Dilip Kumar: The Substance and the Shadow

by Dilip Kumar

  I wanted to breathe the air that the characters Gunga and Jumna grew up on and also take stock of the pangs of suffering the men who swore by the soil they tilled went through at the hands of the heartless landlords. It is one thing to know it for knowledge’s sake and quite another to get a feel of it as a writer. I was in charge not only as a producer and actor but also as the writer of the screenplay and I was experiencing a stimulating challenge. In a way, I was very conscious of the fact that I was going to be judged at several levels and the thought inspired me more than it hassled me.

  A poster of Gunga Jumna (1961).

  The most wonderful thing about playing Gunga was that it was not difficult at all for me to understand the emotional current of the story, especially the feeling of adoration and protection for the smart younger brother. It took me back to my relationship with my brother Ayub Sahab who was intellectually ahead of all of us and I always felt he could have become somebody important in the administration had he not been physically debilitated. I had nourished great aspirations for all the younger siblings, too, and never hesitated to put their needs above mine in everything so that they could be educated and fulfil their ambitions. So Gunga wasn’t unfamiliar to me as a character unlike in most other films where I felt as if my own self was on one side and the other personality, the character, was on the other side and it was imperative for me to bring them together.

  Recently, while we were chatting casually, Amitabh Bachchan mentioned to me that he had repeatedly viewed Gunga Jumna as a student in Allahabad to understand how a Pathan was effortlessly playing a rustic character of UP and speaking the dialect with such ease. I think he has a point. It had to be difficult for any Pathan to feel at home with the personality and speech of Gunga. Yet, this Pathan, whose story you are reading, did it by instinct, careful study, untiring rehearsals and a temperament to succeed even in those ventures that were new for him.

  I knew that my script of Gunga Jumna had merits for me as an actor. Since the character was on the wrong side of the law, it was important for me to acquaint the viewer with the reasons for his taking to a lawless way of life and I had to make him pay the penalty for taking to that life, however right he may have been under the circumstances he was caught in. Gunga, I decided, should get no reprieve from the law when he tries to explain that he was the victim of a trap set by the zamindar and that he could fight the powerful feudal system only by becoming an outlaw.

  When I was writing the story and the screenplay of Gunga Jumna, my brother Nasir, for whose comeback the picture was being made, told me I was making a mistake. As mentioned earlier, he felt that people would not like to see me as a bandit and a law breaker. I thought about the matter seriously and I decided to go ahead without making any of the changes that friends and well-wishers suggested. The film eventually opened to a splendid response and admiring notices.

  When we were at Pinewood Studios in the UK, sometime in the summer of 1960, for the Technicolor processing, the technicians in the lab were very impressed and they suggested that we enter the film for the Oscars because it reflected the tyranny of the feudal lords or zamindars in independent India and the intrinsic honesty of the downtrodden farmers despite the poverty and oppression. They were full of praise for the performances, the colourful song sequences and the rugged, rural setting.

  When Gunga Jumna was screened at Karlovy Vary in Czechoslovakia, Boston and Cairo, I was besieged by film critics, who appreciated the movie and were intrigued by my acting. They were curious to know how much research had gone into it because a film like Gunga Jumna would have been made after much study and deliberation in their countries. I told them how much I had worked on the script, the characters, the Bhojpuri dialect, the logical conclusion of the story and so on. Another highlight of the film was the impressive musical score by Naushad Miyan, whose folk tunes in the film are popular to this day.

  Gunga Jumna’s enduring achievement is the inspiration it provided to writers to give the hero a flaw or what you call a negative shade. I had done ‘anti-hero’ roles earlier too. For instance, the character I had played in Mehboob Khan’s Amar (1954) did commit an outrage. Therefore this character was flawed and was not the conventional blemish-free hero. The character I played in Zia Sarhadi’s Footpath (1953) was a black marketeer and so he was also a tarnished hero. However, those films were not as successful as Gunga Jumna. In the case of Gunga Jumna, the hero was on the wrong side of the law but he had the audience sympathy with him and the conflict in the story is not so much between the brothers as it is between the law of the country and the moral freedom of a human being to fight injustice and corruption and take the world forward.

  It took months of reflection and self-questioning to arrive at the climax but it was well worth the pains taken because I still hear praises from discerning film enthusiasts for Gunga’s death scene. This scene was filmed on the sets at a studio at dusk. I took the cameraman, V. Babasaheb, into confidence and told him to keep everything ready as there would not be a rehearsal or a second take. I stressed the point that the synchronization between the action and the running camera would have to be perfect. He understood and was absolutely ready. The other unit members had no clue what I was going to do. What I did was my own idea. I took several rounds of the studio’s premises, jogging at first and then running. When I felt breathless and I thought that I would just collapse, I entered the sets where Babasaheb was ready with the camera running to perfection. The scene of Gunga’s collapse in his house at the feet of the deity whom his mother worshipped so trustingly and devoutly could not have been achieved in any other way. It was a victory for the law when Gunga succumbs to his bullet wounds but I wanted to tell the audience that it was Gunga who has achieved a bigger triumph – the moral victory God has given him by fulfilling his objective of establishing his poor mother’s innocence and restoring her reputation in the village.

