Tag: Kamal Amrohi

Pakeezah – The Courtesan’s Classic

By Mahendra Ved

What can one say about a film that took 16 years to make, its genre no longer popular when released, and its main attraction looking jaded, only a sad reminder of her resplendent beauty?

Well, you can say that despite these and numerous other debilities, it remains a classic that has grown with time. Fifty years after its release, Pakeezah (The Pure) continues to be viewed and debated by the discerning in the new century.

India was in a triumphant mood after the 1971 war when Pakeezah was released on February 2, 1972. People had no stomach for its deep melancholia. Romantic and opulent historical and “Muslim socials” of 1950s-60s (with notable exceptions Shatranj Ke Khiladi-1977, Junoon-1979 and Umrao Jaan-1981) were yielding place to contemporary themes. The “angry young man” was knocking at the cinema door.

After many expensive fits and starts, writer-director Kamal Amrohi barely managed to complete filming Meena Kumari, his estranged wife and muse. Both knew she was dying. Despite its rich artistic content and popular songs, Pakeezah flopped commercially. It marked the end of a life-time dream. Until…

Re-released after Meena Kumari died, just eight weeks later, on March 31, it stormed the cinema theatres. Not only were the fortunes revived and the fame restored, Pakeezah and Mena Kumari became synonymous. They overshadow her earlier acting triumphs and for that matter, also Amrohi’s outstanding films, with and without her.

Although it loses out in most departments except in music, Pakeezah often gets compared with Mughal-e-Azam (1960), a magnificent story of another bygone era, arguably one of the greatest films ever made in India.

ALSO READ: Unparalleled Reign Of Mughal e Azam

Many stories, real, apocryphal, even autobiographical, fuelled the making of both the films. Amrohi, appointed as one of the four writers for Mughal-e-Azam, abandoned Pakezaah because both had similar themes drawn from the Anarkali legend. Separated for five years from wife, he considered replacement. But he couldn’t imagine Pakeezah without Meena Kumari, and gave up again. Friends Nargis and Sunil Dutt helped their patch-up.

To lighten his burden, Amrohi engaged Satyen Bose, but couldn’t quit direction. Signing writers Akhtar-ul-Iman and Madhusudan led to disputes. He had to pay a fine to disengage with the latter. So, no Pakeezah without Amrohi as well.

The film’s German cinematographer, Joseph Wirsching, died in 1967. Technology switch was needed from Black & White to Eastmancolor. Composer Ghulam Mohammad died, requiring Naushad to complete the soundtrack, finally ‘arranged’ by Kersi Lord.

Pakeezah is the story of a tawaif, a courtesan. Unable to marry her lover Shahabuddin, she begets a girl-child before dying. Her sister Nawabjaan raises the child, grooms her as a dancer. The love story repeats, this time between Sahibjaan and Salim, a forest officer, also a nephew of Shahabuddin.

Family patriarch, common to both situations, rejects Sahibjaan. He shoots Shahabuddin who, shamed by Nawabjaan, wants to redeem himself. After this blood-letting, Salim has his way. He marries Sahibjaan, his Pakeezah. A poignant ending with justice, a rarity, for a courtesan.

Thanks to frustrating time-loss in production, Ashok Kumar, signed to play Salim, grown old, had to play Shahbuddin. From ‘stars’ of the day — Dharmendra, Raaj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Sunil Dutt, and Pradeep Kumar – Amrohi chose Dharmendra as Salim. But well into shooting, he found the wife getting on “too well” with Dharmendra, enough to distract filming. There were rumours galore. The possessive husband-director dropped Dharmendra.

It was finally Raaj Kumar. He sees Sahibjaan sleeping on a moving train. Smitten, he leaves a note between her foot thumb and finger: “Aapke paon dekhe, bahut haseen hain. Inhein zameen par mat utariyega… maile ho jaayenge” (Your feet are really beautiful. Do not step on the ground… lest they be soiled). The dialogue is rated as one of the most romantic/erotic scenes in Indian cinema.

When released, the courtesan culture, the kothas of Lucknow et al, were passé. Not that there was no room for romanticism. But India was ready for another theme, Garam Hawa (Hot Winds-1973), about the plight of a Muslim businessman and his family, in the aftermath of the 1947 Partition. Only a year separated it from Pakeezah.

However, these “hot winds” couldn’t dampen the romance of Pakeezah and its songs. They also blew across the border from an aspiring India to a just-truncated Pakistan. Thankfully, Pakeezah helped a catharsis between the neighbours.

End-1972, I witnessed an India-Pakistan border “flag meeting”. A Pakistan Army officer, with roots in India’s Moradabad, half-seriously urged his Indian counterparts tasked to remove the explosives on the minefield, to “leave one mine only to be cleared by me, with a gramophone record of Pakeezah songs concealed underneath”.

