My car comes to a gentle halt at the traffic signal near the end of Ajmer flyover. A long queue of cars means that the traffic shall not be able to clear soon. I don’t mind.
The radio has Vividh Bharti playing a segment “Ujale unki yadoon ke..” at this time of the day, around 4:00 pm. The legendary music director, Naushad, is doing what he is best at; spinning stories of his childhood in Lucknow, of his own marriage, of Mother India, of Mughal-e-Azam and of KL Sehgal and his drinking binges. Naushad, the musician is now an accomplished raconteur.
As I turn to right, Jaipur club approaches soon. Sullen, I get down the car, take my goggles and my tennis kit making sure to put the ignition off in the last, as I do not want to miss even a moment of the chaste Urdu pouring out of the radio. Finally, I pull out the keys. The tinkling of the car engine dies out slowly. I am left unfulfilled..
Time and again, these wonderful interviews have taken their listeners to the era of the Moghuls of cinema history, when the only access to them was either a Jaimala on radio, or Chitrhaar on Doordarshan or some Hindi film magazines, which were replete with cheap gossips of the film world with no literary claims to talk about the reading material they provided. But then, most of the times I miss out on these radio interviews, or am able to listen to them only in pieces, leaving a lot to be desired, a feeling of some unfinished task.
So, when flipping through the shelves at Crossword, I bumped into a book “Ye Un Dinon Ki Baat Hai” by Yasir Abbasi, I realised my search for a respectable and literary account of stories of cinema legends was over. Based on the memoirs from the Urdu magazines like Shama and Gulfam the book is a compiler’s delight for an obsessed and starved movie buff like me.
The section Khakey is based on pen portraits of Greats by Greats.
Meena Kumari by Nargis starts with ,” Meena maut Mubarak ho!” A very poignant start to the book. But sums up the persona that was Meena Kumari, who breathed just to die. The personal account by Nargis brings forth the longing which Meena Kumari indulged in to become a mother, but failed. When she changes the nappies of a toddler Sanjay in a Madras hotel during a shoot, one is reminded of the affection which Meena dripped with towards Bhootnath in Sahib, Biwi aur Gulam.
Kaifi Azmi writing about Sahir Ludhianvi mentions about the skepticism which had crept into Sahir’s temperament. If a girl wished him, he was worried about an increase in the list of his failures while if a girl actually loved him, then he got skeptic and wrote:
Teri saanson ki thakan, teri nigaahon ka sukoot, Dar-haqeeqat koi rangeen shararat hi na ho Main jise pyaar ka andaaz samajh baitha hoon, Woh Tabassum, woh takallum, teri aadat hi na ho. (The weariness in your breath, the silence in your glance, In truth, could all be a mischievous trick What I may consider signs of romance, Those smiles, that eloquence, could merely be your habit)
Suraiyya is written by the blatantly bold Ismat Chughtai who narrates about the legions of fans who lined in front of her bungalow and then aged with the star herself realising the stupidity of their wishful yearning for the star in their younger days. Described as stunning, Suraiyya’s beauty had the power of completely taking over the senses and was dawat-e-gunaah.
She had been a victim of the lustful stares of her directors and producers. But KL Sehgal was different. “Suraiyya ji,” he would say in such a sweet voice, “ achi to hain na ?”
The story of music director Jaidev takes one from Africa, his birth place, to Ludhiana, where he smoked and had tea with his friend Sahir Ludhianvi at Jagraon bridge in 1942, and finally to Bombay where he created soul- stirring magic with Allah Tero naam, ishwar tero naam, in Hum Dona and Tu Chanda main chandni in Reshma aur Shera but still could not get the credit which was his due, thanks once again to his friend Sahir. Jaidev’s long struggle in the film industry has been amply summed up by the following couplet penned by Dr Iqbal.
Tamanna aabroo ki hai agar Gulzaar-e-hasti mein,
To kaanton mein ulajh kar zindagi karne ki khoo kar le
(If you yearn for honour in the garden of life,
Then get used to living with thorns entwined)
Naushad remembers the temperamental but perfectionist K Asif while remembering the years of making of Mughal-e-Azam. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto would visit the sets daily for a week on the shooting of the song Mohe pan ghat par Nandlal Ched gayo re and enjoy the lunch with the unit as he shared great friendship with K Asif.
Writing of the song Pyar kiya to darna kya had many interesting alternatives like
Nigaahein neechi kiye, sar jhukaaye baithe hain,
Yehi to hain jo mera dil churaaye baithe hain..
After many dismissed trials, endless cups of tea, hundreds of wasted cigarettes buts and the whole night, the song was given the final and immortal shape.
When Shamshaad Begum came out of a Madras studio after singing a Tamil version of her song in the film Aan, she was trying to straighten her mouth using her hands. She said, “ Naushad Saheb, rendering this song has twisted not just my tongue but my whole mouth. Please keep me away from such songs in the future!”
Interestingly, Nasreen was recommended as heroine opposite KL Sehgal in A R Kardar’s Shahjahan in 1946 by BR Chopra in Lahore. In a strange quirk of fate Salma Agha, Nasreen’s daughter was introduced as the heroine in Chopra’s Muslim social Nikaah thirty five years later in 1982.
