Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 22, 2018)

His first role made Ghulu a hero in his mohalla but through endless rehearsals and costume trials, no one realized that the little boy was suffering from acute stage fright and was dreading his turn in the spotlight.

D-day dawned shimmering with excitement. His family took their place and the curtains parted. All the actors were in place on the makeshift stage, except one. Realization was collective: Where was Ghulu? Where was their Bhagat Singh? There was a mad scramble to find the star player who’d jumped over the wall and melted away into the darkness. His no-show meant that the show had to be eventually cancelled. No one ever let him forget it. Surprisingly, Ghulu grew up to be an actor who christened himself Manoj Kumar and at 22, picked up the pen to immortalize his childhood hero.

On March 23, 1931, Bhagat Singh had been hanged for the assassination of a British police officer, John Saunders. Manoj Kumar had grown up on stories of the martyr but when he asked his leading lady about him, she shocked him by saying blithely, “Of course, he’s a famous dacoit.”

Determined to set the record straight, the actor took four years to complete his script only to discover that after two disastrous, Bhagat Singh biopics, Shaheed-E-Azam Bhagat Singh and Shaheed Bhagat Singh, no one was interested in a third. It was only after Hariyali Aur Rasta had turned him into a star, that his publicist-friend, Kewal P Kashyap, offered to produce Shaheed with him in the lead.

Interestingly, Shaheed was also the title of Dilip Kumar and Kamini Kaushal’s 1948 tragic love story which Manoj Kumar had seen as a boy of 10. Kamini played Bhagat Singh’s mother in his Shaheed. The actress had been incredulous to learn that he wanted her to play his mother. “I don’t want you to play just anyone’s mother but Bhagat Singh’s mother,” he’d explained and she had come out of retirement to shoot for the film when seven months pregnant, radiating the glow of impending motherhood.

Shaheed premiered in 1965 with then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri among the guests. Thirty-seven years later, Rajkumar Santoshi’s 2002 biopic, The Legend Of Bhagat Singh, with Ajay Devgn, opened, as did Dharmendra’s 23rd March 1931: Shaheed with Bobby Deol as the 23-year-old patriot and elder brother Sunny playing Chandrashekhar Azad. It was a Bhagat Singh festival that year with a few more films, including Shaheed-E-Azam with Sonu Sood. But it was Ajay’s act that remains unforgettable. Ramesh Taurani had once confided that when Santoshi came for a narration, he refused to reveal which actor he had in mind for the lead but while he was outlining his story, the producer could only visualize Ajay in the role. When he told the director this, Santoshi admitted Ajay was his choice as well.

Ajay bagged the National Award for Best Actor for his performance, The Legend Of Bhagat Singh was also adjudged Best Film. Earlier, Shaheed had bagged Manoj Kumar three National Awards. The martyr’s real mother whom the actor fondly called Chaiji, was seated beside him at the Rashtrapati Bhavan during the ceremony and joined him on stage as the whole auditorium rose to its feet to give them a 10-minute standing ovation.

However, for Manoj Kumar the bigger reward came after the film’s release when during a shoot of Amaanat in Goa, he went to a government tea house for a cup of tea. When he asked for a bill, he was told it was already paid for by the sweeper who’d bought him his chai. The old man confided he had never heard of Bhagat Singh till he saw Shaheed and learnt of his sacrifice. “The least I can do is to offer you a cup of tea,” he said quietly.