India’s Doordarshan telecast Pakeezah from its Amritsar centre on September 29, 1973. Columnist Ibn-e-Imroze wrote in Daily Imroze: “The day Pakeezah was televised, Lahore cinemas wore a deserted look. Black-marketers sold their tickets even below the face value. Lahorewallahs had resisted (India’s) 1965 and 1971 attacks, but surrendered to this invasion of 1973. People invaded TV shops. Those who could not get one, fixed bamboo antennae on the roofs of their houses (to watch direct telecast), to console their frustrated feelings. Traffic came to a halt, pockets were picked, even doctors said to their patients: ‘If you remain alive till then, I’ll see you tomorrow. Today I am going to see Pakeezah’.”

To anyone with an ear for music, the film’s pull is undeniable. Among those gems, alas, Inhin Logon Ne seems plagiarised. It can be heard on Youtube in Shamshad Begum’s voice, sung for a 1941 film Himmat. The lyric is by Aziz.

Film analyst Gautam Kaul writes: Majrooh Sultanpuri had stolen the lyric from Aziz for Ghulam Mohammed, a contemporary of Pandit Gobind Ram, the original composer from the Lahore School.

Cut to 1972. Kaul notes: “It is the same kotha, the same assembly of men, the same musical score, the same song, the same Kathak style, but it is Technicolour, and a bloated Meena Kumari, with leathered skin due to constant drinking, is attempting to dance. The dancing isn’t a patch on the rendition by the light-footed young actress Manorama in the original.”

Truth be told, Meena Kumari was too sick to dance. She was filmed sitting. Padma Khanna performed all her dance movements, not credited to any choreographer.

None of these prevented the film’s earning five times the sum spent on production. Its soundtracks sold the best across Asia and topped the popularity charts of Radio Ceylon’s Binaca Geetmala, then a decisive benchmark.

Chalte Chalte, “Aaj hum apni duaon ka asar and Thaade rahiyo, for which she designed the costumes, remain the most memorable song-and-dance performances. A storm of protests from the film fraternity damned Filmfare that denied awards to Pakeezah because its leading contenders were dead.

In 2005, the British academic Rachel Dwyer called Mena Kumari’s character a “quintessentially romantic figure: a beautiful but tragic woman, who pours out her grief for the love she is denied in tears, poetry and dance.”

Meena Kumari’s fee for acting in Pakeezah was one sovereign gold coin. Kamal Amrohi gave that to his dying wife. She clutched it till she passed away, never able to see it or the released film. Pakeezah was truly, Meena Kumari’s film.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

Unparalleled Reign Of Mughal-e-Azam

By Mahendra Ved

Mughal-e-Azam, released six decades ago on August 5, 1960, remains a landmark for the Indian cinema. It can also be a mark to measure much that happened then and is happening now.

Twelfth years into the independence, despite problems galore, a poverty-stricken India had proved the Winston Churchills wrong by staying united and ticking. The world was taking note of its global affairs (Korea, Non-Aligned Movement, UN peacekeeping and more) and achievements in art and culture (Ravi Shankar, Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray and more). Even critics like Nirad Chowdhury and V S Naipaul couldn’t ignore India. Jawaharlal Nehru was leading a secular democracy, howsoever flawed.   

Six decades hence, the world’s largest democracy and movie-making nation (majority bad ones) does have a global reach. It is economically stronger with a bigger place in a more complex, competitive, world. But its image as a pluralist, inclusive nation that the world has known and come to expect has taken a beating. It is becoming the anti-thesis of what Mughal-e-Azam was and is all about.

The story of Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar (1556-1605 AD) the third Mughal Emperor, his Hindu Queen Jodhabai and their only son Salim, later to become Emperor Jehangir, was and is celebrated for depicting mutual respect and tolerance among the Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects. History calls Akbar ‘Great’ because rather than fight them, he had consciously struck alliances with the Rajput rulers. The film makes no claims to historical accuracy, though. But the anniversary comes when its ethos is being challenged and history itself is sought to be re-written.

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Rachel Dwyer, author of the book “Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema”, says Mughal-e-Azam highlights religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims. Her examples include scenes depicting the presence of Queen Jodhabai, a woman and a Hindu, in Akbar’s court. Anarkali, the courtesan Salim loves and to get whom he rebels against the father, sings a Hindu devotional song.  

Celebrating Janmashtami, Akbar is shown pulling a string to rock a swing with Krishna’s idol. Film critic Mukul Kesavan writes that he was unable to recall a single other film about Hindu-Muslim love in which the woman is a Hindu.

One sequence needs citing. Durjan Singh, Salim’s Hindu military aide, is seriously wounded while rescuing Anarkali from prison. On his death, the Hindu priests and doctors let Anarkali pay last respects to her saviour. She spreads on him her dupatta, the ultimate symbol of modesty for a traditional Muslim woman.

The film’s other theme is justice. A vanquished Salim is arraigned before the court and offered a pardon provided he abandons Anarkali. He defies and is sent to gallows. Akbar keeps word given to Anarkali’s mother, the maid who had brought him the news of Salim’s birth. He circumvents his own order to bury Anarkali alive, lets her escape into exile and suffers the odium.

