When Juhi Chawla was shooed away by Mumbai taxi drivers, asked who Aamir Khan was

Actor Juhi Chawla, who recently appeared on The Kapil Sharma Show, recalled an incident that took place ahead of the release of her film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1988). In the show, she spoke of the time that she and her film co-star Aamir Khan were chased away by the taxi drivers in Mumbai as ‘nobody knew us’.

Directed by Mansoor Khan, Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak was a major commercial success and was a blockbuster. It made Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla popular stars. It was a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

According to Indian Express, Juhi Chawla said, “I still remember when our movie was going to be released. Nobody knew us. Remember, at that time, it was a common practice for taxis to carry film posters. There was a long line of taxis below our building, so I would go from driver to driver requesting them to put up the posters.”

She added, “They would ask, ‘Who’s he?’, and I would say he is the hero, Aamir Khan. They would then point to my image on the poster and ask, ‘Who’s she?’, and I would say, ‘This is me.’ And they would say, ‘No, no’, and shoo us away. But some did reply sweetly, allowing us to put up the posters.”

Earlier this year, in an interview with a leading daily, Juhi had said that she first met Aamir when he was helping her learn her lines for Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak audition. “I did not see him first on the sets of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (QSQT). He was actually assigned the job of making me learn my lines during the auditions of QSQT. I was literally being tutored by him on how to enact my scenes for the screen test, which was taking place at producer Nasir Hussain sahab’s house garden. We were given some scenes from Nasir sahab’s previous films to enact. I saw Aamir for the first time there,” she had said.

Also Read | On Aamir Khan’s birthday, Juhi Chawla recalls their first meeting: ‘Didn’t know he was the hero of QSQT’

A few months ago, an old video of Aamir and his film co-star Raj Zutshi sticking posters of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak on the back of Mumbai’s auto-rickshaws also surfaced online. In the video, Aamir stopped the autos and asked drivers if they could put the posters at the back of the vehicle.

After Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Juhi worked with Aamir in several films including Hum Hain Raahi Pyar Ke and Ishq.