Urmila Matondkar wore 15 kg jewellery for Chamma Chamma; recalls being ‘badly hurt’: ‘I had scratches all over’

Urmila Matondkar recently revealed the struggle she had to face while filming Chamma Chamma song from the 1998 film China Gate.

The actor recently made a special appearance on Zee TV’s reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, where the participants performed the songs picturised on her.

Urmila was left impressed by Ananya’s performance on Chamma Chamma, and recalled her own experience with the filming of the track.

She revealed that her elaborate banjara costume for the song, which was sung by Alka Yagnik and produced by Rajkumar Santoshi, left her with several injuries on her body.

Urmila started by recalling the praises the iconic song received all over the world. She said, “My friend called me from New York and told me that everyone was silent during the entire movie, but as soon as the song started, even the people in New York started throwing money in the theatre.”

Urmila said that she is happy that the song earned so many accolades since she had put a lot of hard work into filming it. She recounted, “When we did a look test and photo session for this song, Rajkumar Santoshi Sir asked me, ‘aren’t you wearing too much jewellery?’.

I told him that the accessories are important for the Banjaran look in the song. The lehenga itself was around 5kg because of all authentic work while the jewellery weighed around 15kg.”

Urmila said Rajkumar Santoshi warned her to remove some pieces of jewellery if she want because he wouldn’t allow her to change the look later, but she decided to keep it for authenticity. She added, “When I started filming, the first step was that I had to give a side look, and as soon as I did, my own earring slapped me.”

“Us tamache ki goonj mujhe aaj tak yaad hai (I still remember the echo of that slap),” Urmila joked. She remembered that there were several scratches all over her body after the shoot got over. Urmila went on the stage and performed the song alongside Ananya to pay tribute to Rajkumar Santoshi.

Sa Re Ga Ma Pa, judged by Himesh Reshammiya, Vishal Dadlani, and Shankar Mahadevan, airs on Zee TV.