This may be an overworked saying — “age is just a number” — but it’s recently been manifesting itself in different ways.

Last July, Hema Malini had talked about her life in politics and disclosed that she’d gone into it seeing it as a challenge. “More than jumping into politics, I was pushed into it,” she said. “Vinod Khannaji wanted me to campaign for him in Gurdaspur and my mother insisted... I wasn’t interested and I said, what do I know about politics? But she was a big fan of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, so she persisted and she wrote my first speech for me in Hindi.”

The stage was her friend since childhood. But giving speeches was a transformation that happened naturally over the years. “When acting, you’re given dialogues and you’re portraying a character. Here you are Hema Malini and you have to speak. It was difficult but challenging.” And she was hooked. “Because you learn so much. In the film industry, you don’t see the other side of life.”

She began with a six-year stint in the Rajya Sabha, followed by two terms as a Lok Sabha MP from Mathura, a city she had a long connection with as a celebrity dancer and Krishna devotee.

But last year, she’d wondered if she’d get a third chance from Mathura; “If my party asks me, I would love to stand for elections again. But age is supposed to be a limitation, no?”

She’d mused aloud, “I can’t believe that I’m 75. My behaviour, my mindset is that of someone between 30 and 40. I don’t behave like a 75-year-old, I don’t want to either.” (This conversation Hema Malini’s Biggest Interview is still available on YouTube.)

Age turned out to be just a number when her name was announced in the BJP’s first list of candidates. Hema was ecstatic. “So they’ve given me a third time to serve the Brijwasis,” she said to me soon after the announcement. “I’m so happy, I’ll do even better things this time around for Mathura.”

On March 1, there was a news item that 90-year-old Vyjayanthimala, who had been awarded a Padma Vibhushan in January, had performed at the temple in Ayodhya. “It’s true,” confirmed son Suchi, who lives with the actor-dancer in Chennai. “She did abhinayam on Sitaram Shlokam yesterday at Ram Mandir, Ayodhya. She’s doing well by God’s grace.” The ageless Vyjayanthimala is not just all there but until a few years ago, she wouldn’t even travel anywhere without her golf clubs.

For its sixth edition of Critics’ Choice Awards, the Film Critics Guild will be conferring 82-year-old music composer Usha Khanna with a special award for Extraordinary Contribution to Cinema. The only commercially chartbusting female composer to this day, she is as famous for Shammi Kapoor-Asha Parekh’s Dil deke dekho (1959) as she’s been for Rajesh Khanna-Tina Munim’s Chai pe bulaya hai (1983). Barely a fortnight ago, she recorded two private songs with Sonu Nigam who has an exclusive understanding with T-Series but made an exception for her. Sonu did not take a rupee from her and also took care of the studio charges. Recently, Usha Khanna also recorded a number with 90-year-old Asha Bhosle. Asha’s Dil cheez kya hai (from Umrao Jaan) just changed its lyrics to “Age cheez kya hai?”

Last week, when Karan Johar took a chartered planeload of media people from Mumbai to Ahmedabad for a mid-air release of the trailer of his hijack-and-commando action film Yodha, Lenovo tablets were distributed at the check-in counter. After take-off, his team requested everybody to switch on their tablets and Karan announced “1980” as the password. Voila, the trailer came on. Karan explained that he chose it as the password because his father’s first production Dostana was released in 1980. “But it had been in the making for three years,” he added. Although younger than Hema Malini, Vyjayanthimala, Asha Bhosle and Usha Khanna, I couldn’t help remarking, “I know, Karan. I was around in 1980 too.”

Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and author