Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow
Page 12
I was not the least nervous or anxious. One morning, as I entered the studio I was given the message that Devika Rani wanted to see me in her office. I wondered what it could be. I was certain it couldn’t be for expressing any displeasure because she was always courteous and pleasant whenever she met me and enquired how I was doing. So what could it be?
When I walked into her office, she was seated at her desk looking stunning and dignified as always. She smiled warmly and asked me to take a seat. I sat down and looked curiously at her. She began with the usual courtesies of asking me whether I would care for some tea made specially for her from leaves she had purchased from the English store in the city. I was wondering what she had in mind when she came to the point, speaking in English, the language she was most fluent in. She said, quite matter-of-factly: ‘Yousuf, I was thinking about your launch soon as an actor and I felt it would not be a bad idea if you adopted a screen name. You know, a name you would be known by and which will be very appropriate for your audience to relate to and one that will be in tune with the romantic image you are bound to acquire through your screen presence. I thought Dilip Kumar was a nice name. It just popped up in my mind when I was thinking about a suitable name for you. How does it sound to you?’
I was speechless for a moment, being totally unprepared for the new identity she was proposing to me. I said it sounded nice but asked her whether it was really necessary. She gave her sweet smile and told me that it would be prudent to do so. She added that it was after considerable thought that she came to the conclusion of giving me a screen name. With her customary authority, she went on to tell me that she foresaw a long and successful career for me in films and it made good sense to have a screen identity that would stand up by itself and have a secular appeal. I was quick to appreciate her concern but I told her I needed to think about it a bit. She responded: ‘Fine … come back to me with your thoughts.’
‘We are now ready to begin preparations for your debut. So we must hurry up,’ she said breezily as I rose from my seat to leave.
I spent the rest of the day as per my routine but with the name Dilip Kumar ringing in my mind’s inner recesses. S. Mukherjee Sahab noticed that I was rather contemplative that afternoon as we ordered lunch from the canteen and shared some fried fish that came from Ashok Bhaiyya’s house. After lunch, when work started on the shooting stage, he asked me if there was something disturbing me and if I could share with him. It was plain to all of us that S. Mukherjee Sahab was the Number 2 man in the studio’s management hierarchy and the general feeling was that he would take over the reins of management soon. I had developed a rapport with him because I found him to be a man of considerable worth not only in terms of the technical knowledge he had painstakingly acquired by regular interactions with the foreign technicians and consistent reading of relevant literature but also in a personal sense as a friend one could trust and rely upon.
I told S. Mukherjee Sahab about the suggestion that had come from Devika Rani. He reflected for a second and, looking me straight in the eye, said: ‘I think she has a point. It will be in your interest to take the name she has suggested for the screen. It is a very nice name, though I will always know you by the name Yousuf like all your brothers and sisters and your parents.’ (I later came to know that Ashok Kumar was the screen name of Kumudlal Kunjilal Ganguly.)
I was touched and it was a validation that cleared my thoughts then and there. I decided not to speak about the new name to anyone, not even to Ayub Sahab. The days that followed were pretty hectic at the studio because Kismet had released to a great opening response in 1943 and was on its way to creating box-office records. Ashok Bhaiyya was a superstar now but he remained completely unaffected and behaved as if nothing had changed in his life. He began to take a keen interest in the management alongside S. Mukherjee Sahab and he was delighted that I was going to be launched with a film titled Jwar Bhata to be directed by Amiya Chakraborthy.
