Meena Kumari: The Muse, the Ghazal, From A Collection Of Writings On Cinema

Khwaja Ahmed Abbas’ Sone Chandi Ke Buth, a collection of writings on cinema that includes the observations, thoughts and reflections of one of the pioneering film-makers in the country. Th book has been edited and translated from Urdu by Syeda Hameed and Sukhpreet Kahlon. An excerpt:

Meena Kumari and Chavali chamarin! The actress and the person! The juxtaposition was day and night, sky and earth, complete contrasts. One was a popular actress, the other an untouchable chamarin who made a living by selling dung cakes. One was called Mahjabeen (moon-faced) because of her fair skin and flawless beauty, the other was ‘dark as dark can be, the darkest of them all!’ One was a reader of books,
reciter of couplets, herself a poet, the other an unlettered rustic and an untouchable!

Would Meena Kumari, the fair, educated, sophisticated actress be able to play the unlettered, rustic, dark-skinned chamarin? I had no doubt in my mind that she would. But many of my friends and family were afraid that Meena Kumari would remain Meena Kumari ‘the star’ and would never be able to look or sound low caste.

From the very first day, when she emerged from her makeup room, wearing coarse garments and cheap ornaments, she completely transformed into Chavli. From that day onwards, she stopped sitting on the heroine’s chair. She would sit on a broken charpoy or cross-legged on a tattered rug on the floor as if in a village chaupal.

On the first day of the shoot of Char Dil Char Rahein, someone came to meet her. He stood right in front of her and asked, ‘Hasn’t Meena ji come yet?’ I said well, you know, heroines don’t come on time, but if you want to talk to Chavli, she is sitting right in front of you!’ At this point, Chavli suddenly broke into peals of laughter and the ruse was discovered. Such mix-ups often happened on the sets.

It is said of every film star that he or she gets fully lost and engrossed in his or her role, but how far was it true of Meena Kumari? I can vouch for it, everybody in my unit can and so could the burnt soles of her feet!

Meena Kumari in Pakeezah (Pic by filmfare)

It was the month of May. The sun was at its peak on a hot burning afternoon. We were shooting in a stone quarry near Andheri. Hundreds of labourers were toiling, breaking the burning stones. Among them were film artists and extras for the crowd scenes. Everyone was complaining of heat and thirst; they asked for ice water again and again and refused to shoot barefoot on the burning rocks. Among them was Meena Kumari but when she came out of her car, she was barefoot.

‘Please wear your sandals when we shoot the close-up scenes,’ I suggested.

‘Sandals! Poor Chavli. How could she ever dream of wearing sandals? Would she have come to the quarry to break stones if she had sandals?’ she asked.

I was speechless. When I touched the stone, it was burning. So, I took off my shoes and socks. The cameraman took off his chappals. Every assistant director and all unit hands removed their footwear. The whole day Chavli kept walking and running on the burning stones, kept breaking stones with the heavy chisel and hammer. Meena Kumari remained barefoot even when we took a lunch break. She never told anyone what happened to those delicate feet by the evening, but none of us has forgotten to this day how our feet were burnt, blistered,
bruised and bloodied.

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So, this was Meena Kumari on whose death the whole film industry and thousands of fans shed tears. She was in love with her art and passionate about it, a passion that bordered on insanity. Her passion was both her ailment and her remedy. Seven years before her death, a renowned London specialist had diagnosed a failing liver and given her just one year to live. But she continued to live, fighting her illness. It was only when Pakeezah (1972) and several other projects in the pipeline were completed that she surrendered to the angel of death. She left
the world at the age of forty.

She worked tirelessly. Whether the film was small or big, the director famous or unknown, she worked with full dedication and commitment. She could infuse life into the weakest of scripts with her flawless acting. Even then, out of the seventy-eight films she acted in, only a dozen or so can be called masterpieces. Her last film, Pakeezah, will remain one of the most memorable. The fact is that an artist individually can do very little to raise the level of a film. There are several factors which collectively contribute to make a film into a work of art. In our country, ninety out of a hundred films are of very poor quality. Everyone knows this; so did Meena Kumari. But whenever she got a chance to demonstrate her talent, she excelled.

Excerpted with permission from Khwaja Ahmed Abbas’ Sone Chandi Ke Buth, edited and translated from Urdu by Syeda Hameed and Sukhpreet Kahlon published by Penguin.

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