JULY 30- Why has Meena Kumari faded away? It’s strange, considering her contemporaries Nargis and Madhubala have survived.
Nargis, of course, has been largely reduced to the visuals the plough- carrying woman in Mother India and the lover under the umbrella along with Raj Kapoor’s character in Shree 420 .
The most popular of the trio, the naughty, sprightly Madhubala with her Binaca smile and eloquent eyes pops up on the small screen from time to time. Meena Kumari has, however, been buried, neglected, forgotten.
Which is precisely why editor author Vinod Mehta’s biography needed a second release four decades after it had been written.
“I wonder what the new generation of under- thirty cinema- goers knows about her,” Mehta reflects in his introduction to the new edition.
Ninety- nine per cent of them know nothing that matters. But, the remaining one per cent are interested beyond the obvious.
If nothing else, this biography can persuade them to begin an exploration of the cinematic world that was uniquely hers.
Like every book, this one too has its strengths and weaknesses. The plus points first. It tells the story of India’s ‘ great tragedienne’ in exquisite, straight- from- the- heart prose.
After Meena Kumari passed away, tributaries of tributes flowed in her direction from every quarter of the film industry.
Mehta’s response is memorable, ” One doesn’t necessarily have to be malicious or insensitive or both, to suggest that all these carefully carved words were ritual hypocrisy…. The sincerity of an obituary, one may hopefully generalise, is usually directly in proportion to its restraint.”
The average biographer prepares a laundry list of moments in a person’s life first, and elaborates on them with toneless precision thereafter. Mehta, on the other hand, is completely involved with the subject he calls ‘ my heroine.’
Even when he says nothing of meaningful consequence, his writing and thought processes hold us captive.
A complex life
Another outstanding aspect is Mehta’s in- depth research. His heroine’s was a complex life. Born in a Mumbai chawl, she transcended the limitations of her inherited social status to become one of the most highly paid actresses.
She married a much older man ( director Kamal Amrohi), but the free bird trapped inside her emancipated itself in the long run. She had several romances, the most notable one being her affair with a young Dharmendra. None of them worked. Her relatives used her.
She had little understanding of monetary matters. She used alcohol to escape her problems. Mehta did everything to accumulate as much information about her as he could have.
He went to the chawl where she was born, the cemetery where she lay buried, read up every article and snippet on her.
In the pre- Internet era, this would have been seriously hard work considering how quickly he finished the manuscript.
Reviving memories
Now, the weak points. In order to reach out to young readers who aren’t serious followers of the medium, the book needed a lot more background information and trivia related to her films.
Barring descriptions of Pakeezah , Saheb, Bibi Aur Ghulam and a few other films, the book disappoints. That the writer is intimately familiar with her body of work is apparent; however, that alone cannot excite the ordinary young cinema- goer into developing an interest in the legend’s films.
Written at a time when Meena Kumari’s memories hadn’t blurred, the book is occasionally marred by sudden shifts in the narrative that the average cinema- goer wouldn’t relate to.
Without saying anything consequential about Baiju Bawra , he suddenly takes the reader to a scene: ” If you remember, the setting was Baiju calling after his Gauri who was vainly trying to avoid him….” But, what about Baiju Bawra , the film? In a revised edition, this answer was absolutely necessary.
Mehta is known to be self- critical; yet, this virtue boomerangs when he admits, ” I must be honest and disclose that I have not seen Sharada , but those who have can hardly sit down.”
Why didn’t he see it, one must ask, this Raj Kapoor- Meena Kumari starrer having been a film of significant importance in her career?
After all, wasn’t this biography written because she was an acting legend whose turbulent life facilitated an untimely death? Meena Kumari – The Classic Biography is not meant for those who are interested in films and films alone.
For those seeking an introduction to her, however, reading this biography will be a fulfilling experience. Others who enjoy touching stories written in beautiful prose will enjoy it equally: this, even if they haven’t heard of Mehta’s heroine.
INDIA TODAY