I had been earlier interacting with Amiya Chakraborthy but now we were spending time more as director and actor as he prepared for starting the shooting of Jwar Bhata. A strange truth was that I was not even slightly nervous or excited about the fact that I was going to face the camera for the first time when the D-day arrived for my first shot. I was given a simple pant and shirt to wear and Devika Rani came on the sets and looked at me and found me as unruffled as ever. She was a great expert in make-up and knew what exactly suited the lighting of the set and the nature of the scene to be shot. She checked the light strokes of make-up given to me and asked where the camera would be placed. She was quite satisfied with everything except my bushy eyebrows. She asked me to sit down on a chair and she called for tweezers from the make-up man and very deftly pulled off some unruly growth of straggling hair from my eyebrows to give them a proper shape while I held my breath and endured the pain it was causing. She smiled when she saw the tears brimming in my eyes as a result of the tweezing and very jovially suggested that I take a look at my face while the make-up man quickly applied some cream to ease the painful sensations on my poor eyebrows. She left after wishing me luck.
My first shot was explained to me by Amiya Chakraborthy. He made a mark on the ground and told me: ‘You will take your position here and you will run when I say “ACTION”. I will first say “START CAMERA” but that is not for you. “ACTION” is for you to start running and you will stop running when I say “CUT”.’ I asked him very politely if I may know why I was running. He replied I was running to save the life of the heroine who was going to commit suicide. Satisfied with the explanation, I told him I was ready. It was an outdoor scene and the camera was somewhere in the distance. It was a brand new gadget imported from Germany and it was being used for the first time. I stood where I was shown to take my stand. I had been an athlete at college consistently winning 200-metre races, so it did not perturb me at all when I was asked to run up to the call for ‘CUT’. I was mighty pleased that it was something so easy and simple!
The shot was ready and the minute I heard ‘ACTION’, I took off like lightning and I heard the director scream: ‘CUT, CUT, CUT.’ I saw him gesticulating and trying to tell me something I couldn’t figure out. I stood rooted to the spot I had reached in a flash and Amiya Chakraborthy ambled over, looking highly displeased. He told me that I ran so fast that it was a blur that the camera had captured. I clarified that I had no idea of the speed I was supposed to maintain. He then said: ‘Never mind; we will do it again but keep the pace slower.’ It was a bit perplexing for me when he told me at first to slow my pace because I thought it was important for me to run as fast as I could and save the girl who was going to end her life. However, when Amiya Chakraborthy explained the action as something that should register on the film in the camera, which would move at a particular pace, I understood in no uncertain terms that I faced a big challenge and the business of acting was anything but simple. The shot was okayed after three or four calls for ‘CUT’.
I am often asked what I thought of my first performance and my first film, which was released in 1944. Honestly, the whole experience passed by without much impact on me. I did what I was told to do and it was not easy at times, or most times rather, to come to terms with the fact that it was all unreal and unrelated to one’s real self and real existence. To express love to someone completely unknown and unattached to one in reality was, at that age and time, a tough demand. I think Amiya Chakraborthy understood my predicament but he was persuasive enough to get a reasonably good output from me in the romantic scenes. When I saw myself on the screen, I asked myself: ‘Is this how I am going to perform in the films that may follow if the studio wishes to continue my services?!’ My response was: ‘No.’ I realized that this was a difficult job and, if I had to continue, I would have to find my own way of doing it. And the critical question was: HOW?
I think I was really lucky to have started working at an early age in the stimulating environment of Bombay Talkies. The writers – who left New Theatres in Calcut
ta (now Kolkata) to join Bombay Talkies, which enjoyed the prestige of being the studio that produced highly successful films, most of them having Ashok Bhaiyya in the lead – were very creatively gifted but they would turn to me for Urdu vocabulary on S. Mukherjee Sahab’s advice. I benefited from my interactions with them and it became obvious to me that the screenplay was the backbone of a film. I also became aware that an actor needed to strengthen his instincts because the duality between the real and unreal cannot be sorted out by the mind, which is more concerned with truth and logic in any normal situation. The mind will always tell you this is nonsense: this woman you are addressing as ‘maa’ is not your mother or that you are not in love with the girl who is fluttering her eyelashes and looking at you soulfully. You know that your own mother is a lovely woman and does not have teeth stained by paan chewing and you don’t even know who the girl is. It is only instinct that will help you to absorb what you have to absorb from the script and drive you to render a performance coated with realism and conviction despite the knowledge of it all being fiction and drama.
