Hema Malini’s authorised biography is written by veteran journalist, Ram Kamal Mukherjee (right).

Author Ram Kamal Mukherjee, a former journalist and television serial producer, wrote a coffee table book on Hema Malini before, but beyond being a big fan of the Dream Girl, he also thinks that the evergreen star has a great story to tell – A story of independence, fierceness, love and talent.

Ram Kamal shares, “Hemaji didn’t want a book written on her. That’s her way of saying that she doesn’t deserve a book written on her. She has always been so humble. So, it was very very difficult to convince her to do a book. She told me that since I had already done a coffee-table book on her, and there is one book by Bhavna Somaiya too, she didn’t want one more book on herself. But I was convinced that there has to be a book which tells Hema Malini’s stories, minus the cliched past like her equation with Jeetendra, her marriage with Dharamji etc. Of course, these are a part of the book too, in great detail and we have done full justice to this part of her life, but she has so much more to share. She is much more than the ‘dream girl’. She has turned 69 yesterday, and has been in the industry for fifty years.”

Ram had written a coffee table book on Hema Malini fifteen years back. He says, “My first book ended when she came back to acting with Baghban. So, we had shown how she made a comeback. In that particular year, Hemaji was nominated in the Best Female Actor category with Kajol, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerji. She was fifty then. It was a huge achievement for an actor in her late fifties to be nominated in this category in a commercial film set up. That was the high point where I ended.”

Ram Kamal Mukherjee also tells us how Hema Malini has opened up like never before. He says, “What happened after the 2015 accident? Hema ji never spoke about that, and how she coped with the accident. She has told her version of what happened that night. How did the accident happen and how did she cope up with the death of an innocent little girl in that accident. How she connected to the victims of that accident. This is the first time in the history of Bollywood biographies that an active prime minister of our country has written a foreword. While we have a foreword from Narendra Modi, we also have an afterword written by filmmaker Ramesh Sippy.”

When asked why is the book called ‘Beyond the Dream Girl’, and Ram says, “Ramesh Sippy has summed this up beautifully. He has said that Hema Malini was launched as a Dream Girl in Sapno Ka Saudagar, but after that, with her own life and her understanding of cinema, she showed the world who the true Hema Malini is. She has never been the bra-burning feminist, but has lived her life by her rules, and worked on her own terms.”