Nargis-Sunil Dutt: A real life romance

Shyam Bhatia | October 20, 2003 19:14 IST


Sunil Dutt's late wife, the famed actress Nargis, is part of his every waking hour; sometimes, she also appears in his dreams.



He sees her in the eyes of his son, actor Sanjay Dutt, in the activities of the cancer foundation he has established in her name, in the reels of the old films where they acted together and which he has lovingly stored in the privacy of their Mumbai home.

Twenty-two years after Nargis lost her battle against cancer, Duttsaab, as he is known to millions of his fans, opened his heart to tell rediff.com about one of Hindi cinema's greatest real life romances.

Asked if he married Nargis when she was on the rebound from her alleged affair with Raj Kapoor, Dutt says simply, "I never knew there was a romance. The only thing I knew was that she came into my life. I was not concerned about her past. I know these questions arise. But I am concerned about the person who comes in my life; what matters from that day on is how true the person is to me. The past is nothing to me."

The setting for our conversation is the luxurious Grosvenor House Hotel in Central London, where Dutt is stopping over on his way back to Mumbai from a fund-raising trip in the United States.

Twenty-four hours earlier, when we met at a gala dinner, the 74-year-old actor-politician had agreed to talk about his wife and family.



When Nargis and Sunil Dutt first met on the sets of Balraj Sahni's Do Bigha Zameen, he was a student and an aspiring actor and she was already an established star. But they did not get married until several years later, soon after they starred as mother and son in Mehboob Khan's 1957 classic, Mother India.

"In my career I met so many movie stars, but starting a life together and building a home goes beyond all other relationships," he explains. "I found in her a human being and a woman who would take care of my family. I found in my wife both compassion and understanding.

"My sister had fallen ill and I was a raw guy; I didn't know any doctors in Bombay where I was then working. Without telling me, she took my sister to a doctor and got her operated. I thought this is a person who will make a better home for me and will do a lot of things for my family, which she did."

The two came from very different backgrounds. Dutt was the son of a Punjabi land-owning family who lost their land to Pakistan and had to rebuild their lives and homes in independent India.

Nargis was the daughter of Jaddanbai, a Muslim thumri singer from Allahabad, and Mohan Babu, a Hindu from Rawalpindi who never achieved his ambition of becoming a doctor.

Some memories of their life together, Dutt says, can never be forgotten. One of them was his wife's unfulfilled ambition to be a doctor.

"My wife wanted to do what her father never finished; she wanted to become a doctor," he explains. "But she was offered a job as an actress at a time when she was too young to decide for herself. Her mother told her to try it and she shot up and became a very great star. But she always wanted to be a doctor and that's why, even when she became a big star, she always used to go to hospitals, especially cancer hospitals, to take care of the patients and meet them and meet the doctors."

It was ironic that when Nargis herself was stricken with cancer, the medical profession could do nothing to save her.

At one point when she lay dying in a New York hospital, the doctors advised Dutt to switch off her life support system because she had been in a coma for months; they warned she would only survive as a vegetable.

He refused. To his amazement, she came out of her coma and seemed to recover. "Her brain scanning was done, there was no damage, she had perfect memory," Dutt recalls. "The only thing she didn't remember was how long she had been in coma and we never told her.

"When she recovered, she always told me I could afford to take her abroad for treatment but there were many people in India who were dying of such illnesses because of lack of treatment. She said, 'If I live, I will go and tell the prime minister that such help should be available to the poor people in every state of our country'."

Fast forward to May 1981. This time, Nargis was dying. Son Sanjay's debut film, Rocky, was to be released on May 7 and Nargis wanted to be present at the premiere.

"She told me, 'Whatever it is, even if you have to carry me on a stretcher or in a wheelchair, I want to see the premiere of my son's movie'," Dutt recalls. "I made all the arrangements and had an ambulance, stretcher and wheelchair. We kept a seat for her next to Sanjay. But she never made it. She died on May 3."



It was Sanjay, their son, who was most affected by his mother's death. "He was young at the time and very attached to his mother," says Dutt. "I don't know what was going on in his mind. Rocky became a hit and he didn't know whether to celebrate or to cry. He was young and he took to drugs."

"I came to know later and I spent three to three-and-a-half years to get him out. I took him to America, I took him everywhere for treatment. When he was clean, I told him, 'Now I am not going to make any movie with you. You are on your own, you have to find a job yourself.'

"For one year, nobody came to him. All he did was play squash and see movies at home. Then, one day, somebody came. He was not a very big filmmaker, but Sanjay accepted the film and never looked back. He rose to such heights till Khalnayak. The media started calling him Amitabh Bachchan's successor.

"Then his problems started, he got involved with the bomb blast case; he was in jail for one-and-a-half months. After he came out, people stopped coming to him again. But he started working. Today, Sanjay is known as the most dependable of actors. In between, his wife died of cancer. So you can imagine a man on whom there is so much stress... He was a young guy, I don't blame him."

Asked how life's tragedies have affected Sanjay's work, Dutt responds, "The pressures have made him mature and he has dissolved those agonies in his work. He has put everything into his work and that has really helped him. He has done it subconsciously.

"Today, if you see his movies, he does any type of role that is given to him perfectly. If it's a comedy, he does comedy. If it's a romantic scene, he does that too. Or he is a toughie. The people of the country have accepted him in all kinds of roles. Even the actors... a man like Amitabh Bachchan has taken Sanjay in his movie [AB Corp's first movie, Ranveer, which was launched on Amitabh's birthday, also stars Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan].

"I have never heard a complaint against him in the film world. If someone like a lightman or a small worker is getting married, he will give money. He's known to be like this, he has no air of stardom. In the studio, he will share a cup of tea with the lightman or the soundman, he will sip from the same cup. He smokes their bidis."

Sunil Dutt also got involved in politics. Three years after his wife died, he was in New York and was awoken in his hotel room with the news of Mrs Indira Gandhi's assassination.

As his plane hovered over Delhi, he could see the city burning; the riots that ensued after Mrs Gandhi's assassination brought back painful memories of Partition.

"When Rajiv Gandhi told me he wanted me to stand for elections, I thought it would be a good launching pad to express my thinking about India's unity," he says. Since then he has been a loyal member of the Congress Party, a successful MP and an indefatigable activist in the cause of national and world peace.

He does not say it in so many words, but what motivates him is the spirit of his wife. She has been the driving force behind his efforts to set up the Nargis Dutt Memorial Fund, which has collected millions of dollars for cancer victims in India. She has been with him every step of his way as an MP. It was Nargis who guided him in the way he cared for their son.

