MEENA KUMARI AND CHHOTI BAHU

Vinod Mehta

Vinod Mehta’s affectionate biography of Meena Kumari, the ‘tragedy queen’, is one of his earliest books. This chapter brings together two storm-tossed legends: Meena Kumari and Guru Dutt. The result was the cinematic magic of Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam.

Meena Kumari and Kamal Amrohi were so far apart [by now] that even the most proficient marriage counsellor would have declined the job of bringing them together.

One man who had been watching Meena Kumari films with more than professional interest was Guru Dutt. Like my heroine he too was someone who had seen the lean and the fat. In his personal life he was of extravagant tastes. Profligate, weary and a genius, he had long been toying with a film idea. Previously he’d won a few rounds with the audience, but the demands of commercial cinema were weighing him down. Consequently he decided to try Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam and make peace with his true creative urges.

Together with friend Abrar Alvi he polished and repolished the script, gathered a cast, recorded the songs, printed the posters.

There was, however, one major gap. An important, indeed pivotal role had not been assigned. Chhoti Bahu, the heroine of the film, was nowhere to be found. In his own mind Guru Dutt was certain that if there was one woman who could bring credit to this part it was my heroine. And do you know she nearly missed it?

Guru Dutt sent word that he would be interested in hiring my heroine. Was she available? The answer from ‘Rembrandt’ [Kamal Amrohi and Meena Kumari’s house] was no, she had her hands full with pending commitments.

Some Indian girl living and acting in London was sent an airticket and she arrived for the initial takes. But she was entirely unsuitable and further completely unsympathetic to the part. In desperation Guru Dutt sent for the clapper boy and commenced rolling his camera, and by the beginning of 1962 the whole film was in the can except Chhoti Bahu.

Negotiations with Meena Kumari were resumed and this time they were more successful. Forty-five clear and consecutive days were offered and the fee put up by 25 per cent. Guru Dutt agreed to all provisions and my heroine began shooting at Natraj Studios in Andheri.

A Walter Mathau quote is relevant here: ‘Every actor all his life looks for a part that will combine his talents with his personality.’ Meena found such a part and for myself I am convinced that it was the part of her life. Of the mountainous films Meena made her performance in Sahib Bibi stands on the pinnacle. If I wish to remember my heroine as a film star I wish to remember her as Guru Dutt’s Chhoti Bahu.

Everything was right for this film. The earnestness, the challenge, the excitement of honest creativity, the professionalism, all engendered an atmosphere wonderfully conducive to serious work.

Why she accepted Guru Dutt’s offer Allah only knows. In every way the role he had offered her was so remote from her experience, so full of subtle nuances, so damaging to her public image, so impossible, that I am positive no other Bombay actress would have touched it. She was a little nervous herself as she drove to work the first day. ‘I feel uneasy about things. But it is an uneasiness I like. Once again after a long time, I am feeling as if I am going to face the camera for the first time. Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam pages have engulfed me entirely.’

Bengali decadence was the theme of this film—moral, physical and spiritual. And both Meena Kumari and Guru Dutt showed an uncommon command over the grammar of this decadence. Sometimes riveting, sometimes revolting, the flesh triumphed over the spirit in Sahib Bibi to demonstrate that unadulterated virtue is a lie. Yet, and kudos for this to Guru Dutt and Abrar Alvi, all the characters—from the degenerate Nawab to the simpleton Bhootnath—were drawn with a strong sense of reality and a tender appreciation of human folly.

My tragedienne was now thirty-two and at the height of her powers. In every frame of Sahib Bibi she fills the screen with her presence (remember the competition: Waheeda Rehman, Guru Dutt, Rehman) and quietly walks away with the histrionics.

In the first half she is the conventional housewife determined to be a devoted Hindu spouse. Now this is not a part which allows much acting scope, but Chhoti Bahu walks around with such unruffled dignity that you feel the woman must have been a Bengali housewife all her life.

Restraint as a performing quality is virtually unknown to Indian actors, and Meena Kumari was among the solitary who understood and practised it. In one unforgettable frame she tells Guru Dutt with whispered pathos that the Hindu woman has but one ambition in life, and that is to serve her husband till her last breath; a pernicious ambition but from Chhoti Bahu it comes out with a force and conviction which is both gripping and engaging.