The film was released amidst great fanfare and expectations.  A 12 year-old, I remember seeing the milling crowds before a huge cut-out of Akbar and Salim in full battle gear outside the newly-built Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai.  

Ranked as India’s ‘greatest’ by film historians, the film held the record of being, both, the most expensive and also the biggest grosser at the box office for 15 years. India has not seen anything so grand and opulent, before and since. Indeed, everything about it was excessive, surpassing all film-making norms.

It would arguably hold the record of taking the longest to complete if counted from being conceived by a young Karim Asif in 1944 to being shelved during the Partition turmoil, a complete change of the star cast and even a financier, and taking almost nine years to complete. 

Shapoorji Pallonji, a newbie to film financing, agreed to produce and finance solely because of his interest in Akbar. He, too, had doubts when the budget of each department of the film exceeded. He never financed another film.

Dilip Kumar, perhaps the only survivor of the mega project, when he could talk (in his late 90s, he cannot any more), said in a 2010 interview that the long period became of no consequence to those involved as each person was deeply committed.

He played a largely subdued Salim to theatrical Prithviraj Kapoor (Akbar) and Durga Khote (Jodhabai). Dilip had reservations about acting in a period film, but was assured a free hand. “Asif trusted me enough to leave the delineation of Salim completely to me,” Dilip said in his 2010 that interview.  By contrast, Madhubala who was keen on the role, pipped Suraiya to it.

The soundtrack was inspired by Indian classical and folk music and composed by Naushad. Of 20 songs, some had to be left out. Included was a rendering by the legendary Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. He reportedly charged ₹25,000 when Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar took ₹300 per song.

ALSO READ: Forever Fragrance Of Kaagaz Ke Phool

The theme based on a 1922 play by Imtiaz Ali Taj attracted many, from a ‘silent’ one to a ‘talkie’ by Ardeshir Irani. When Asif’s project was seen as abandoned, one of his writers, also a director, Kamal Amrohi, planned to make a film on the same subject. Asif convinced him to shelve it. The same play prompted Nandlal Jaswantlal’s Anarkali, starring Bina Rai and Pradeep Kumar. With memorable songs, it became the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1953.

Made in black-and-white, Mughal-e-Azam had a seven minute song-and-dance sequence, “pyar kiya toh darna kya”, shot in colour. The set conceived as sheesh mahal (glass palace) was fitted with numerous small mirrors made of Belgian glass. It took two years to build and cost more than ₹1.5 million (valued at about US$314,000 in 1960), more than the cost of an entire film in colour those days.

The mirrors’ excessive glare made filming difficult. Wikipedia records that foreign consultants, including British director David Lean, advised Asif to drop the idea.  But Asif spent days to have wax applied to each mirror to reduce the glare.

Lachhu Maharaj was on board for choreography and Gopi Krishna performed. Among the myriad problems was one of a seriously ailing Madhubala not being able to deliver on intricate Kathak moves when it came to girki (spinning one’s body). A male dancer, Laxmi Narayan, performed that portion. He wore a mask matching her face made by Mumbai craftsman B R Khedekar.  

Besides Amrohi, three of the best film writers of the day, Amanullah Aman, Wajahat Mirza and Ehsan Rizvi were on board. None knows how they collaborated. Their “mastery over Urdu’s poetic idiom and expression is present in every line, giving the film, with its rich plots and intricate characters, the overtones of a Shakespearean drama,” Times of India wrote on the film’s 50th anniversary.

The battle scenes used 2,000 camels, 400 horses, and 8,000 troops, mainly from the Indian Army’s Jaipur Cavalry, 56th Regiment. Bollywood could not better those scenes for several years despite technological advances. 

Many fell sick filming it in Rajasthan’s desert. Armour and weapons were borrowed from the Jaipur royalty. But even the burly Prithviraj found them too heavy. Aluminum replicas were got made.

Each sequence was filmed three times as the film was being produced in Hindi/Urdu with plans for Tamil, and English versions. Dubbed in Tamil and released in 1961 entitled Akbar, it flopped commercially. Asif abandoned the English version for which he had engaged Romesh Thapar and British actors.  

Years later in 2004, Mughal-e-Azam became the first black-and-white Hindi film to be digitally coloured, and the first in any language to be given a theatrical re-release. The colour version was also a commercial success.

Speculation abounds on its cost. It has ranged from cost ₹10.5 million (about US$2.25 million at the time) to ₹15 million (about $3 million). That made Mughal-e-Azam the most expensive Indian film of the period.

There is more to and about the film than the space here can accommodate. As a piece of cinema-art, it is impossible to recreate those conditions. Investors, national and global, are too conservative and calculating to afford and risk such a venture.

There is no Asif, the talented and passionate, but highly erratic man, to rally the best writers, composers, cinematographers and actors. Are audiences ready? 

Mughal-e-Azam came in an era when Hollywood too was making films that were grand spectacles. It doesn’t any more. The way Asif made it, warts and all, could itself be the subject for a mega film. But then, India long ago stopped making a film like Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) that, by sheer coincidence, was on the life of a film-maker.

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com