Next month, art imitates life when Sunil Dutt returns to the big screen as his son's father in Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Munnabhai MBBS.

It is only a small role, Duttsaab explains, but he is doing it because he loves his son and he knows Nargis would approve.


Reference Source

Dinesh Raheja



Whereas most actors have one definitive forte, Nargis won over 1950s audiences and critics with strikingly versatile characterisations. She could kindle soft-focus romance in Raj Kapoor costarrers like Barsaat and Awaara. She could also be the messy-haired matriarch in the epic Mother India, benevolent but with a will of unalloyed steel.

Famous for her effervescent personality offscreen (she could be an apostle of philantrophy but also a termagent who could give a tongue-lashing if crossed), Nargis did not confine herself to just domesticity and motherhood even after retirement. Her niece, actress Zaheeda remembered, "She was a thinking person. She spoke beautiful English and and could mix with the cream of society." Nargis channelised her non-histrionic talents for social work, especially for the Spastics Society and as a member the Rajya Sabha.

Nargis' Landmark Films With Dilip Kumar
Year Film
1948 Mela
1949 Andaaz
1950 Jogan
1950 Babul
1951 Deedar

Born to film actress and singer Jaddanbai, Nargis spent her childhood in the Mumbai locality of Marine Drive and went to Queen Mary's school. She acted as Baby Rani in her mother's film Talaash e Haq (1935), before making her debut as a heroine opposite Motilal in Mehboob Khan's Taqdeer (1943).

Taqdeer was a tepid success and didn't change Nargis's own taqdeer [fate] instantly. Nargis wasn't much of a singer (in the early 1940s, singing abilities were still a major plus for heroines). Also, she was only 14, much younger than the leading male stars of the 1940s like Saigal, Ashok Kumar and Prithviraj Kapoor. The Baby Rani tag still clung to her and, in fact, 'Baby' was her nickname which endured till late in her life.

In 1948, when Nargis starred with fellow youngsters Dilip Kumar (Mela) and Raj Kapoor (Aag) for the first time, was to be the turning point in her life. And Mehboob Khan's superhit, Andaaz in 1949 was the film that shot Nargis to superstardom especially when it was quickly succeeded by the Raj Kapoor blockbuster Barsaat (1949).

Nargis' Landmark Films With Raj Kapoor
Year Film
1949 Andaaz
1949 Barsaat
1951 Awaara
1952 Anhonee
1955 Shri 420
1956 Chori Chori

Striking, rather than conventionally beautiful, Nargis scored in these films with her unmistakable vitality and the sheer naturalism of her portrayals, whether it was the forlorn village girl of Barsaat or the conflicted modern miss of Andaaz puzzling over the labyrithine intricacies of her married life (with Raj Kapoor) and her platonic friendship (with Dilip Kumar).

Nargis was obviously comfortable in front of the camera now and eager to imbibe and question. She integrated her habit of sniffing into Barsaat and employed a sniffing mannerism for her character. For Jogan (1950) she cut off her long nails to stay within the character and endured wearing false nails for other films.

With Suraiya and Kamini Kaushal and later, Madhubala and Nalini Jaywant providing worthy competition, the still-in-her-20s Nargis was the soul of professionalism who would shoot even with high fever. She worked in as many as ten films in 1950.

Awaara (1951) may have had Raj Kapoor in the title role but Nargis had a memorable role too. Besides the warm girlfriend of the vagabond hero (their moonlit romantic scenes are to sigh for); she was also the hard-nosed lawyer who fights for the hero in a predominantly male courtroom.

After Awaara's thumping success, the Nargis-Raj Kapoor association reached its peak. For several years, Nargis starred only opposite Raj Kapoor. The duo made a further splash with Anhonee (1952), Shri 420 (1955) and Chori Chori (1956). When Awaara was released in 1954 in Russia, it was a huge success.

Nargis was always game to take on challenges. With Vyjayanthimala's twinkle-toed entry into films, Nargis brushed up on her rusty dancing and sportingly did the the Chori Chori puppet song Jahan bhi jaati hoon wohi chale aate ho. She agreed to do a one-song cameo (Jaago Mohan pyaare) and imparted a fitting serenity that wrapped up Jagte Raho (1956), which was, incidentally, her last film with Raj Kapoor.

Nargis moved out of the Kapoor ambit and took on Mother India (1957). Director Mehboob Khan made this unfailingly-moving rural epic on a grand scale. Nargis's performance as the earth mother who shoots down her beloved son, has made the appeal of the seeped in colour and emotion film eternal.

Though Meena Kumari had come up with a terrific performance the same year in Sharda,where she played a mother to Raj Kapoor, Nargis won the award for Mother India and also an ineluctable place in film history. She was awarded the Padmashree in 1958.


Famous songs of Nargis

Song Film Singers

Tod diya dil mera -- Andaaz -- Lata Mangeshkar
O! mujhe kisise pyar ho gaya -- Barsaat -- Lata Mangeshkar
Ghunghat ke pat khol -- Jogan -- Geeta Dutt
Kisike dil mein rehna tha - Babul -- Lata Mangeshkar, Shamshad Begum
Dum bhar jo udhar mooh phere -- Awaara -- Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh
Raja ki aayegi baraat -- Aah --Lata Mangeshkar
Pyar hua iqrar hua -- Shri 420 -- Lata Mangeshkar, Manna Dey
Aaja sanam madhur chaandi mein -- Chori Chori Lata Mangeshkar, Manna Dey
Jaago Mohan pyaare jaago -- Jagte Raho -- Lata Mangeshkar
Duniya mein hum aaye hai toh -- Mother India -- Lata Mangeshkar
Unko yeh shikayat hai -- Adalat -- Lata Mangeshkar
Dil ki girah khol do -- Raat Aur Din -- Lata Mangeshkar, Manna Dey


Mother India also won for Nargis a husband -- Sunil Dutt. Dutt, who played her son onscreen, became her partner in real life after he intrepidly plunged in and saved her from an on-the-sets fire. When the shy Dutt would come to pay Nargis a visit, he would be constantly be looking down and Nargis's teenaged nieces would jocularly remark, "I think he is rather fond of our Persian carpets."

On March 11, 1958, Nargis and Dutt married each other.

Nargis retired from the screen and the following year, in 1959, gave birth to Sanjay Dutt. There were several tempting offers but save for her brother's long-delayed split-personality drama Raat Aur Din (1967), Nargis refused them all. She immersed herself in playing motherhood and got involved in social welfare activities.

With Sunil Dutt by her side she fought a courageous battle against cancer in New York. In May 1981, just as her son Sanjay's debut film Rocky was about to be released, she succumbed.