And it wasn’t easy. My heroine wrote in her private diary: ‘This woman is troubling me a great deal. All day long—and a good part of the night—it is nothing else but Chhoti Bahu’s helplessness. Chhoti Bahu’s sorrows, Chhoti Bahu’s smiles, Chhoti Bahu’s hopes, Chhoti Bahu’s tribulations, Chhoti Bahu’s endurance, Chhoti Bahu’s … Chhoti Bahu … Oh! I am sick of it.’

Beautiful. How beautiful she appeared. For once the camera captured my heroine, and did justice to a face that was now at its zenith. Gone were the traces of frivolity, gone was the look of undernourishment, gone was the look of the ‘girl next door’. She was now a woman of sharp, mature, mysterious personna; a woman whose one smile concealed a thousand enigmas.

I think back to a sequence lasting four minutes in Sahib Bibi where Meena has acquired a love potion to lure her husband’s affections, and is seen in the many stages of adornment. The sequence begins with Meena completely undecked and as each shot progresses a garment and a piece of jewellery is added to her person. This culminates in a final shot and glory, my heroine is on the screen fully dressed. You probably think this is a biographer gone mad but I have not on the Indian screen seen a face more beautiful than I saw in those few seconds.

But this was just a foretaste of things to come. It was in the second part of Guru Dutt’s film that my heroine gave the performance of her life.

Rehman, her husband, an honest-to-goodness lecher, goes out in search of dancing girls each night and my heroine suggests he stay at home. ‘Will you drink with me,’ he asks tauntingly, ‘will you laugh, sing and dance for me.’ She recoils at the thought and that very night orders her first drink … and her next … and her next.

If there is a hackneyed role in our cinema it is the role of the alcoholic. There are some standard movements and motions to go through and most of our actors have learned these like parrots. Motilal was the only one who knew what it was to be inebriated, and he never shouted or blared or fell into a gutter. (Drunks usually become more conscious of their movement and tend to be quiet rather than loud.)

For a person who in her private life knew nothing about the bottle (she had not started drinking yet) she understood ‘nasha’ remarkably well. She had help though. ‘I discussed Chhoti Bahu with Kamal Sahab till late at night. Before this Kamal Sahab had appreciated Parineeta, Badbaan, Sharda, but he had never advised me how to interpret a role. Today for the first time he explained to me what all types of behaviour a drunken but repressed and helpless woman can assume,’ she scribbled in her diary.

In one scene, glass in hand, she explains to Guru Dutt why she has taken to whisky. The explanation is not unique but the expression on her face is. ‘Do you think I like this?’ she says pointing to the glass and then in reply curls up her face and vomits pegs of revulsion.

The pièce de résistance of my heroine in Sahib Bibi, however, is a song. And as a true connoisseur I think that sequence of film should be preserved in the archives.

Currently we hear and see a lot about Mr B.R. Ishara and sexy films (the two by now being synonymous), and some of the hilarious lengths our producers go to undress their leading lads and ladies is nothing short of ingenious. (Usually it rains and the couple is caught unawares. Nearby is a hotel. They hang their clothes in front of the fire, wrap themselves up in long towels and presto! the next thing you know Hema Malini is pregnant.) Mr Ishara and Co. should go and see my heroine dish out bosomfuls of sex without the aid of a single towel in Guru Dutt’s 1962 film.

Great friends, Abrar Alvi and Guru Dutt nearly came apart over picturizing this immortal 1,000 feet. Most of the film Mr Dutt had left to Alvi. However, the scenes in which my heroine, slightly tipsy, sings to Rehman he wanted for himself. Women and wine were two areas where his expertise was universally unchallenged and he felt confident that he was more qualified than his friend to supervise this sequence. In a fit of pique Alvi left the studio saying that if his services were required further he would be found at home.

The situation was really quite simple. My heroine tries to hold her husband from his nightly debauchery and sings a song (a song, incidentally, which haunted Guru Dutt all his subsequent life). However, it was not the melody but the delicate, tasteful, lascivious Meena Kumari wooing which made this tune into a minor sexual feast. Biting her man’s ear, ruffling his hair, caressing his neck, running her hands over his kurta, she created an environment of pulsating, titillating and mouth-watering sexuality.

