaan hai,” says Tandon. If you hurt yourself while working with Shah Rukh, everyone else might forget but he would remember. After finishing his shot, he will surely come back to check on you — give you a hug, and ask you — “Aap thik ho?”
Rubbing shoulders with the stars, is it possible that some stardust has rubbed off onto Tandon too? Would that be the rationale behind all those “pretty” videos and shots of Tandon and their starry idiom? Tandon in red sari during Diwali, self captioned “patakha guddi”; Tandon in a long black dress; Tandon doing a podcast…
But then for all you know, she is pulling one on you — a stunt like no other.