Nargis' Landmark Films
Except for Mother India (1957) where she was paired with Raaj Kumar, most of Nargis's successes have been with either Raj Kapoor or Dilip Kumar.

Reference Rource

ABOUT THE FOUNDATION

Nargis Dutt Memorial Foundation was established in 1981 in memory of Nargis Dutt, a famous movie star of India. She was a very caring human being whose dream was to see that the best available medical care can also be provided to people who are poor and needy.

While undergoing specialized medical treatment in New York for cancer, Mrs. Dutt articulated her dream and repeatedly expressed her regret that the medical care that she was able to receive was unavailable in her motherland. Her deep concern for the sick and disabled led her to set definite goals toward making improved medical services available to the poorest in India. She already had considerable work to her credit in the care, rehabilitation and education of handicapped children in India. Unfortunately, she did not live long enough to see the evolution of her dream. Her husband Sunil Dutt and many concerned friends are pursuing the goals that keep Nargis' dream alive.


AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To improve and upgrade medical care and treatment of all persons. (payments for direct medical care are not made)

To improve the care and education of handicapped children in or from the Indian subcontinent.

To provide financial support for the training and education of the staff necessary to carry out the above.


MEMBERSHIP

Any person who is at least 18 years of age, of good character and interested in the purposes of the foundation, willing to uphold its policies and subscribe to its by laws may become a member of the Foundation after:

Submitting a written and signed application to the Foundation's Membership Committee, in the form provided by the Committee and/or Board of Directors.

Receiving a favorable recommendation for membership from the Membership Committee.

Paying such dues as may be required. Membership fess are currently:
Life Member: $250.00
Annual Member $50.00

Reference Source

Nargis was a great actress but never 1 of my fave!

I have seen many of her movies. She is one of my favourites.

Friday, June 17, 2005

The Sexy 60s

The style statements are sneaking back as Retro ? not to mention the splash of colour and the dash to foreign locations. By Dinesh Raheja and Jitendra Kothari

Snowy-haired Durga Khote dispensed this piece of immortal wisdom: "Soorat sau nu, kapda hazaar nu, zevar laakh nu?aur nakhra karod nu!" She was trying to transform her frumpy granddaughter Sadhana in Love in Simla (1960). Soon it seemed as if all heroines of the 60s took this piece of advice to heart.

Hindi film actresses had always relied on glamour but the 60s mod squad simply redefined what it meant to be chic. Clamouring for attention were Sadhana, Asha Parekh, Saira Banu, Babita and Sharmila Tagore. Sadhana's widely popular fringe launched a thousand snips and young girls began to take serious note of the fashions depicted in films. Actresses in foot-high bouffants, out-there eyeliner, multi-hued lipsticks and tourniquet-tight salwar kameezes spawned look-alikes all over the country. So, if glamour was your cup of tea, here was the entire teapot.

The girls of the 60s perfected the art of artifice and adopted affectations. In the song, Chhalke teri aankhon se, from Aarzoo (1965), Sadhana actually fluttered her eyelashes to the beat of the music. In Dus Lakh (1967), Babita perfected the moue and the limp-wristed rebuff to the hero. And when Sharmila arched her neck gracefully and said, "Don't be silly," in the song, Aasmaan se aaya farishta, from An Evening in Paris (1968), she became the chief exponent of style.

The popularity of this glossy posse of actresses had a context. By the 60s, a new middle class, an affluent elite and a large populace aspiring to belong to either of these two classes had emerged even in socialist India. At the same time, heroines no longer came via the stage or economically depressed backgrounds to the film industry. The 50s had provided the intermediary stage with heroines like Nargis, Vyjayanthimala and Nutan (offspring of prosperous actress mothers Jaddanbai, Vasundhara Devi and Shobana Samarth, respectively), who had studied in posh schools. This paved the way, in the 60s, for girls from middle class families to enter films. Actresses like Asha Parekh, Sadhana, Sharmila Tagore and Hema Malini, who came from privileged backgrounds, were thus able to portray the perkiness demanded of them by the frothy musical romances of the decade.

BBuffeted by these changes, even the senior heroines were coerced into glamourising themselves. From the rustic Dhanno of Gunga Jumna (1961), Vyjayanthimala blossomed into the fashion plate of Sangam (1964), and even did a cabaret to Main ka karoon Ram. Mala Sinha mysteriously dropped several pounds and emerged svelte in a skin-tight gown in Aankhen. Nanda dried her tears and turned into a memsahib in Jab Jab Phool Khile. Even the artlessly elegant Waheeda Rehman donned Western dresses for Baazi. Meena Kumari gave in to the eyeliner and stuffed herself into a tight salwar kameez in Chandan Ka Palna (1967), the year in which most of the hits starred the 60s brat pack of Saira Banu, Babita and Asha Parekh.

A factor that led to the advent of the glamour girls was the rapid march of colour films in the 60s. The sartorial limitations imposed by the black and white films were instantly tossed aside for Eastman cinematography demanded Eastman colours. However, colour bought in its wake a certain trivialisation in the issues that Hindi films explored. Many 60s films were high on surface gloss but low on subtext. They exploited the aspirational desires of the audience while maintaining a safe distance from ground realities and films seemed to exist within a hermetically sealed alternate reality.

Extracted from Indian Cinema: The Bollywood Saga by Dinesh Raheja and Jitendra Kothari; Lustre Press/ Roli Books; Rs 1,975



Dev Anand and Hema Malini in Johny Mera Naam;


Saira Banu



Sadhana and Raaj Kumar in Waqt



Nargis



Mala Sinha and Dharmendra in Ankhen



Raj Kapoor and Vyjyanthimala in Sangam



Mumtaz


PHOREN SHOTS

The Sangam Effect put the jet into them

Call it the Sangam effect. Before this Raj Kapoor extravaganza with an extended honeymoon sequence shot in Switzerland became a through-the-roof blockbuster in 1964, it was the rare film like 1954's Naaz (Ashok Kumar, Nalini Jaywant) that ventured out of India for a film shoot. Sangam opened the floodgates for a 60s trend that snowballed into a Swiss-style blizzard. Soon, Brindaban gardens and the chinars of Kashmir were not enough. And even modestly budgeted films like Night in London, Pyar Ka Sapna and Spy in Rome were eyeing foreign shores. Here's remembering some of those exotic eye-fillers.

SANGAM (1964): Amidst the fun-filled sledding sequences in Switzerland between newly-weds Raj Kapoor and Vyjayanthimala, Kapoor captured the bitter reunion between Vyjayanthi and Rajendra Kumar with the magnificent Jungfrau waterfall in the background.