10
NEW ASPIRATIONS, NEW EXPERIENCES
The silence was broken by Aghaji when he came home one evening after a visit to a family friend’s house where he had heard praises about me and my emergence as the star of Jugnu [1947]. He saw me coming in and he called me as he always did and began talking to me with ease. I was relieved and happy, considering that he was always upfront in giving expression to his thoughts and sentiments. He said quite matter-of-factly that he had come to terms with the reality that I had chosen a profession he had least expected me to enter.
I BEGAN TO VIEW MOVIES REGULARLY, BRAVING THE POSSIBILITY of being caught by someone known to my family. I must confess that the new identity as Dilip Kumar had a liberating impact on me. I told myself Yousuf had no need to see or study films but Dilip surely needed to accumulate observations of how actors reproduced the emotions, speech and behaviour of fictitious characters in front of a camera. So I started seeing films, one film a day, at two successive shows. It was necessary to view the same film at the 3.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. shows because in the first viewing something that caught my attention could be reviewed closely in the second viewing. Hence, I had to leave the studio early for a few days.
With Meera Mishra in Milan (1946).
I started getting the hang of it as I watched Hollywood actors and actresses like James Stewart, Paul Muni, Ingrid Bergman and Clark Gable but it did not take long for me to realize the essence, which was that an actor should not imitate or copy another actor if he can help it because the actor who impresses you has consciously and even painstakingly moulded an overt personality and laid down his own ground rules to bring that personality effectively on the screen. I understood very early on, while I was at Bombay Talkies itself, following such films as Milan (1946), that I had to be my own inspiration and teacher and it was imperative to evolve with the passage of time.
S. Mukherjee Sahab was a great help when I discussed with him such topics as the evolution of an actor or the elusive phenomenon of stardom that actors aspire to attain. Ashok Bhaiyya was a phenomenally successful star at that time but he was so unaffected by his stardom. I remember an evening when he decided to travel with me and P. Jairajji (a senior actor and director) to Churchgate by the local train. We had purchased tickets for a film and he was insistent on going to the cinema hall by train. At the Malad station, when people saw him and recognized him, there was a wave of adulatory attention but he seemed unmindful of the gasps of admiration as he talked to us. When the train arrived a crowd got into the compartment that we boarded and people started talking to him about Kangan (1939) and Jhoola and Kismet and he responded warmly and wittily. I was witnessing the phenomenon of stardom, which was quite baffling for me then.
I narrated the whole incident to S. Mukherjee Sahab the next day in the presence of Ashok Bhaiyya. Ashok Bhaiyya listened to my narration and, looking seriously at me, said: ‘It is a preview of what you are going to experience on a much bigger scale in the future. A handsome man like you will have trouble keeping the women away.’ He saw my expression and laughed heartily because it was well known by then at Bombay Talkies how shy and formal I was in the presence of women.
S. Mukherjee Sahab, who was in agreement with Ashok Bhaiyya, was laughing, too. I thought it was the right time to talk to both of them about stardom and what it entailed as well as the impact it could have on an actor’s mind and personality, especially if he had a dual image – his real self with his real name and personal and social background juxtaposed with his screen image with another name and personality, which changed from one fictitious character to another and from one film to another.
Ashok Bhaiyya noted that he would give stardom and success little importance because for him they were not the be-all and end-all of his existence. ‘It [stardom] should never be more important for you than your self-respect and your will to do what you want to do in the manner you want to do’, he emphasized. I knew what he was meaning to say and his attitude was obvious in the train when he jostled with the common folk who were his ardent fans. He was interacting with them as the real Ashok Kumar, completely divorced from his screen image and his stardom.
It was S. Mukherjee Sahab who gave me an answer that has lingered in my mind since then. He pointed out to me that the distinction was easy to achieve if one understood that ‘the actor is more important than the star. The star is a creation of marketing and stardom is the result of the hard work of the actor when it finds mass acceptance and adulation. When fans will come to you some day, remember they are coming to see you and feel you because they have liked your acting and are touched by it. You should know that it is Dilip Kumar they are clamouring to meet.’