Mind you the year was 1962 and the audience unused to displays of erotica. Fresh bouquets therefore for both Guru Dutt and my heroine for being years ahead of their time, and for setting up a prototype for our present-day screen perverts.

There was delicious dichotomy. Although the audiences accepted sexuality on the bed they did not accept it on the horse carriage, and a complete segment with a Hemant Kumar song in the background had to be cut one day after the release of the film. Before she is murdered, my heroine goes out on a late-night drive and in the carriage rests her head on Guru Dutt’s sympathetic lap. This was the offending portion and it was quickly scissored. Two days of hasty shooting enabled Guru Dutt to insert something more innocuous.

The people who had made Sahib Bibi were prepared for a financial disaster. Both the treatment and the subject were not commercial, and no one could predict which way this film would go. Consequently Guru Dutt and his backers were pleasantly surprised at the queues they saw outside Minerva Cinema in Bombay.

Money started rolling in, and not only was the investment salvaged but the producers were able to make a bit on the side too. Sahib Bibi was no Baiju Bawra but it proved that ambition, courage and imagination do not necessarily spell disaster for the adventurous film-maker. In a sense today’s much talked about ‘New Wave’ actually started in 1962.

If the first two years of Meena Kumari’s married life were absolute bliss, the last two years of her married life were absolute hell. And if previously the causes had been trivial they were not so now, and some very fundamental husband and wife incompatibilities, long suppressed, surfaced.

For example, at Eros cinema, Mr and Mrs Amrohi had been invited for a big premiere by Sohrab Modi. Bombay’s Rotary Club-type dignitaries were present when Mr Modi introduced my heroine to the Governor of Maharashtra, ‘This is the renowed actress Meena Kumari,’ he said, ‘and this is her husband Kamal Amrohi.’ Whereupon before Namastes could be exchanged, Amrohi interjected, ‘No. I am Kamal Amrohi and this is my wife the renowned film actress Meena Kumari,’ saying which he left the auditorium. My heroine saw the premiere alone.

Sahib Bibi was selected as the Indian entry to the Berlin Film Festival and Meena, who as yet had not stepped outside the shores of her country, was selected as a delegate. The then Minister of Information arranged for two tickets—one for my heroine and one for her husband. But he refused to go. ‘Why should I?’ he said, ‘I have made no contribution to the selected film. I am neither its director nor its writer. I don’t want to tag along merely as Meena Kumari’s husband.’ Graciously, he did not stop his wife and offered to send Baqar as chaperon.

The trip never materialized but it did indicate an attitude. Meena felt that her husband was sulking. She had no sympathy with Amrohi’s embittered ego.

For it was nothing but an ego clash. Kamal Amrohi was a man of no mean self-importance. One of the finest writers of Urdu he had begun to feel that his only function in life was to organize film dates for his wife—a sort of manager. To most people he had ceased to be Kamal Amrohi the famed inventor of Mahal, instead he had become the husband of the famed Meena Kumari—a character out of Von Stoeberg’s Blue Angel. To me he was charmingly honest, ‘This is true, that looking after Meena became for me a full-time job, and where as an artiste she steadily climbed upwards, I steadily climbed downwards.’

Amrohi is somewhat unfair. My heroine did not set out deliberately to destroy his fame or career. And it was no fault of hers if she climbed steadily upwards. Although I must confess I can understand his sense of bitterness and his behaviour at the Eros premiere. Of all the Amrohi matrimonial conditions the one I find most touching and most revealing concerns motor cars. Meena, living up to her status had acquired a new Mercedes but Mr Amrohi refused to step inside. ‘When you go to your studio, you can go in your Mercedes, but when you go with me you will have to sit inside my old Buick.’

Poor Kamal, he could never have imagined that the little girl he had met at Sassoon Hospital would one day become such a glittering star that she would wipe the shine clean off his star.

It is difficult to fix the exact date when my heroine took to drink. Always a creature of the night she was a veritable owl—the difference being that she did not sleep in the day either—who since the days of her telephone romance had found difficulty in closing her eyes. Dr Saeed Timurza, her physician, then prescribed a peg of brandy as a sleeping pill, and this was officially how she came into contact with the habit that was to kill her.