  The search for the ideal locations for Gunga Jumna was a new responsibility for me. I am told the task is left nowadays to ‘production designers’ who create the look of the film on paper. Which must be the reason why the films appear so hybrid and amalgamous today. In our times, the director, cameraman and art director took pains to scout for locations, and for Gunga Jumna it was entirely up to me to find the appropriate backdrop for the unfolding of the story. As per the sketches I had made, some of the scenes had to be shot indoors on sets that I had pictured in my mind and had to be built at Kardar Studios and Mehboob Studios, both located in Bombay.

  It took a month of searching for me to pick a location close to Igatpuri in Maharashtra, about 120 km north-east of Bombay. I visited the place quite by chance while on an outing with Baddruddin Qazi (whom you all know as Johnny Walker). It caught my attention at once for its virgin beauty and its unexplored natural ruggedness. I later took along to the location Babasaheb, the cameraman, and director Nitin Bose, and they were all for it. Little did I know then that I was discovering a locale that would be repeated in several films after Gunga Jumna was released. The nature of the subject was such that it demanded a location of craggy hills and a valley besides a flowing river that would be skirted by a sloping land covered with tall trees and bushes. Babasaheb had seen the sketches I had made of the location that I desired and it surprised him pleasantly that there was indeed a place like the one I had drawn for him. For some minutes he stood silently with Nitinda on the hill from where Gunga slides down to seize the villain (played by Anwar Husain) and save Dhanno (played by Vyjayantimala). After gazing the locale for quite some time with his cameraman’s eye, he clapped his hands spontaneously in delight and stamped his approval on the spot. It was understood that the valley would provide the backdrop for the villagers’ houses and the zamindar’s haveli (mansion), which we would have to build. (The zamindar was the villain in the movie.)

  With Vyjayantimala in Gunga Jumna (1961).

  Making Gunga Jumna was a mammoth exercise at that time. Though Nitinda was there as the director, Gunga Jumna was essenti
ally my baby. When shooting began for Gunga Jumna on location, K. Asif was reshooting some of the desert sequences of Mughal-e-Azam in Rajasthan. I had to endure the scorching heat of the desert with all the heavy armour that I was given to wear for the scenes that Asif had reworked, fly back to Bombay and travel by car to the Gunga Jumna location. The make-up material available those days was limited and it was quite a test for my personal make-up artist to camouflage the suntan and the reddish patches I used to develop due to the metal armour covering my body in the war scenes shot on desert locations.

  Shapoorji, who was the co-producer of Mughal-e-Azam, used to call his sons and his office staff and tell them to imbibe the virtue of ceaseless hard work from me. He used to arrange for me to travel in as much comfort as possible and the concerned expression I could see on his face reminded me of the pain that would flit across Amma’s face when she would see the afternoon sun’s impact on my fair skin when I got home after rigorous football practice on the grounds near Metro Cinema during my college days.

  I enjoyed my long chats with Shapoorji who loved me perhaps no less than his sons. We discussed everything under the sun. While it fascinated me to hear him talk to his sons about the construction business and the money matters they were dealing with ever so facilely, Shapoorji often wondered how I was able to cope with the complex and unusual demands of the acting profession. Shapoorji was a towering giant in the construction business and he commanded instant respect from the authorities because of his untainted reputation. He was a man of small build and of medium height, his intrinsic goodness being reflected in the radiance on his gentle face. He visited the location whenever he found time and, at other times, he dropped in at my new house I had bought on Pali Hill.

  Those were the days when Pali Hill, Bandra, meant an address to reckon with. There were open spaces and bungalows and the bungalow I selected was at an elevation strategically commanding a good view from the upper floor. I gave my sisters and brothers a surprise by driving them to the house and opening the main entrance door with a key from my pocket. In one voice, they started asking me whose house was it and how come I had the key. I told them then that it was my house from now onwards. The house was big and had enough room for the girls to have the privacy they needed.

  Life’s surprises never cease, really. I was hoping to find my own exclusive space in the house where I could rest when I wanted to or just stay in the room and read. It was important for me to be left alone at times. I was used to being alone from a very early age because I had my own thoughts and fancies, which I did not wish to share. As a child, I enjoyed going out of the house alone and it often caused panic and got me into trouble (as noted in earlier chapters). Here, in the large house I had lovingly bought, I found myself often unwillingly dragged into senseless arguments and bickering. I felt completely out of synch with my brothers and sisters who were becoming increasingly concerned only with their comforts and luxuries, which they did not hesitate to ask me to provide.

  Consequently, I spent more time in the outhouse and there I felt a sense of relief because it gave me the much-needed freedom to pursue my interest in reading and spending quality time with people whose company I truly enjoyed.

  In the film industry there was a call from producers’ bodies to place a ceiling on actors’ assignments (sometime in the mid-1960s, if I remember rightly). I knew it would not affect me since I did not work in more than one film at a time but I felt it was an encroachment on an individual’s personal and professional freedom.