Then comes the story of Dharmender, the hero tipped akin to a Greek God. Sharing his story laced with witty humour, he remembers the day of the premier of his first movie Dil Bhi Tera Hum Bhi Tere featuring the Mukesh soulful song Mujhko Is Raat ki Tanhayion Mein, when the visitors and guests came to watch the movie in spunky cars while he had reached the theatre in a Bombay local!
The discovery of the innocent but shareer Geeta Bali was instantaneously spontaneous. Kidar Sharma went to meet her family staying in an outhouse of a bungalow in front of Ranjit Studios and was immediately taken in by her spunk. She rolled over laughing when she entered the room where Kidar Sharma sat precariously on a plank of wood. Sure that he might fall anytime she went hysterical. Though her family admonished her for her impoliteness, Kidar Sharma was struck by her impish and carefree attitude. An exceptional actress was born.
Manto as a friend, a human being and not a writer has been described by his friend Raja Mehdi Ali Khan who also takes a dig at their common friend Shyam, the handsome hero who met his early end in a tragic fall from the horseback during one of the film’s shooting.
Mumtaz or Madhubala strides across the memories of Naushad, Iftikhar and Kidar Sharma. Madhubala, the paragon of beauty and joy for ever, an emblem also of my childhood fantasy, adolescent dream, youthful Eros, and my life long yearning for loveliness beyond reach, companionship beyond compare, fulfilment beyond the headiest, widest, craziest expectation. Her Howrah bridge spells life’s bounty and sings heart’s aria.
The meeting of Kidar Sharma, who had written the dialogues of KL Sehgal’s Devdaas, with Mr Sarat Chand Chatterjee, the original writer of the novel Devdaas, evokes a sense of well-deserved pride in the dialogue writer. Incidentally, Kidar Sharma was also responsible for launching Raj Kapoor and Madhubala in their maiden film Neel Kamal.
I remember having read some excerpts of Javed Akhtar’s aap beeti in a series of articles by Mr Rajkumar Keshwani, the story teller par excellence, in Dainik Bhaskar, a few years ago. Unfortunately, Rajkumar was lost to Covid last year, leaving me as also his millions of readers longing to hear more from the film world in his inimitable style. But with this book, Javed is in full flow while writing in Shama. He goes on:
“For over a year now, I have been staying at Kamal studios. I sleep anywhere in the compound-the verandah, under a tree, on a bench, or in some corridor. Like me, there are other homeless and unemployed people too who live here….”
“…… These days I have got a room to sleep in. This room in the studio is covered with huge cupboards on all sides and they contain dozens of costumes from the film Pakeezah, Meena Kumari has separated from Kamal Saheb and so the shooting has come to a halt. One day, I find all kinds of footwear from the bygone era stacked in there. Lying along with them are three Filmfare awards won by Meena Kumari. It’s the first time I get to touch a film award. I clean the trophies and keep them back in their place. Every night from then onwards, I close the door of the room and, holding a trophy in front of a mirror, start imagining the day when I would win a trophy of my own. I deliberate over how I would smile and wave to the crowds…”
Candid and true confessions by Javed which reveal his almost nomadic existence initially along with his indulgence in drinking reminds one of Akbar Allahabadi writing:
Huay is qadar mohazzab, kabhi ghar ka munh na dekha,
Kati umr hotelon mein, marry aspataal jaa kar
(I grew too civilised to ever turn back home,
Life was spent away in hotels, death arrived at a hospital)
“Balya, hund Te too saada sahara hai” were lines as told to Baldev Dutt, Sunil Dutt later on, when he discovered his mother at a refugee camp in Ambala which he was visiting from Lucknow. The story of Baldev Dutt at a time when children and honour were being flung across by the tips of spears during partition is heart- wrenchingly told by Rahi Masoom Raza.
The unheard of controversies and lid being taken off certain personalities add spice to the usual pallid narrative of different characters. So when Meena Shorey, the Larra Lappa girl paints the giant of Director Sohrab Modi as her tormentor and her master, thanks to the initial contract signed between the two, one is pained to come across the slimy underbelly of the filmdom. The actress died lonely and pauper, her last rites performed with charity money.
Unmasking her plight she once wrote-
Studio jaati hoon to wohi log jo kal tak baday-baday daave karte thay, aaj un ki aankhein maathe par ja lagi hain. And the poignant fact, yahaan to Maan ka role Ada karne ke liye bhi jawaan hona zaroori hai.
At a place where bloom of youth is the yardstick, who cares for drooping shadows?
Ludmuk gaye Te yaraane tut gaye
(When downfall came about, The old ties snapped out)
The layout and the pictures in the book once again create the aura and mood of the golden era. And to top it all are the fantastic portraits done by Mrs Geeta Abbasi, giving a further archival edge to the while writings.
The chapters by the professional writers are the best; as they have been written with a set plan and there is an introduction, a story and finally a conclusion. The aap beeti section has memoirs which are more emotional than the khakey.
The beauty of these pieces or the language of Urdu is that these articles have been very candid in demonstrating the grit beneath the glamour; there is less of euphemism. Certain segments have Urdu pieces written in Roman language thus adding to the flavour of the book and keeping the aura of those times intact.
A wonderful assimilation of memories of yesteryears of celluloid world. Nostalgia for those who have lived through those times.