If she took to drink initially it was because she was exhausted. (According to Kamal Amrohi the one peg of brandy increased to many more. One day he apprehended Meena’s maidservant pouring out the doctor’s medicine and he noticed the glass was nearly halffull. On reprimanding the maidservant he discovered that this measure had become my heroine’s standard, and further, the bottles of Dettol in the Amrohi bathroom did not contain antiseptic but brandy. From that day onwards Kamal says he checked the Dettol bottles and ensured that Meena did not have any drink handy.) However devoted one may be to one’s vocation there is a physical limit, and Meena was working so remorselessly that I am surprised she did not have a physical breakdown.

In the years 1962–63 she had sixteen contracts on hand and she confessed, ‘Every morning as I leave the house for the studios a weariness fills me. I say to myself, “Let this be the last ride. Let me come back in the evening pack up my things and go for a long holiday.”’

I wish she had. Instead she continued working like a Trojan while things at ‘Rembrandt’ deteriorated still further.

Squabbles, arguments, bad feeling, drink—and now physical violence.

Unexpectedly it all began on the auspicious day of Eid. On that night Meena’s feelings for her husband were such that she grabbed his chikan kurta by the neck and ripped it. Amrohi says that he too lost his temper and for the first time, as he puts it, ‘lifted his hand’.

Allow me to digress a little.

The life of a popular film star is such that it demands at all times a composed public face. Since a film star is the property of the public he must, whatever his private circumstances, maintain his social obligations. To her fans therefore it was of no consequence whether Meena Kumari was having boxing bouts with her husband or whether she was drinking brandy out of Dettol bottles or whether she desperately wanted a respite from the camera. No, for them she was the ace actress of India and her behind-the-screen tribulations had no admirers.

Commensurately, she went around performing opening ceremonies of exhibitions, attending things like the Amber Glow Ball (admittedly this was for a worthy cause: The National Defence Fund), visiting premieres in the smiling company of the man (Kamal Amrohi) she was hardly on speaking terms with, blessing newly-wed second cousins of cinema distributors, picking out fifty contest winners for Filmfare. The show, as they say, must go on.

Of course film stars always complain, ‘Look these are the kind of sacrifices we have to make. Life for us is not one big dream come true. Actually we would love to be anonymous.’ They lie. If there is one thing our matinee idols revel in, it is publicity. (Shashi Kapoor once told me that it was a lovely feeling being mobbed on the road.) And if you are going to be a popular film star then you have no right to expect a private life—just as Mrs Gandhi has no right to expect a private life. It is impossible to appear on the cover of Star and Style and at the same time hope to enter a restaurant unnoticed. And show me a film star who would give up the cover of Star and Style for the privilege of entering a restaurant quietly.

Life is not completely unfair. If things are going badly in one sphere they are invariably going well in the other. On 5 April 1963 the short list was in for the Filmfare awards and Meena Kumari created a record—a record which I suspect will remain for a long time to come. The three female performances of 1962 contending for the ‘Best Actress’ were: Meena Kumari in Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, Meena Kumari in Aarti, Meena Kumari in Main Chup Rahungi. Victory for my heroine was ensured and the only doubt that remained was over which performance.

In Bombay on 13 June it was raining and the Indian Navy Band especially hired for the occasion had to move inside Regal cinema. The occasion was the tenth Filmfare awards and besides the Governor, Mrs Vijaya Laxmi Pandit, was present at the chief guest.

My heroine, the magazines noticed, ‘Looked like a picture of grace.’ The white saree was conspicuous, so was the white purse, so were the glistening pearls hanging from her exquisite ears. She accepted her third award [for Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam] from Mrs Pandit and said, ‘No words can describe how happy I am today.’

Later she delighed a packed audience with a recitation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poems. The voice that had enchanted millions of cinema-goers in India held the VIPs spellbound. Immediately afterwards they lined up to felicitate her. The next morning Lux toilet soap, old fans, took out large advertisements in leading papers indicating their approval of my heroine.

One of the films Meena was working on at this time was Bimal Roy’s Benazir. The assistant director and lyric writer was a gentleman called Gulzar, an Urdu poet and writer seduced like many others into the film world. My heroine immediately struck a chord with Mr Gulzar. A poet and writer herself, she found the company of another poet and writer both stimulating and relaxing. Between takes they would talk about books, the writing of diaries and Mir. The company of Gulzar also provided a welcome antidote to life at home. It was essentially a relationship of the spirit rather than of the flesh. When Gulzar was not present or Meena was working elsewhere the telephone served as the connecting link.