LOVE IN TOKYO (1966): A smash hit that paraded Asha Parekh in a kimono and introduced Indians to the word, Sayonara.

AMAN (1967): Pacifist-philosopher Bertrand Russell, no less, made an appearance in this Japan-based Rajendra Kumar-Saira Banu starrer that nixed nukes in a post-Hiroshima world.

AROUND THE WORLD (1967): Raj Kapoor attempted a modernday Phileas Fogg. Sidelight: Heroine Rajshree found her future husband, an American called Greg Chapman, while on a stopover in Hawaii.

JEWEL THIEF (1967): Dev Anand captured the mystique of remote Sikkim, then not a part of India.

AN EVENING IN PARIS (1968): Paris landmarks like Moulin Rouge stole the show from Shammi Kapoor cavorting with Sharmila.

AANKHEN (1968): After James Bond became an international phenomenon with Dr No (1963) Indian spy films like Farz (1967) tried to place the (gold)finger on the pulse of the audience. Aankhen, a Ramanand Sagar hit starring Dharmendra-Mala Sinha, also told a tale of international intrigue and subterfuge that took it to Hong Kong and Japan.


Reference Source

Sunday, April 27, 2003 Lead Article

Remembering a legend
A paean to Mother India
M. L. Dhawan



The death anniversary of Nargis falls on May 3



NARGIS, the daughter of Jaddanbai and Mohan Babu, was born on June 1, 1929, as Fatima A. Rashid. She was introduced to films as Baby Rani in Talash-E-Haq. Nargis was not trained in any film institute. It was in the school of life that she learnt to observe human beings, their follies, foibles, strengths and weaknesses.

At the age of 14, Nargis worked in Mehboob Khan's Taqdeer opposite Motilal. Taqdeer heralded the arrival of an actress of immense merit. In Mehboob Khan's Himayun, where Nargis played a commoner, Hamida Bano, with whom Himayun (Ashok Kumar) fell in love, the actress gave an exquisite performance.

With her spontaneity and ease in front of the camera, Nargis set standards of competence. In Mehboob Khan's Andaaz Nargis broke the prevailing norms and played the modern miss to perfection. The mirror scene where she questioned the ambivalence of her own feelings was the hallmark of her histrionic ability.

After Andaaz Nargis became an integral part of Raj Kapoor's cinematic ventures, playing all kinds of characters, whether it was the devoted beloved in Aag, Barsaat and Aah, a defending lawyer in Awaara, his conscience in Shri 420 and Jagte Raho. The Raj Kapoor - Nargis pairing in some 16 films made them the most adored cinema ˜couple' of their time. They gave romance a new dimension.

Nargis endeared herself to the masses with her trademark mannerisms; the knuckle of her forefinger in her slightly open mouth or the tossing back of her hair when it fell across the brow into her languid eyes. Her verve, vigour and versatility earned her the reputation of being a sensitive artiste. She lent emotional colour to black and white movies like Babul, Ashiana, Jan Pehchan, Sheesha, Anokha Pyar, Meena Bazar etc.

In Anhonee, she used contrasting histrionics and body language to portray the disparity between twin sisters who were poles apart, socially and emotionally. In Deedar and Bewaffa, Nargis stood shoulder to shoulder with titans like Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar and Raj Kapoor, confidence writ large on her face.

Once before the camera, Nargis merged into the character she played. She was the woman who cocked a snook at disapproving eyes as the swimsuit - clad heroine of Awara, found pleasure in the company of two men in Andaaz and drew approbation for her role of Surabha, a mendicant, in Kidar Sharma's Jogan. At a time when stylised and affected acting was the norm, Nargis as Nirmala in Adalat was natural and spontaneous.

In her films Nargis projected the image of a woman who could be desired as well as deified. As Radha in Mehboob Khan's Mother India, Nargis imbued divinity to motherhood/womanhood. In the climax scene when Radha guns down her fugitive son Birju (Sunil Dutt), the feelings of seething anguish and tearing rage on her face are to be seen to be believed. Mother India remains a crowning glory for Nargis as an actress. The image of Nargis balancing a plough on her fragile shoulders simply refuses to fade away from the memory of the cinegoers.

Mother India was also significant for Nargis personally. Though the popular belief is that Sunil Dutt married her after he saved Nargis from the blazing fire on the sets of the film, the reason is different. During the making of Mother India, Sunil's sister was detected with tubercular gland. While Sunil was busy shooting the film, Nargis got her operated upon. That was when he proposed to her. On March 11, 1958, they got married.

Nargis preferred roles/films in which she was not obliged to follow the beaten track. After nine years of marriage, Nargis returned to films with Satyan Bose's Raat Aur Din. Maturity only made her beauty more fascinating. She was now a lived - in face, not just a mannequin.

With her National Award-winning performance of a split personality in this film, Nargis bid adieu to showbiz.

Years later, Nargis underwent treatment for the cancer of the pancreas at Solane Kettering Hospital in New York (USA). When her condition deteriorated upon her return to India, she was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital in Bombay. She sank into a coma on May 2, 1981 and breathed her last on Sunday, May 3, 1981. Her absence at the premiere of her son's (Sanjay Dutt) debut film Rocky on May 7, 1981, where one seat was kept vacant for her, was an unforgettable event. Strangely, her presence was felt even more in her absence.


Reference Source

Why Nargis Matters
Written by KKB
Saturday, 23 December 2006
By T.J.S. George




The significance of stars who go beyond their immediate career demands and become part of a larger artistic current, be they Greta Garbo or Humphrey Bogart, Devika Rani or Nargis, needs to be examined in a context that transcends the exigencies of popular taste and the particular years of their action. Nargis's effectiveness as an artiste was related to, and enhanced by, her integrity as an individual. By embracing a wider domain than her contemporaries did, she became larger than the sum of her parts. The best actors embody the characteristics of their own cultures. Nargis epitomised the Indian woman in both her strengths and her weaknesses, her aspirations and her inherent dignity. Inasmuch as these are deathless values, her representative status is unrestricted by time.

Nargis lives.

COMMERCIAL cinema today puts the accent on commercial, not on cinema. Its star component reflects the general culture. For one thing, body-building is the dominant element in the Net Asset Value of a male lead who, invariably, prefers to go shirtless as often as possible. For another, stars are available on rent to political parties looking for opportunistic propaganda boost and a campaign romp or two. From both artistic and sociological perspectives, it is worth pondering why even an Amitabh Bachchan could achieve only success, not significance. Could it be an inability to see the difference, or a tendency to equate the one with the other? Could it be the absence of a purposeful mission, social or aesthetic, without which success becomes essentially vain-glorious?

