Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; April 2, 2020)

“Chalo Dildaar Chalo, Chand Ke Paar Chalo…” Tajdar Amrohi’s caller tune takes me back to my childhood, when I had listened to this song from Pakeezah on a LP record in our living room. “It’s been 48 years since the film’s release, but even today, this romantic duet, in fact, every song from this timeless album, is instantly associated with Pakeezah and Meena ji (leading lady Meena Kumari),” points out the son of the film’s writer-producer-director Kamal Amrohi.

Tajdar saab goes on to inform that while shots of the boat sailing were taken in Goa, those featuring Meena ji and Raaj Kumar saab were canned indoors because the actress was battling cirrhosis of the liver by then and too unwell to go on location. “While many berated him for making an ailing chhoti ammi shoot unnecessary songs, daddy promised he’d take good care of her and had a maid, doctor and nurse stationed on the set. Then, without the aid of blue and green screen technology (chroma keying), he brought the stars into the studio for her even as the moon played hide-and-seek with the clouds. My father was a master craftsman who arranged the lights and camera himself, planned long shots with his stars in a way that their romance would look ethereal on screen even as they disappeared behind the boat’s sail,” he reminisces.

Pakeezah started on July 16, 1956, as a black-and-white film, and was re-shot in colour and then, in cinemascope. They were still shooting when, in 1964, Kamal saab and Meena ji separated following mutual differences. When shooting resumed in 1969, “Mausam Hai Aashiqana” was the first song to be shot, with an ailing Meena ji as the mujrewali Sahibjaan being whisked away from the kotha by one of her patrons. However, the night of his dreams is ruined when they are attacked by elephants and Sahibjaan sails away down the river in the splintered boat. She emerges from the water, enters the tent of forest ranger Salim, set up by the riverside, changes out of her wet clothes into his lungi and shirt and flipping through his diary, comes face to face with the man who’d teased her imagination with his lines rhapsodising over her “pure” feet.

“No actress had worn a lungi, which back then, was seen as a male attire, before this on screen. But, daddy reasoned that, in the context of the setting and situation, it would not look out of place on her and being loose and flowing, like the gharara in 'Chalo Dildar Chalo', would camouflage the bloating her illness had brought on.

“After the film’s release, the lungi became a fashion trend, like Pakeezah bangles, dupattas and sandals. Chhoti ammi herself was wowed by how beautifully my father had picturised these songs, which she’d insisted he retain despite her failing health, like everything else in the script,” says Tajdar saab, pointing out that Meena ji herself was a poetess who often scribbled down her meandering thoughts and read them aloud to his father, who’d react with an appreciative nod, sometimes changing a word or two, even telling her how best to recite them to enhance the beauty of the verses. Does he remember any, you wonder, and without a moment’s hesitation, he rattles off a couplet of his chhoti ammi’s poetry... “Raha Yunhi Na Mukammal, Gham-e-Ishq Ka Fasana, Kabhi Mujhko Neend Aayi, Kabhi So Gaya Zamana”.

The simplicity of the words and their sensitivity leave me awed, in the same way that the film had overwhelmed Meena ji when she saw it at the premiere in Maratha Mandir, on February 3, 1972, seated beside Chandan (that’s what she called Kamal Amrohi) and her darling Tajdar. “As the story of Salim and Sahibjaan unfolded, her nails dug deep into my father’s wrist and she clutched his hand tightly, leaving imprints on the tender skin. But not for a minute did a flicker of pain or irritation cross his features. Instead a tender smile played on his lips, which widened when, resting her head on his shoulder, she asked him to promise he’d not make another film after Pakeezah, making me a witness,” Tajdar saab recounts.

He reasons that since his father survived Meena ji, who passed away on March 31, 1972, by 21 years, it was difficult for him to keep this promise. “But Pakeezah was the Taj Mahal that he built for his Mumtaz and will forever be chhoti ammi’s most memorable film,” asserts Tajdar saab, adding that today his father and chhoti ammi lie side by side in the kabrastan, reunited in death. “And I can imagine him holding out his hand to her, inviting, ‘Chalo dildar chalo chand ke paar chalo…’ and her fingers entwining with his as she replies, ‘Hum hain taiyaar chalo…’, the two of them walking away into a technicolour sunset towards a beautiful world.”