Amrohi says that it was during Benazir that his marriage was finally ruined. The Bimal Roy group (consisting of Salil Chowdhury, Achla Sachdev etc.) and the Mehmood group were instrumental in filling the ears of my heroine, and were the chief perpetrators of this felony.

Much love was never lost between Bimal Roy and Amrohi. A couple of years previous Mr Roy had approached Kamal for signing Meena in a film called Devdas (Suchitra Sen got the role) and Mr Amrohi rejected the offer. Subsequently when Bimal Roy met my heroine he asked her why she had refused such a peach of a part. ‘I know nothing about it. I would have loved to play it,’ she replied.

Anyway the story goes that the Bimal Roy and the Mehmood groups provided fuel for fire: ‘He is using you. Don’t you see you are nothing but a money-making machine for him. You are India’s most wanted actress and what have you to show for it? All your money is going to Kamal Amrohi. Leave him, you’ll be better off.’ This was the sound advice my heroine received and she considered it carefully.

By the end of 1963 Meena Kumari had decided to leave Kamal Amrohi—and he knew it.

One morning just before my heroine was off to work, Mr Amrohi went into the bedroom. He took hold of his wife’s face and said, ‘Manju don’t leave me.’

It was too late for reconciliation. Meena in the second month of ’64 began moving her luggage surreptitiously to the house of Achla Sachdev, and really there was only one thing missing—the showdown.

The second landmark in my heroine’s life is 5 March 1964.

The Pinjre Ke Panchi mahurat was scheduled at 11 a.m. on this date. Mr Baqar Ali and his wife arrived early to ensure that arrangements were satisfactory. Satisfied, they called Bertha, the hairdresser and told her that no one was to be allowed inside the Meena Kumari make-up room today. These were strict instructions, Baqar informed Bertha, and had to be scrupulously obeyed.

11.30 a.m. and Meena had not arrived. She was holding up the ceremony. A little nervousness became apparent and those connected with the film suggested that enquiries be made regarding the whereabouts of my heroine.

In bad temper she arrived almost immediately and went straight in the direction of her make-up room. En route she was accosted by Bertha who instead of keeping the Baqar instructions to herself, divulged them to Meena. Already in bad temper, she was now furious and summoned Gulzar. Baqar was also in the vicinity and when she saw him she wished a most unfriendly ‘adab’.

Three people then, Meena, Baqar and Gulzar, began walking towards the make-up room which was situated above a flight of stairs. The fateful journey began.

Before I come to the actual incident that sparked off the dissociation, let me state that there are at least ten different versions of ‘exactly what happened.’ The two most important of these—the Baqar and Meena versions—really concern us and I shall give you both.

The positioning, going up the stairs, played a vital part. Meena led, followed by Baqar followed by Gulzar. To begin with, the journey was peaceful but just before the stairs concluded my heroine looked back and indicated to Gulzar that his presence was required in the private chamber. Gulzar, sensing trouble and unsure, made no positive move, and my heroine again looked back and this time rather strongly said, ‘What are you waiting for?’ Emboldened, Gulzar moved and attempted to overtake Baqar. Baqar intervened and stopped his progress. Gulzar was thus stuck most uncomfortably in the middle.

A bit of pushing and jostling took place and then Meena burst out in a tremendous rage. Screaming at the top of her voice she faced Baqar, ‘Who do you think I am? Do you think I am a whore? What goes on in my make-up room that you have placed such restrictions?’ Saying which she clutched Mr Gulzar to her bosom.

At this point my heroine claims that Baqar slapped her. Mr Baqar claims he did no such thing and told me he was prepared to take an oath to this effect. Nargis who was shooting in the adjacent set says that she heard a great deal of noise and also heard Baqar shouting, who for his part says that he tried his utmost to pacify Meena and also solicited aid from Mr Balraj Sahni, an observer of this scene. Either way, the onlookers and guests at the mahurat saw the usually composed Meena Kumari in tantrums. Crying copiously she breezed out of the studio informing Baqar, ‘Tell Kamal Sahab I will not be coming home tonight.’ She kept her word.