The world was different in the 1950s. Idealism energised talent and talent inspired idealism. Technology had not become a substitute for ability. There was no ˜special effects' department that could make a terminator out of Schwarzenegger, no morphological tricks that could convert a Kamal Hasan into an instant hydra. An actor had to act. It was part of the folk wisdom of the time that dramatic actors like Dilip Kumar and Balraj Sahni, as well as character artistes like Lalita Pawar and Achla Sachdev, would spend hours studying their parts and perfecting the nuances of their performance.

Not surprisingly a thousand flowers bloomed in the years that immediately followed independence. Directors like Bimal Roy and K.A. Abbas pioneered the romantic-neorealist genre of cinema, directly influenced by European masters in general and Vittorio De Sica in particular. Composers like Naushad endowed music with classical dimensions. Lyricists like Sahir Ludhianwi and Shakeel Badayuni were not just film lyricists, but poets of considerable worth. The erratic Kishore Kumar's simultaneous brilliance in different departments was something of a marvel. For that matter, where has there been a comedian who could rival the versatility and finesse of Johny Walker?

If this sounds like a throwback to the old-is-gold cliche, so be it. The 1950s were indeed a Golden Age, described as such and compared to the Golden Age of the 1930s when New Theatres, Bombay Talkies and Prabhat lit up the skies and filled them with stars of the calibre of Devika Rani and K.L. Saigal. Those decades attained a measure of significance because cinema then recognised its social responsibility. Pictures like Shantaram's Amrita Manthan (1934), Bombay Talkies' Acchut Kanya (1936) and Mehboob Khan's Ek Hi Rasta (1939) found worthy successors in the second Golden Age with Zia Sarhadi's Humlog (1951), Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin (1953) and Mehboob's Mother India (1957). A good deal of trash came out of those years, but the thinkers made up for the titillators.

The stars kept pace. On the female side as well as the male. It took a dedicated producer-director-bureaucrat named Mohan Bhavnani to help break the social taboo that kept ˜respectable women' out of cinema. In Vasant Sena which he produced in 1931, he scored a triumph for which he is yet to be fully recognised; he persuaded the socially prominent Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya and Enakshi Rama Rau to appear before the camera. But that was not enough for him. He wanted an educated lady to take to films as a profession and thereby set an example. This he achieved when Durga Khote, the Cathedral School-educated wife of the upper-crust lawyer Viswas Khote, agreed to star in Bhavnani's Trapped (1931).

That debut led to an opening of the floodgates. Devika Rani, who had teamed up with Himanshu Rai two years earlier in Germany, became the queen of the first Golden Age not only because of her histrionic capabilities, but also her aristocratic pedigree. She was the daughter of Col. M.N. Chowdury, Surgeon-General, who had sent her off to England at the age of nine in order to bring her up as a proper English lady. Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and later in Germany, she was as educated as anyone could be. She was now joined by a galaxy of stars – Shanta Apte, Leela Chitnis, Shobhana Samarth, Kannanbala, Sadhana Bose. The 1950s saw a lineup just as glittering – Meena Kumari, Madhubala, Kamini Kaushal, Geeta Bali, Waheeda Rahman, Nutan.

And Nargis. How did this progeny of the kothewali class of professional singers transcend her custom-ordained destiny, rise above her extraordinarily gifted fellow artistes, rise even above the aristocratic Devika Rani and become the First Lady of the second Golden Age? K.A. Abbas had noted that she was not a great actress to start with. Yet she became not only ˜the greatest star of our film industry,' as Balraj Sahni described her, but also an icon of her times with an assured place among the Great Women of India.

Genes certainly had something to do with it, genes and a natural ambition for excellence that grew out of them. Her mother Jaddan Bai, imperious and colourful, was the one who sensed early on that life ought to be more than singing and dancing for the entertainment of northern India's zamindars. She became so proficient in singing, especially thumri, that when she was on a visit to Calcutta K.L. Saigal listened to her and told friends about the classical character of her music.

Another Punjabi who attended that soiree was smitten by the singer as well as the song. Uttamchand Mohanchand (Mohan Babu) from Rawalpindi was on his way to England to study medicine. He cancelled all plans and persuaded Jaddan Bai, already a mother of two boys, to marry him. From him, daughter Nargis inherited a capacity to both love profoundly and develop a sensitive attachment to books and education. These traits, combined with an ability to dream which she imbibed from her mother, formed the foundations of Nargis's personality.

It was of course the aesthetic side of that personality that made her a star. But there were other aspects to her life that made her unlike any other star. She made contributions of her own as a woman, as a mother and wife, as a citizen and as a committed social worker. Her multiple involvements gave her a sense of direction which several of her talented contemporaries missed. Waheeda Rahman was one of the few who found fulfilment in her career and went into graceful retirement. Madhubala and Nutan were overtaken by illnesses while Meena Kumari fell prey to excesses with the bottle. Nargis always had worthy causes to pursue. That was why, even though cancer brought her life to a painful end, she filled the 52 years of her life with accomplishments of a lasting kind.

First and foremost she was an artiste. Her appearance in her mother's production Talashe Haq in 1935 at the age of six may be considered no more than a matter of record. (Her name appeared in the credits as Baby Rani. Among family and close friends she was always known by the pet name of Baby.) At 14 she was dreaming of joining college and becoming a doctor. It took a full day for Mehboob to persuade her to accept the role of heroine in his Taqdeer (1943). Mehboob also gave her a new screen name. She obviously could not be featured as Baby Rani. Nor was her official name, Fatima Abdul Rashid, attractive enough for cinema. Her father had named her Tejeswari Mohan. That too was considered unsuitable. Mehboob finally chose the one-word name, Nargis. Half a dozen indifferent films followed. Then came milestones in the history of Hindi cinema, beginning with Aag in 1948 and Andaz and Barsaat in 1949. The magic had begun.

Any consideration of Nargis's film career should take two of its essential ingredients into account – the temper of India in the 1950s and the creativity of her association with Raj Kapoor. The euphoria of a newly independent country had a salutary impact on cinema. As a dramatic art that blends myriad skills into a single compendium of experience, cinema needs a confluence of talents and a commitment of the talented.

The artists, technicians and the visionaries who converged in cinema in the years immediately following independence could not have asked for a more propitious moment in terms of opportunities. Despite Gandhian leaders who saw cinema as sinful, optimism was the prevailing mood and everyone was a reformist. Liberal themes, imaginative treatment and creative virtuosity could expect instant acceptance. There was a great coming together of mood and man. There was an all-round striving towards fresh goals, an urge to venture into new areas. Cinema became inspirational.

