Some stories in Mumbai never really die, they just nap. The city has this way of holding on to its favourite rumours, polishing them every few years like old souvenirs. And anytime Ram Gopal Varma and Urmila Matondkar resurface in the news, that familiar hum returns. You can almost smell the old Rang Bhavan nights, the tapri chai, the shoot lights warming the pavement outside Film City.
So when RGV casually brushed off the lingering chatter about him and Urmila during that Zoom TV conversation, it felt strangely normal. Not dramatic, not defensive. Just a man stating something he probably thought everyone already knew. He called her the most versatile actress he had worked with, which, coming from him, sounded more like a director’s instinct than a headline. And then he mentioned Amitabh Bachchan, almost offhand, as if to say, if I wanted to hide something, do you really think I would only hide this?
It landed with this small, funny thud, the kind that makes you realise how long people have carried around a story that never really belonged to them.
Anyone who remembers those late 90s films, the ones RGV made when he still had that restless, slightly dangerous creative edge, probably remembers how electric Urmila felt on screen. She didn’t just act in Rangeela, she burst through it. And in Satya, she slid into the mood of the film so quietly that half the emotion hit you later, when you were already home. Their collaborations made sense. They still do. But when audiences love a pairing too much, they tend to invent a secret world behind it.
Those inventions lasted decades. Longer than some careers last.
Which is why Urmila’s own recent statement felt almost refreshingly uneventful. No fallout, she said. No dramatic turning point. Nothing that the tabloids would normally salivate over. She had worked with him even after their big films, and she didn’t sound like she was trying to sound virtuous or polite. More like she was clearing out a room in her mind and tossing out old clutter she never asked for.
But people don’t give up a rumour just because the people in it tell them to. Bollywood watchers, especially the nostalgic ones, hold on tight.
RGV didn’t exactly soften things either when reminded about his earlier remarks on actresses, including the old comment about Sridevi. He didn’t backtrack. He didn’t apologise. He explained it in a way that only he would, talking about attributes as on screen assets. Not everyone will like that phrasing, but he’s never been someone who edits himself for comfort. His trouble has always come from the same place as his talent, a sort of blunt fascination with the human form and the human mess.
Still, there was something different this time. A lack of heat. He kept circling back to the work. To what Urmila brought to those films. To the idea that their repeated collaboration came from artistic fit, not hidden romance. There was a strange tenderness in that, even if he didn’t mean it to sound tender.
And maybe that’s what people forget. Bollywood churns through narratives so fast that the real ones get buried under the imaginative ones. The films they made together left a mark. And because those films carried a certain charge, fans assumed there had to be a spark outside the frame. Sometimes audiences are like that. They get attached to an energy they can’t quite explain, so they locate it somewhere juicy.
Meanwhile, the world around all this has changed too much. Gossip doesn’t simmer anymore, it detonates. Comment sections are louder than film critics. Clips travel faster than context. When RGV blamed social media for keeping the rumours alive, he wasn’t exactly wrong. That machinery runs on assumption, not truth. And the older stories get recycled most aggressively, because familiarity makes them feel real.
What struck me, listening to both of them, was a sense of two people mildly puzzled that anyone is still talking about this at all. There’s no irritation in their voices now, just that faint amusement adults have when revisiting rumours from their twenties. The whole thing feels smaller in their hands than it ever felt in the public imagination.
Maybe that’s the part that finally settles something. The way they speak about each other now doesn’t sound like fence mending or reputation management. It sounds like two artists remembering they once made good work together, and wondering why that wasn’t enough.
And honestly, it was enough. It always was.
Some collaborations don’t need mythology. They just need space to breathe again, without everyone squinting at the shadows around them.
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Sana has been covering film, fame, and everything in between for over a decade. From red carpets to rehab rumors, she brings nuance, wit, and an insider’s edge to every story. When she’s not reporting, she’s probably watching Koffee With Karan reruns or doom-scrolling celebrity IG feeds.