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 8, 2019)

On February 4, 1972, all roads led to Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir theatre where Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah was being unveiled. A chariot driven by six horses came with the print and a navy band played as industry big-wigs strode in to a shower of flowers, the foyer redolent with the scent of kewda and mogra. In the crowd was a boy of 18 who was waiting expectantly for his ‘chhoti ammi’. As soon as her car drove up, he ran down to take her hand as she stepped out. His father who’d been standing quietly in a corner, also moved forward towards his Manju more sedately. As she walked up, ethereal in a white gharara, strands of mogra in her hair, their eyes met. Smiling up at her Chandan, she took his arm and entered the auditorium. At around 9.30 pm, the lights dimmed and the film which had been conceptualised in 1958 in black-and-white, exploded on screen in a profusion of colours.

Everyone sighed as Nargis, a heart-broken tawaif, pines away in a cemetery after being turned away by her lover’s family... They smiled as her lookalike daughter, Sahibjaan, who grows up in a kotha, finds love in a train... The lady in white seemed like she was in a trance, her nails digging into the hand of the man beside her. Her grip must have hurt but he didn’t flinch, only smiled as he gazed down at her.

During the interval, the guests crowded around the couple for autographs and photographs before returning to the movie. As it neared the end, Manju rested her head on the man’s shoulder and said quietly, “Chandan, ek vaada karoge? After this you will not make another film.” He laughed, “Then what will I eat?”

The film ended. The reactions were mixed. Majnu aka Meena Kumari, who for weeks had worried about how she would look in her first role as a nautch girl, was reassured that despite the passage of time and ill health, she had never appeared more beautiful. And while everyone agreed that this was not the same Meena Kumari of Gomti Ke Kinare and Mere Apne, there were many whose compliments sounded insincere to the film’s writer-producer-director Kamal Amrohi’s ears. Like his distributors, they weren’t sure if the late Ghulam Mohammed’s songs would work in the era of Laxmikant-Pyarelal and Johny Mera Naam.

As they drove back home, some wondered if a dancing girl who is covered from head-to-toe even when she croons, “Inhi Logon Ne Le Liya Dupatta Mera” and whose vocabulary reflected an old-world tehzeeb would appeal to the modern-day audience? Wouldn’t the ‘thehraav’ of the film seem “too slow” for viewers speeding down life’s fast lanes? “Baba only smiled at his detractors, insisting that his Pakeezah was a slow poison. It didn’t kill instantly, but would live on with the audience till D-Day and in decades to come, would be listed among the top 10 Hindi films ever,” informs Tajdar, the son of Kamal Amrohi, who’d doted on his ‘chhoti ammi’ since he was five and continues to celebrate the fact that his father’s film immortalised Meena Kumari.

Rumours abound that Pakeezah only picked up after it’s leading lady’s untimely death on March 31. Tajdar dismisses them, arguing that a flop film wouldn’t have remained in the theatres for nine weeks. “The craze began when an all-women audience took over Prakash Theatre in Ahmedabad, and spread across India. Even when the news of chhoti ammi’s death was announced in the theatres, it was a full house. After she left us, her fans returned, again and again, to watch her last film and collections escalated. The investors and distributors got their money but Baba didn’t end up a millionaire. But he’s still revered as the Last Moghul,” avers Tajdar.

On February 3, a Pakeezah boat sailed from Chowpatty to the Gateway of India and back for a week, with half-a-dozen girls on board, some playing the sitar, some swaying to the songs. “No one else was allowed to get on and a boat would go out to the sea to fetch the girls,” recalls Tajdar, adding that no one had seen promotion like this before or since.

On February 11, 1993, Chandan passed away and was buried next to his Manju. Tajdar believes, in another world, his chhoti ammi is singing to his baba, “Chalo dildaar chalo, Chand ke paar chalo, Hum hai tayaar chalo… Aao kho jaaye sitaaron mein kahin, Chhod de aaj yeh duniya, yeh zameen…”

Roshmila Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; October 12, 2017)

'Jaani' Raaj Kumar would have turned 91 on October 8 and perhaps we might have seen him running after a train on a stormy night, like Salim in Pakeezah, who changes the life of a nautch girl, Sahibjaan, with a few scribbled lines of poetry…

“Aapke paon dekhe, bahut haseen hai, inhe zameen par mat utariyega, maile ho jayenge.”

Forty-five years later, these words spoken in that unforgettable baritone still resonate as writer-producer-director Kamal Amrohi’s son, Tajdar, admits that one of the reasons his father cast Raaj saab was because of his voice and impeccable Urdu diction, and because his face and genteel manners stamped him as an aristocrat from a cultured, orthodox family.

“Also, Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai, with the same jodi, had been a huge hit and Raaj saab accepted the film without even enquiring about his role in a heroine-oriented film, confident that Kamaal saab would not be unfair to him,” informs Tajdar.