It was in such an atmosphere that destiny brought Nargis and Raj Kapoor together. No hero-heroine team has given more electric moments to Indian cinema than this pair. There were other pairings like Dev Anand and Suraiya, Dilip Kumar and Kamini Kaushal. But Nargis and Raj Kapoor complemented each other, brought out the best in each other as no other star team did. Nargis told an interviewer in 1954: ˜Before I started work with Raj, my ideas were bottled up. There was no one with whom I could discuss them freely. With Raj it is different. We seem to have practically the same views and ideas, the same outlook on all subjects.'

Raj Kapoor for his part was too conscious of his prerogatives as a man to concede much to a woman. But there can be no doubt that Nargis was the finest artistic asset he had under his R.K. Films banner. This became clear after the two broke up around 1957. Nargis went on to make Mother India that year, considered by many as the zenith of her career. By contrast, not a single film of note came out of R.K. Studios after Nargis left it. Indeed, Ab Dilli Dur Nahi which came out in the year of the break-up, is generally considered the poorest of R.K. Films offerings. Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai (1960) had the usual formula ingredients but without the easy spontaneity that made the earlier movies so heart-warming. Actually, this film pointed to a fundamental shift in Raj Kapoor's very approach to cinema. He now found a tawdry resort to sex appeal necessary. Padmini's assets were used with a blatancy never seen during the Nargis phase.

Clearly the Nargis-Raj Kapoor combination was good for cinema just as their break-up was bad for Raj Kapoor's cinema. While it lasted, it was the most celebrated love affair of the time. So perfect was the chemistry between them that even ordinary poses struck instinctively by them became classic images of India's entertainment lore. One became the famous logo of R.K. Films with Nargis flowing over the arm of a violin-bearing Raj. Another, a simple shot from Shree 420 showing the two of them sheltering under an umbrella in heavy rain, tugs at hearts for completely inexplicable reasons.

What is undeniable is that Nargis and Raj Kapoor brought to screen romance an unprecedented openness. Meena Kumari, the prototype of the romantic heroine, was forever sacrificing and suffering. She was aptly described as the tragedy queen because romance was inseparable from tragedy.

Nargis and Raj Kapoor revolutionised the concept of romance by boldly projecting love as a prerogative of the young. They looked as though they were made for the part. She was vulnerably feminine if also happily submissive. He was impishly masculine if also happily submissive. Adoring each other unabashedly, they turned romance into a joyous celebration. Instead of feeling guilty, they revelled in it. They did retain the concept of pain as part of the ecstasy of love; it would not be Indian otherwise. But the Nargis heroine was proud of her emotions, full of self-esteem and ready to fight for her right to love and be loved.

In Barsaat an entirely new idiom of screen romance was at work. His fingers tenderly probing around her mouth, her head tilting in a gesture of total submission, his hands fondly rustling her hair, her eyes catching fire as she looked at him – this was intuitive romancing, honest and unpremeditated. In the sixteen pictures in which they starred together, love was not always the central theme. Yet the wondrous aura surrounding the pair gave the films an extraordinary pitch and panache.

Raj Kapoor's place in Indian cinema is historical, entrenched and unique. It may therefore seem invidious to suggest that his artistic wellsprings were not as deep as Nargis's. Yet that conclusion is inevitable when their contrasting trajectories after the break-up are taken into consideration. Mother India is proof of Nargis's unmatched ability to summon up inner reserves of inspiration and propel herself to new levels of excellence, Raj Kapoor or no Raj Kapoor. Her role covered the entire span of life, from a young wife to an old woman. It called for a complete range of emotions, from romance and rustic toughness to a manifestation of womanly resolve that would prompt her to shoot her own son when he tried to abduct a girl. She brought a raw power to bear on her performance. It was a Nargis who had attained the fullness of artistic maturity.

That Nargis scaled the summit of achievement with her performance in Mother India was acknowledged by all. Abroad, she won an award at the Karlovy Vary festival. At home, Dilip Kumar said: ˜Her best picture is Mother India. Her second best picture is Mother India. Her third best picture is Mother India.' Thirty years after the picture was released, a reviewer wrote: ˜Mother India is to Nargis what The Godfather is to Marlon Brando and The Sound of Music to Julie Andrews. The role and the film are inextricably entwined in the mind of the public so much so that the two are almost one.'

When Mother India was made, Nargis was two years short of 30. The woman in her had been yearning for fulfilment of a different kind and it was not forthcoming from Raj Kapoor. She knew he was married and had children of his own, yet she hoped to marry him and raise a family. She never looked upon her relationship with him as an affair because she was always serious about it. Her intentions were honourable. She wanted to raise a family the right and proper way. Arrangements of convenience such as the Hema Malinis of a later generation would accept were not good enough for her. She had to go about it without compromising her dignity as a woman. But by 1956 it was clear that nothing of the sort was possible with Raj Kapoor. When his attention was openly diverted to ˜variety from the south', she decided to end the relationship.

Initially the parting must have wrenched her emotionally. But the challenge of Mother India gave her something to concentrate on. Her own strength of character shored her up. Work and personal resoluteness helped her emerge rapidly as a complete woman. She went through a renewal. On the sets of Mother India she met Sunil Dutt. His genuineness and simplicity made an impression on her. Her compassion for his sick sister moved him. In early 1958 they got married according to Arya Samaj rites.

From Nargis's point of view, the importance of that union cannot be overstated. There was nothing in life she wanted more than marriage and children. As a teenager, she was a tomboy but she used to spend every spare moment with the children of her two brothers in their Marine Drive flat. When she began acting in the early films, she took charge of the children, financing and supervising their education, choosing their clothes and toys, organising their outings. Her sense of family was as strong as her maternal instincts. With Sunil Dutt now as husband, she could at last realise her lifelong ambition. As her friend and co-star K.N. Singh put it: ˜With marriage, it was like she had reached home. She thought God had come to earth in the form of Sunil Dutt. So much did she worship him.' Nargis, the heart-throb of a generation, would glow with excitement if someone called her ˜Mrs Dutt'.

