Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 10, 2018)

On December 14, 1961, Rabindranath Tagore’s birth centenary (he was born on May 7, 1861), Bimal Roy’s Kabuliwala, based on a short story by the Nobel Laureate, opened in the theatres. I watched the film as a teenager, on Doordarshan, and it was made unforgettable by Balraj Sahni who lent warmth and dignity to the Kabuliwala who in Kolkata befriends five-year-old Mini, who reminds him of the daughter he’d left behind in Afghanistan. There’s a heart-breaking poignancy in the Pathan’s story as just before he is to return, he gets into a scuffle with a neighbour who ows him money, and accidentally kills him. After an eight-year jail term, he comes with dry fruits for Mini, to find her in wedding finery, all set to go off to her father-in-law’s home for real. He realises then that even his daughter, whose palm imprint he carries, must be all grown-up too. It is at this crucial point, that Mini’s father decides to give the money kept aside for lights and a band, to the kabuliwala so that he can go back home to his own daughter.

On Tagore’s 157th birth anniversary, when I quizzed Amrit Shah, Roy’s long-time associate, about Sahni, he revealed that he’d first made the actor’s acquaintance at the Communist Party Headquarters he’d go for his meals where as a student council member. “After the party was banned, he was arrested and would come for shoots with cops, returning to the Arthur Road Jail after pack-up,” says Shah, who on Sahni’s request, let his Bengali director-friend, Prabhat Mukherjee, share his apartment for a couple of years. “By the time he started working on Kabuliwala, he was a big name.”

Shah adds that when the film was nearing completion, as was his habit, he went to Roy with a proposal to send to distributors asking for advance (Minimum Guarantee). To his surprise, the producer insisted they sell it on a simple commission, as they were flush with funds thanks to the overflow they were getting from Madhumati and Sujata. “There was no arguing with Bimal da so I informed the delighted distributors that they’d only have to pay for print and publicity,” he says.

Buzz is, after seeing the rough cut, Roy reshot certain scenes directed by Hemen Gupta, perhaps because he wanted his tribute to Tagore to be perfect and true to his craft. Shah won’t comment on this but acknowledges that the film was a failure commercially and cost their company big money. “Bimal da was unperturbed, moving on to his next project,” he marvels.

Roy’s son, Joy, who was around six then, recalls a hideous apparition from a dream sequence and two little boys playing the tabla. “They were Nikhil Ghosh’s (Padma Bhushan tabla maestro) sons, Nayan Jyoti and Dhruba Jyoti,” he smiles. Sonu, who played Mini, was his neighbour who lived in the bungalow across and came to play with him. “One morning, baba came down and whispered something in her ear and Sonu raced home. Five minutes later, she was back with a “Yes”. I presume he’d offered her the film and she returned with her parents’ consent. That was the only film Sonu ever did, moving away after some years,” Joy flashbacks, adding that by a strange coincidence a week ago, he made the acquaintance of her young nephew at his gym and learnt that Sonu was living in the US. We tried getting her to share her memories with us but she stayed out of reach.

However, Gulzar saab, who penned “Ganga Aaye Kahan Se, Ganga Jaye Kahan Re” which with its philosophy of universal acceptance, informs that he landed this opportunity after a song by his friend and the film’s original lyricist, Prem Dhawan, was rejected by Roy. Since they were recording the songs first, they needed an immediate replacement. “I was assisting dada by then and he asked Salil da (composer Salil Chowdhury) to get me to write one. I’d penned “Mora Gora Ang Lai Le” for Bandini aur mera reputation ban gaya tha. I demurred, even calling up Prem who begged me to do it or else Bimal da would stop him from going off on a tour with IPTA,” he narrates.

Gulzar saab had seen Rajen Tarafdar’s 1960 National Award-winning Bengali film, Ganga, and suggested to Chowdhury that they do something along the lines of his composition “Amar Dubaili Re”. The music director who was playing ping pong in the bedroom listened absentmindedly till the sound of Roy’s station wagon had him scurrying upstairs. The filmmaker watched him playing the piano silently from the door and Chowdhury nervously blurted out that he was wondering if they could do something on the lines of “Amar Dubaili Re”. Roy responded sardonically, “Dubane ke liye itna nahin sochna padta hai, gana banao,” and walked away.