He goes on to reveal, almost half a century later, that the man you see in the first scene, running after the train, was not actually the actor but someone Kamal saab had picked out from the crowd. The man wore Raaj Kumar’s clothes and hat. “Raaj saab was arriving late and there was no time to waste as the platform had been booked for a specified time and the station master was urging him to wrap up his shoot quickly. Later, when Raaj saab saw the scene, he wondered when he’d shot it. My father assured him that they had taken the shot long ago and he’d forgotten,” Tajdar smiles fondly, marveling at the bond between his father and the actor.

Raaj Kumar had a reputation for being an eccentric. While Tajdar doesn’t endorse this, he recalls, how for a particular sequence, shot over three-four days, the actor would report every day in a different outfit despite being told there was no need for costume changes. Kamal saab didn’t argue with him after a point but on the last day of shooting, he had a quiet word with the dressman, telling him to give Raaj saab the clothes he’s worn on the first day and quickly taking his shots to ensure that continuity was maintained.

He goes on to recount another sequence, which had a thakur who, having recognised Sahibjaan from the kotha, chases after the tonga carrying her and Salim on his horse. Incensed, Salim gets off and gets into an altercation with the man, holding the reins off his prancing horse till the thakur cracks his whip down on his hand, surprising him into letting go.

“Raaj Kumar ke haath se lagan chhut jaye, yeh ho hi nahin sakta, with one twist of my hand I can bring the horse down,” the actor argued. Kamal saab pointed out that he was not Raaj Kumar but Salim in the scene but he was obdurate. “Finally my father took the junior artiste playing the thakur aside and told him to hit him a couple of times till Raaj saab let go. Perhaps he learnt about this but when it was time to face the camera, he told my father that while Raaj Kumar would never let go of the reins, maybe Salim ke haath se lagaam chut sakti hai. And so the shot was filmed with him finally disciplining the thakur,” smiles Tajdar admitting that such incidents brought the two closer, enhancing the love and respect they had for each other.

And we are left with a memory of that baritone intoning another famous dialogue from the film.

“Beshak mujhse ghalati hui. Main bhool hi gaya tha iss ghar ke insaanon ko har saans ke baad doosre saans lene ki ijaazat aapse leni padhti hai. Aur aapki aulaad khuda ki banaai hui zameen par nahin chalti, aapki hatheli par rehti han..”

Ahh, for the days of the Raaj again!

Kamal Amrohi's son Tajdar brought Shashilal Nair back to direct 'ek aur' love story and revive his banner
Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 8, 2016)



Shashilal K Nair, who bagged the National Award for Best Special Effects for his 1993-drama, Angaar, featuring Jackie Shroff, Nana Patekar and Dimple Kapadia, dropped off the face of the earth after his leading lady, Manisha Koirala disowned the controversial 2002 film, Ek Chhotisi Love Story.

Prod him on where he was for the last 13 years and he says that the only person who could answer that question is Tajdar Amrohi, son of late filmmaker Kamal Amrohi, who kidnapped him and brought him back from UK to revive his family banner.

"I have only two friends, J P Dutta and Shashilal Nair. Since JP was busy I went hunting for Shashi in December 2013," says Tajdar.

His filmmaker friend, K Asif, told him that Shashi was last heard to be in Manchester and Tajdar immediately booked himself on the next flight to London from where he took a bus to Manchester, and began inquiring about his long-lost friend. "I was told that it was impossible to search for someone in this huge city so I thought that I should head to Scotland Yard and file a missing person's report. After a week on the road, I learnt that he was in Huddersfield," he reminisces.

The British town was a colony of retired locals. An old lady told Tajdar that there was only one Asian there and he always frequented a particular dingy pub every evening. Tajdar headed there at 8:30 pm, and in walked Shashi. "When I hugged him from behind I was surprised to notice that he was playing with white mice," recalls Tajdar.

He booked them a one-way flight to Mumbai and convinced Shashi to direct a film for the revival of the Kamal Amrohi banner.

"The film will introduce Mashoor and Esther, who play a couple in love, travel by the local train and romance at the railway station. It's a common man's story. We've filmed from Dombivali to Haji Ali and are currently dubbing for it. It will release in April," he says.

Shashilal's past projects include One 2 Ka 4 with Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla, followed by Ek Chhotisi Love Story. "Ek Chhotisi Love Story left me a broken man. It was the most unpleasant experience of my life. Everyone stabbed me in the back, my heroine, politicians gundas and friends. I didn't want to talk about it so I took a sabbatical. But now, I'm back with fresh faces and ek great love story," promises Shashi.