She did make a film or two after marriage. This was to help her brothers. These exceptions apart, her retirement from the film industry was real. Sunil Dutt would not have it any other way for he was conventional enough to insist that, as husband, it was his duty to be the family's provider. Nargis's own resolve to remain a wife and mother was beautifully underlined by her when the great S.S. Vasan of Gemini Studios in Madras approached her with a film offer. Vasan was a kind of King Emperor of cinema. He never approached a star directly. He flew to Bombay to make an exception of Nargis, hoping that the gesture alone would clinch the matter. He gave her a blank cheque leaf as well. Nargis teased him for a while and then said: ˜Vasan Saab, I am completely tied up with three films right now. They are called Sanju, Anju and Priya. I just cannot do another film now.' Vasan was speechless for a moment.

The award of Padma Shri to her in 1958 kindled a latent desire in husband and wife to play an active role in public life. In separate and different ways, both had already come under the influence of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Sunil Dutt was inspired by what he perceived as idealism in Nehru. Nargis became close to Indira so much so that she and her husband remained steadfast supporters of the Emergency and of Indira when she was out in the wilderness after the electoral defeat that followed it. In time Nargis would become a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha and Sunil Dutt an elected member of the Lok Sabha. But both essentially were political innocents, motivated only by their friendship with Indira on the one hand and their desire to be of some service to the country on the other.

Eventually it was not in politics but in work for the handicapped that they found their forte. There was a strong instinct in Nargis to acquire medical qualifications. Perhaps it was a continuation of her father's aborted ambitions to become a doctor. Even after marriage, Sunil Dutt recalled, she had expressed a desire to go abroad and become a qualified nurse so that she could attend to the sick and needy.

In the event, she found herself involved in social work focused on underprivileged children and the handicapped. She discovered that it was an interest that absorbed her husband as well. Together they set up a school for poor children in a plot of land they bought in Bandra. They also set up the Centre for Special Education for Spastics. When the Spastics Society of India was established in Bombay, she was nominated as one of the promoters. Neither she nor Sunil Dutt took this work as mere social feathers in their caps. They were seriously committed to it. Nargis conducted herself as a nurse when she was involved in the care of spastic children. She was, in the opinion of colleagues, ˜professional' in her approach. Never missing a committee meeting, she always studied the files, understood the details and was ready with ideas on how to expand and improve the Spastics Society's work.

She also immersed herself in the activities of the Bharat Scouts and Guides, the War Widows Association and the Meena Kumari Memorial for the Blind. This kind of social service was rare then, rarer today. Among the busiest stars of the time, Nargis and Sunil Dutt found the time to work for the less privileged, often spending their own money to see the programmes through. It was an approach to life that contrasted with the approach of today's stars, be they of film or cricket, who make more money but have less interest in the suffering of their fellow humans.

For Nargis life was incomplete without her social work. The way she threw herself into it was indicative of the transformation of her persona after marriage. Only now did she seem to have come into her own. It was a new Nargis, a complete Nargis, happy and satisfied in a way she never was when she was at the pinnacle of filmic glamour. The film star had metamorphosed into an independent woman with clearcut views about life, people and priorities. Nargis had found herself.

But the sense of fullness was short-lived. Tragedy struck in 1979 when Nargis was diagnosed as having, first, obstructive jaundice and then, cancer of the pancreas. The best of treatment in New York brought only temporary relief. Nargis was in prolonged pain necessitating sedation. Her plight turned pitiable with her beloved son, Sanjay Dutt, sinking into the half-life of hallucinogens. In time he would bounce back and become a health freak and a macho screen hero. But Nargis was denied the pleasure of witnessing her son's triumph. All she had in her last days was the feeling that the idyll of her family life was crumbling around her even as she lay fighting for her life. It was a fight she could not win. She slipped into the silence of her final sleep on 3 May 1981.

Arundhati Roy has said that thirty-one is a viable die-able age. Maybe it is. But fifty-two certainly was not a die-able age. Not when the life that death snatched belonged to someone like Nargis who was still brimming with promise and plans. When it did happen, it seemed to highlight not so much the majesty of human suffering as its pointlessness. But in a poignant kind of way, even the shadow of death brought out the uniqueness of Nargis's mind.

After weeks of despair in the cancer ward in New York, with kidney and heart complications adding to the hopelessness of the situation, with five surgical operations shattering her mentally as well as physically, the Dutts could only think of going home where she could at least die in the bosom of her family. When the doctors allowed them to travel, they spent a few days preparing for the long flight home. On one of their outings, she surprised her husband with the remark, ˜You never did the right thing in bringing me here.' Pressed to explain, she said: ˜There must be millions of sufferers in our country who must be as important to their families as I am to you. But they don't get medical facilities like I got... If I live, I must take this up with the government and with Madam Gandhi. Such facilities must become available in India.'

The human qualities that added value to Nargis's work as a film personality were emphasised by all the public figures, film industry leaders and editorial writers who assessed her career after her passing. No star of her time – indeed, no star of any time – devoted time and attention to public and social causes as Nargis did. Compassion came naturally to her. At one level, she was famous for getting from home oversize food containers so that light boys and stage hands on the set could get a hearty meal during lunch breaks. At another, news that a colleague's wife or child was sick would see Nargis taking charge of the patient until recovery was assured. If a child was handicapped in any way, she would drop everything and make arrangements for the child's care and treatment. This was a humanist who happened to become a star.

That the connections and resources she garnered as a star were used for her humanitarian programmes was the key to Nargis's success as a social worker. That was also part of the importance she achieved in the context of her time. But of course the main plank of that importance was her contribution as an artiste. She embodied the period in which Indian cinema grew out of its staginess and took its place on the world scene. The romantic-neorealist genre of cinema reached its apotheosis through the authenticity imparted to its portrayal by stars like Nargis.

Substance in cinema is considered to be the natural domain of directors, not actors. Yet, stars who give wing to new concepts in their metier exert influence not inferior to that of directors. It would be difficult, for example, to look upon Marlon Brando as just another actor who did well in his time. This is more so in Indian cinema because stars often participate in the conceptualisation of story development. Nargis's contribution to the making of the R.K. Films classics was by no means inconsequential. The achievements of Raj Kapoor were, without exception, the achievements of the Raj-Nargis team. Without her, the R.K. banner simply lost its wind.

The significance of stars who go beyond their immediate career demands and become part of a larger artistic current, be they Greta Garbo or Humphrey Bogart, Devika Rani or Nargis, needs to be examined in a context that transcends the exigencies of popular taste and the particular years of their action. Nargis's effectiveness as an artiste was related to, and enhanced by, her integrity as an individual. By embracing a wider domain than her contemporaries did, she became larger than the sum of her parts. The best actors embody the characteristics of their own cultures. Nargis epitomised the Indian woman in both her strengths and her weaknesses, her aspirations and her inherent dignity. Inasmuch as these are deathless values, her representative status is unrestricted by time. She lives.

