The first film of the 80s sizzling star Mandakini was released in 1985. When she was 16 years old, the renowned legendary director Raj Kapoor found her when he was in search of a new face for his film Ram Teri Ganga Maili.
Mandakini got selected for the role of a leading actress in the film Ram Teri Ganga Maili opposite Rajiv Kapoor, the youngest son of Raj Kapoor, through this film Raj Kapoor introduced his son Rajiv Kapoor to the Bollywood film industry.
Mandakini‘s birth name was Yasmeen Joseph, she was born in Meerut to a British father and a Kashmiri mother. Raj Kapoor had given her the screen name as Mandakini.
Ram Teri Ganga Maili was a romantic film, it was co-written , directed and edited by Raj Kapoor. Randhir Kapoor produced the film with the budget of Rs 1.44 crore and it grossed a big amount of 19 crore and emerged as an All Time Block-Buster. It was one of the highest grossing films of 1980s and the highest grossing film of the year 1985.
Mandakini with her first film itself became a very popular star, the film was a block-buster, she was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Her bold performance in 2 sequences of the film had become a controversial issue.
Initially the Censor Board issued U certificate but it was later altered to U/A.
The soundtrack of the film was very popular at that time, it had 8 songs, songs were written and composed by Ravindra Jain. Lata Mangeshkar and Suresh Wadkar sung the songs.
Mandakini did the role of Ganga, wife of Naren (Rajiv Kapoor).
The film begins with the leading hero Naren ( Rajiv Kapoor) who is the son of a rich politician from Calcutta. Naren visits Gangotri to study the source of the holy river Ganga and to collect the holy water to his paternal grandmother .
Naren meets Ganga Singh (Mandakini), an innocent beautiful girl who lives with her brother. Naren sees Ganga while she was taking bath in a white saree under a waterfall. Naren and Ganga get attracted with each other, they start to love and Ganga helps him to collect the holy water.
Ganga and Naren get married in a private ceremony. Soon after their marriage, Naren has to leave for Calcutta and he also wants to convince his parents about Ganga. While leaving to Calcutta he promises Ganga that he will return soon but his parents prevent him to go back to meet Ganga.
Ganga gets pregnant and she gives birth to a son, after that she faces many troubles due to her motherhood and due to her beauty. Her brother gets ki**ed by the enemies, she becomes alone and no-one had remained to take care of her and her child. So she decides to leave for Calcutta to meet her husband Naren. In the midway she faces several problems, many people cheat her and at last someone lures her to a brothel in Banaras.
Bhagawat Chowdhary, a rich politician buys Ganga and brings her to his private house. Meanwhile Chowdhary fixes his daughter Radha's ( Divya Rana) marriage with Naren who was convinced by saying that Ganga is dead. Naren’s maternal uncle sees Ganga in Chowdhary’s house and he invites her to dance in her husband Naren's wedding ceremony to test if her husband recognises her.
Naren recognises Ganga, but his father rejects to accept her as his daughter-in-law. Naren sees his son and they decide to leave from there but Bhagawat Choudhary gets furious and shoots Ganga, Naren starts to assault Chaudhary believing that Ganga has dead. But Choudhary’s daughter Radha stops him by informing that Ganga is still alive. Naren stops beating Chaudhary and he leaves that place with his wife Ganga and their son to Gangothri. After facing several difficulties Ganga gets reunited with Naren.
Raj Kapoor had narrated the story on the basis of the journey of holy river Ganga or Ganges which begins her or its journey from the source of Himalayas, while flowing how she gets polluted from the impurities of human beings.
The film won 5 Filmfare Awards for Best Film (Randhir Kapoor), Best Director (Raj Kapoor), Best Music Director (Ravindra Jain), Best Art Direction (Suresh J. Sawant) and Best Editing (Raj Kapoor).
Mandakini is always best remembered for her role of Ganga in Ram Teri Ganga Maili though she has acted in several films like Dance Dance opposite Mithun Chakraborty, Pyar Karke Dekho with Govinda but none of the films brought her a big success like Ram Teri Ganga Maili had brought her, it gave her an immense success and popularity.
In the recent times Mandakini candidly shared about the work ethics in Bollywood in 1980s, she shared about how the male dominated the Industry and how there was a less Payment for heroins. She said that largely male actors would decide the actress for their films, if they didn't like the actress they ask to replace her. She revealed that at that time the actress was given a maximum payment of 2 lakh.
Zordaar was Mandakini's last film which was released in 1996. Mandakini got married with a former Buddhist monk Dr. Kagyur T. Rinpoche Thakur, and she too started to follow Buddhism and she also started to take classes in Tibetan Yoga. The couple have two children, a daughter and a son.