“Salil da continued playing till he heard Bimalda’s car drive off, then told his assistant Kanu Ghosh to write the song with me and went back to his ping pong. 'Ganga Aaye Kahan Se' was on the same metre as the earlier song and five decades later, reminds us of a Kabuliwala and his story that still strikes a chord,” says Gulzar saab.

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 11, 2018)

Cinema was an integral part of my growing up years. My mother would drag me to the theatres to see Roman Holiday, Quo Vadis and Spartacus. And on Sunday evenings I was allowed to park myself in front of the TV and catch a Hindi movie and Doordarshan was my introduction to Navrang, Hum Dono, Chalia and Devdas. Thereafter, every time I met Dilip Kumar, I’d remember him as Devdas slurring drunkenly, “Kaun kambakht hai jo bardasht karne le liye peeta hai, main to peeta hoon ki bas saans le sakoon.”

Amrit Shah, filmmaker Bimal Roy’s manager however reveals that while the actor was always in character through the making of the 1955 film, he never saw him inebriated. “Devdas might be drunk but Dilip Kumar never was,” asserts the nonagenarian, who goes on to recall how on the day of the film’s premiere in Kolkata, while the press was watching the tragic love story, Roy rushed Dilip Kumar and Suchitra Sen to New Theatres Studio where he shot a scene of Parvati returning home after her nuptials with a zamindar years older, to learn that Devdas has been drinking heavily. Since she still loves him, when they run into each other on the staircase, she stops for a brief chat, hoping to wean him off alcohol. “Even though the film was on the verge of being unveiled, Bimalda felt that the connecting link between two scenes was missing and when he got his actors together, he grabbed the opportunity to shoot it. It went by in a flash but he still incorporated it into the film later. That is the kind of meticulous director he was,” narrates Shah who’d joined Bimal Roy’s production company just six months before and remained close to the family even after his death on January 8, 1966.

During Madhumati which was filmed in Ranikhet and Ghorakhal in the Nainital district, Shah and Dilip Kumar lived under the same roof, in adjacent six-by-eight-feet rooms with a cordoned-off bath. The village was devoid of amenities, including bare necessities like electricity, tea, milk and even water. But there were no airs or starry tantrums from the leading man when he was asked to bathe rather than shower with a bucket of hot water or given a stringed ‘khatiya’ to sleep on. “He would eat meals with the unit, never missed his call time and after shooting, we’d often sit together and chat about everything, from cinema to religion,” narrates Shah, recalling how once, with the boldness of youth, he had quizzed the actor on rumours of his interference on the sets and how he had ghost-directed some of his films. “Yusuf bhai asked me if I had ever seen him give Bimal da instructions or even suggestions. But he admitted that in certain cases he had no option but to intervene if unsatisfied with the director, because films were being sold on his name and as the ‘hero’ he couldn’t afford to disappoint his fans.”

That shoot was an eye-opener for Shah. He flashbacks to a drive from Delhi to Nainital, that took them past a famous temple. They had to drive across a river over a sheet which served as a makeshift road. Halfway down it, the car slipped and stalled. Dilip Kumar’s fans instantly spotted him inside and crowded the car. Even as visions of mob violence flitted through Shah’s mind, he stepped out and spoke to the star-struck devotees. While doing so, he casually rested his hand on the car and tried to push it. Instantly, everyone around gave him a hand and car was back on track. “Smiling at his fans, Yusuf bhai got into the car and we crossed the river. But after about 100 metres, he asked the driver to stop and reasoned that pilgrims came to the temple and to the river every day to pray and we were passing by without stopping,” narrates Shah. To his surprise, the actor got out again, walked down the river bank, and scooping up some water washed his hands and feet, closed his eyes and prayed before proceeding to shoot for his paranormal romance drama with Vyjayanthimala playing three characters. Madhumati bagged nine Filmfare Awards, including best director for Bimal Roy.