Reference Source

Nargis Dance Collection

Nargis Dance Collection

Nargis At Her Best (Mujra Special)

Nargis At Her Best (Mujra Special)

Film actor Dilip Kumar has a word with actress Nargis at Filmfare Award function in Bombay on May 5, 1957.

The Nargis Story
The Dream in White

Nirupama Dutt
Friday, February 6, 2009
Reference Source

A 10 or 11-year-old girl with a long unattractive face, spindly legs and dazed eyes clutching onto her mother’s hand. This is how the Urdu writer Sadat Hasan Manto recalled Nargis, who he saw at a couple of film premiers along with her mother Jaddanbal, a celebrated singer, looking at her, it seemed that either she had just got up from sleep of was falling asleep.

However, this thin, sleepy little girl was to become a legend. Everyone is familiar with this story of how the ungainly duckling turned into the beautiful swan, Starting as a child star in her mother’s film , ``Talash-e-Haq’’, Baby Rani who was later renamed Nargis after a rare and beautiful flower Narcissur, dominated the screen for a decade and half and was called ``The First Lady at the Indian Screen’’.

She rose to great heights and the cine-goers identified her as Mother India’’. She was the first Indian actress to receive the Urvashi award for acting. Her death, by cancer, many years after she quit acting was mourned all over the country and abroad. Rita, the ``Awara’’ girl had made her place in many a heart.

Nargis nostalgia is such that viewers kept awake till late in the night recently to watch a documentary on the life and films of this prima donna of the forties. The film was directed by Priya Dutt, the younger daughter of Nargis, and Sunil Dutt. The documentary was tribute to both Nargis the artiste and Nargis the woman – the ideal wife and mother.
Yet for Nargis and many other film heroines of her times, the artiste and the woman were at odds against each other. The norms of the society made the two roles distinct and heavy price had to be paid for reconciling artistic ambitions with personal satisfaction.

There was a touch of tragic to the heroines of those days. Be it the beautiful Meena kumari who was exploited alike by her husband and lovers and who took to the bottle. Or the sensuous Madhubala who, while being the dream of every man in the country, struggled to find a meaningful personal relationship with a man. She died young, a little after her marriage to Kishore Kumar. Or for that matter, the singing star Suraiya, who after her love for Dev Anand was thwarted by her family, chose a long secluded existence in which rich food became an obsession resulting in obesity while Dev Anand moved from film to film and woman to woman – younger and slimmer than before.

Finding the balance between professional and the personal life was not easy for Nargis too and the inevitable price had to be paid yet, she accomplished a better than other of her times and continued to play an active role on the social cultural and political platforms. She was awarded the Padma Shri and given a nomination to the Rajya Sabha.

But the politic of the personal were not without pain. It was significant to note that every time Sunil Dutt referred to her in the documentary, it was. ``Mrs. Dutt did this…’’ or ``Mrs Dutt did that…’’ it was as though to refer to her as Nargis was to somehow lessen her.

I remember having interviewed Sunil at the Pipli tourist bungalow a month after her death. He had come to perform the last rites at his village near yamunanagar. Every now and then he would say ``well, she was my wife. A wife is a very private person. We don’t talk about our wives.’’

He married her in those days when Mehboob’s ``Mother India’’ was being shot, after having saved her in a fire disaster. He was just a beginner then and Nargis at the peak of her career. Not only Not only was he marrying a more famous person but also a woman with a romantic past with another man. The Nargis-Raj Kapoor romance was all too well known.
The illustrated weekly, in its issue on the Indian cinema, in a feature on women of substance from Raj Kapoor’s dream factory, described her thus: ``With him she went singing in the rain, shot Dilip Kumar down in `Andaz’ when he became a fly in the ointment, bent backwards while he held her in his arms for the RK logo, in a dingy studio, she made love with her eyes at a time when a physical relationship had to be suggested through log distance cooing. In ``Jagte Raho’’ she even gave him water when he was thirsty though the rest of the world wanted to skin him alive. What Nargis did for Raj—Kapoor, a galley slave wouldn’t do for her master. Theirs was a mutual admiration society…’’

Yes, it was the naïve Nargis who took girl-friend and went to Mr. Morarji Desai, who was a Chief Minister then, seeking permission to somehow be allowed to marry the already married man. Of course, she was scolded and shooed away. Raj Kapoor, in the tele-film Simi Grewal made on him said without mincing any words that Nargis was his inspiration and Krishna, his wife and mother of his children. He went onto say that a wife could not be an inspiration and an inspiration could not be a wife.

Perhaps it was this hurt that led Nargis to give up films and all to settle down to a life of domestic ``bliss’’, with her strength, she chose the path of fidelity while Sunil had his share of pos-tmarriage romances from Waheeds Rehman to Reena Roy. He also reaffirmed what dream merchant Raj had felt that a wife cannot he an inspiration, at least not, just by herself.

In the long years after her marriage to Sunil, she never once referred to Raj in any interview and her radio programme of film music for fauji bhai did not have a single song from the RK years. Raj, of course, could talk of her and even indulge in re-living the romance in ``Bobby’’ by reproducing the first time they had met onto the screen. Nargis never objected. There was no need for her world was a full one with a home, a husband’, children, relatives and working with the sick and handicapped.

But sometimes it must have hurt. More so when the whispering publicity campaign during the ``Bobby’’ days was that Dimple Kapadia, who had a faint resemblance with Nargis, was the love-child of Nargis and Raj.

Giving his reason for marrying Nargis, Sunil said in the documentary that she looked after his sister who was ill with tuberculosis and he realized that here was a woman who would look after his relatives who had suffered much. And this dear man, who holds privacy so dear, broadcast the ill dying voice of Nargis sharing private moments with her children and giving them advice on what to do after she was gone.

Perhaps, she would have liked it, for this was the ``Mother India’’ role which she played from the heart. Her marriage was dear to her, and she wanted early marriages for her daughters. There was no question of her wishing Namrata or Priya a career in films.

She did not want her daughters to repeat her life. Though her talent blossomed in films and her creativity touched great heights, yet the women in her had suffered Manto had also written of Nargis ``whenever I see Nargis on screen, I find a strange sadness enveloping her. Earlier, her person had curiosity for life but that seems to be dulled and defeated. Why? Only Nargis can give the answer.’’

Perhaps, this strange sadness was born of being an exceptional woman in a man’s world.


Posted by Nirupama Dutt at 11:45 AM

She reminds me of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz ....I don't think I ever seen a movie with her but my parents talk of her before....hhmmm pretty neat stories