  My decision to move to Madras came at this juncture partly because I wanted to be away from the perennial cacophony in my house and partly because I could not agree with the Bombay producers’ move to restrict the work of actors. There were two very cordial producers in Madras wanting me to star in the Hindi remakes of their Tamil and Telugu hits and I liked them and the stories they narrated to me. One promised ample scope for humour and comedy and the other offered me an opportunity to delve into the troubled and suspicious mind of an unfortunate, lonely man. The films were B. Nagi Reddy’s Ram Aur Shyam (released in 1967 and directed by Tapi Chanakya) and P. S. Veerappa’s Aadmi (released in 1968 and directed by A. Bhim Singh). Both were to be made in the city that had captured my heart when I had worked in Paigham (1959).

  Ram Aur Shyam started with a bit of turbulence. Vyjayantimala, who was signed to play the lead, upset Nagi Reddy, the producer, with a tantrum that was uncalled for. When she stuck to her stand about something very trivial like a sari or a pair of earrings she had selected and was given to another artiste unknowingly by the director’s assistant, Reddy politely informed her she was out of the film. In a week’s time, I was informed that Waheeda Rehman – whose oeuvre included films such as Pyaasa (1957), Kaghaz Ke Phool (1959), Kala Bazar (1960) and Guide (1965) – would be replacing Vyjayanti. The whole episode was misconstrued by Vyjayanti who, after working with me in six films, imagined that I had brought in Waheeda because she was my heroine in Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966) and Aadmi!

  In Dil Diya Dard Liya (1966).

  Although shooting for Aadmi began long before Ram Aur Shyam mounted the sets, its pace slowed down halfway through the production because the cash flow came in dribs and drabs. While I was shooting some hilarious scenes for Ram Aur Shyam, I had to agree to dub for poignant scenes with Waheeda for Aadmi because Veerappa would send word that some funds had come in and they were in a position to hire a dubbing studio and pay the technicians. Likewise, the editor of Aadmi used to invite me to take a look at the edited reels and I spent many evenings (after pack-up at Nagi Reddy’s Ram Aur Shyam) in the suites where Aadmi was being edited.

  Aadmi was essentially a psychological drama and I tried to give it the edge and slickness it deserved on the editing table. Those days, the French new-wave directors, especially Jean-Luc Godard, had created an interest in our editors to employ the jumpcut unnecessarily. Although I was not formally trained in the job of editing, I had a fair idea of the contribution an editor could make to engage the viewer in the storytelling process. The subject of Aadmi was such that it needed imaginative editing.

  As an actor I was struck by the promise that the character I played in Aadmi held. I had to bring out the protagonist’s cerebral struggle to leave his past behind and move on. The basic conflict in the story, which had the external appearance of a common love triangle, was unusual in the sense that it was not so much a conflict between two men over one woman as is common in film stories. The friction was in the minds of the characters.

  The character I played was to be explored from a psychological angle and that intrigued me. From my experience and understanding, I concluded that the film had to have a mood and an ambience that would go with the vicissitudes in the protagonist’s life and the Freudian thought processes he gets into. So I got involved in two vital aspects of its making, besides the writing. I took a keen interest in the camera movements and lighting and also in the selection of shots on the editing table.

  Film making, unlike some other art forms like painting or writing poetry, for instance, has a great deal to do with communication. I mean the communication between the actor and the director, between the director and the cameraman and the art director, between the director and the editor, between the artiste and the cameraman and so on. If the coordination is well orchestrated, it shows in the final product. If not, it shows equally in the frayed look of the product.

  It was my practice to take an active interest in the making of a film. In Ram Aur Shyam too, my involvement was one hundred per cent. However, before I go into the details, I must say that Ram Aur Shyam was very special for me (as explained in the next chapter).

  17

  THE WOMAN IN MY LIFE

  As she quietly gazed out at the sea, we listened to the gentle sound of waves that spread a serene calm that descended on us and I looked at her and said: ‘Saira, you are not the kind of girl I want to drive around with, or be seen around with … I would like to marry you … will you be my wife?�
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  RAM AUR SHYAM WAS VERY SPECIAL FOR ME IN A PERSONAL way because I married Saira when the production of the film was nearing completion and I would like to digress here and narrate the true story of our marriage as there are quite a few fanciful accounts circulating since the day the news made headlines in all publications in the country in 1966. Until then I was reluctant to even work with her for some reasons, which I must explain.

  First of all, I knew that she was the daughter of Mohammed Ehsan Sahab and Naseem Banuji,* a great lady whom I much respected and admired for her dignity and self-reliance and for the way she most gracefully conducted herself in the film industry. Naseem Aapa had worked in a film made by Ayub Sahab, my brother, and there were always small get-togethers at our residence at 48 Pali Hill. I recall wonderful musical evenings when there was a sitar recital by Ustad Vilayat Khan Sahab or a singing soirée with the great Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahab, as I have been very fond of classical music, be it vocal or instrumental. Naseem Aapa would always be invited by Akhtar, my sister, who had great admiration and regard for her.