NARGIS: THE MOTHER INDIA

PHOTOS: HTCS

In 1935, a six-year-old Baby Rani made her debut on the silver screen in ‘Talash-eHaq’ directed by Chimanlal. The film was unremarkable but for the fact that it had the first woman music director in Hindi film industry — Jaddan Bai, and because Baby Rani was to later bloom into Nargis, one of the finest actors in Hindi cinema.

Born in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) Baby RaniFatima-Nargis had many faces: she was the obedient daughter of well-known tawaif Jaddan Bai who was friends with the progressives of the art world (this got Nargis access to Prithviraj Kapoor’s theatre troupe), she was a mature actress who chose to be a fulltime homemaker, she was a behind the scenes manager for husband filmmakerdirector-actor Sunil Dutt with whom she formed the Ajanta Arts Culture Troupe which took leading actors and singers of the day to entertain the forces at border areas, she was the personification of the idea of Indian woman for the nascent democratic India...

By 1949, with the release of ‘Andaaz’ (director Mehboob

Khan) and ‘Barsat’ (director Raj Kapoor), Nargis began to be seen as a serious actor who meant business. These films also established Nargis and Kapoor as a successful team, their chemistry in ‘Awara’, ‘Shree 420’, ‘Chori Chori’, ‘Aah’ and ‘Jagte Raho’ is poetry on celluloid. Dilip Kumar was her other significant co-star (‘Jogan’, ‘Mela’, ‘Babul’, ‘Hulchul’, ‘Deedar’, ‘Andaz’). In her films she had a strong presence bereft of superficial glamour a critic famously said ‘she was a woman who could be desired and also deified’. Alongwith Madhubala (‘Pyar Kiya’ in ‘Mughal-e-Azam’), ‘Nargis’ (‘Rasik Balma’ in ‘Chori Chori’) was instrumental in establishing Lata Mangeshkar as a leading singer.

‘Mother India’ her swan song, garnered widespread appreciation from critics as well as general viewers and was even nominated for an Oscar. She won the Filmfare award for her role. A comparatively young Nargis (she was about 28 years old) played mother to Rajendra Kumar and Sunil Dutt with panache. The ideals of high morality and personal sacrifice established by the film turned it into an all time favourite. It has even been called “the greatest picture produced in India.”

Nargis came out of her retirement in the mid sixties to play the lead in ‘Raat Aur Din’ (1967) playing a woman with a split personality. The issue was tricky, the film was a box office failure but Nargis’s performance won critical acclaim and she received the very first National Film Award for best actress.

She then became active in public life, as a Rajya Sabha M.P. in the early 1980s she demanded deterrent action against rapists and criticised Satyajit Ray for exporting India’s poverty. She is the first film actor in India to have a memorial postage stamp issued in her honour. The award for Best Feature Film on National Integration, Nargis Dutt Award, is also named after her.

Tragically, she passed away on 3 May 1981, four days before the release of her son Sanjay Dutt’s debut film ‘Rocky’.

(The writer is an awardwinning author)