It was S. Mukherjee Sahab’s wont to talk seriously and analytically when a topic aroused his intellectual interest. The professor in him surfaced at such times. He was in many ways my guru and a source of inspiration. He could explain to me in the simplest of terms the grammar of cinema. He took pains to take me behind the camera and show me how the camera sees the actor in front of it. He would make me view the way he would simulate the gait of a woman in front of the camera. It would be a funny sight but seeing the act through the camera lens gave me the much-needed help in understanding the relation between the camera and the actor facing it or turning his back to it under the light that is falling on him. He always liked to show his actors by performing what he wanted them to portray. He was very sharp in noticing not only technical flaws but also flaws in dialogue delivery and facial expressions. Above all, he had great respect for writers and believed that cinema’s prime objective was to engage the viewer with imaginative storytelling.
My formative years at Bombay Talkies were memorable for the lovely time I spent with Ashok Bhaiyya and S. Mukherjee Sahab. They lived close to the studio those days and I was always welcome in their homes to have hot bhajias (a savoury fried dish) prepared by Ashok Bhaiyya’s wife, Shobha Bhabhi. It was also wonderful to be in the company of Raj Kapoor again after our Khalsa College days. Raj was happy to know I had seriously entered the profession of film acting. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ he said, hugging me like a little, excited boy when I was ready for my debut. When we were at Khalsa he used to tell me in Punjabi: ‘Tusi actor banjao. Tusi ho bade handsome.’ (You should become an actor. You are very handsome.) I thought then it was not my cup of tea. It was fine for him because his Papaji (Prithvirajji) was a great actor and one of the most handsome and virile men I had seen on the screen. Naturally, Raj and his younger brothers, Shammi and Shashi, were all genetically gifted with talent and exceptional good looks. It did not seem a good proposition for me with the background I came from.
At Bombay Talkies, Raj was regarded with respect and a measure of awe because he was Prithvirajji’s son. There was no actor or, for that matter, anyone who had anything to do with the performing arts who did not admire Prithvirajji whose commanding presence in the plays staged by Prithv
i Theatres inspired awe. Raj neither showed off nor leveraged his father’s eminence to get special treatment at the studio. He and I often slipped off to Ashok Bhaiyya’s house for a game of badminton in which Bhabhiji also joined us, playing the game by her own rules and filling the air with her chatter and giggles. She enjoyed the game and the relief she got from the boredom of being alone in a large house. After the game, she would ask me and Raj to stay on for tea and bhajias. Ashok Bhaiyya sometimes arrived while we were munching the bhajias and we would think it was time for us to leave because he was home after a long day’s work. However, Ashok Bhaiyya would have none of it. He would chide us and say jokingly: ‘You both should be ashamed of yourselves. You come here and flirt with my wife, eat such nice bhajias without me to give you company and you want to leave without giving me a chance to play a game with you guys.’ We would then sheepishly stay back while Bhabhiji promised more hot bhajias and hot tea. After such a frontal attack, we had no option but to acquiesce.
Ashok Bhaiyya was an agile badminton player. Raj was a splendid referee when we had played soccer on the grounds off Khalsa College and he looked so robust when he stood on the field, whistle in hand, and refused to budge from his decisions. He got easily tired when we played badminton because he was least interested in the game. He was there more for the delicious bhajias. Both Ashok Bhaiyya and Raj found my stamina incredible. I could only attribute it to the dry fruits I grew up on and the indomitable will power I inherited from Aghaji. There were days when S. Mukherjee Sahab joined us. He and Ashok Bhaiyya carried on a continuous powwow in Bangla, which is a typical Bengali habit. When two Bengalis get together they make no bones about bringing their personal lives into the ambit of their conversation in their mother tongue while others who are in their company wonder what they are so engrossed about that they are talking and chuckling nonstop.