Songs From Meena Kumari films - Page 7

I nver knew she was related to RabindraNath Tagore family, read this article:

The sadness of being Meena Kumari

Meena Kumari's original name was Mehjabeen. She changed her name when she became an actress. Very few people know that Meena Kumari was connected to the grand Rabindranath Tagore family. Meena Kumari's grandmother, Hem Sundari Thakur (Tagore) was married into the Tagore family but after she lost her husband Rev Bill, she was compelled to give up all her rights to the family name or property by her in-laws. The politically powerful and rich family of the Noble Laurate Rabindranath Tagore, were too powerful for her. Due to this sudden severance of connection, not many were aware of Hem Sundari's relationship with the Tagores. Hem's daughter Prabhawati was Meena Kumari's mother. Prabhawati too was a stage actress and a dancer. Her stage name was Kaamni. Prabhawati later got married to a Pathan called Ali Bux. He was a Sunni Muslim. He played the harmonium and wrote Urdu poetry. He was already married when he met Prabhawati. He composed music for small films like Shahi Lutere and also did some bit roles in films like Idd Ka Chand. Mehjabeen was born on August 1, 1932 in Dr Gadre's hospital in Mumbai. Her father Bux almost left her in a Muslim orphanage but went to pick her up again after a few hours. Bux was upset that his wife had given birth to another daughter. "I don't want to work in films. I want to go to school," was the first protest of Mehjabeen. What followed was an intriguing love-hate relationship that she always had with films. Though her father was against her doing films as he knew what went on inside those four walls of a producer's office, her mother pushed her into the industry as a means of livelihood. Her first role was as a child-artiste in Farzand-e-Watan (renamed Leather Face) by Vijay Bhatt of Prakash Studios. Her first ever scene didn't have lines. There was a scene in which a cat was supposed to lick her cheeks. She was terrified but the cat's tongue was less terrifying than the whip lashing words of her mother. Ali Bux, Meena's father, who was initially against his daughters joining films, became Meena's full time manager after she became a successful star. Once while returning from Mahableshwar in their Plymouth, Meena and her family met with a serious accident. And though three of them suffered injuries, Meena's were the worst. Her left hand was seriously injured, and doctors weren't sure if she would be able to use it again. No one knows how much damage was caused to her hand and how it looked after the surgery. Being very image conscious, Meena always hid her hand in her sari pallu, and viewers often tried spotting it. This only added to her charm. Released on Oct 5, 1952, Baiju Bawra became a hit. And she a star. The reviews were very good. The film ran for 100 weeks in Bombay. It did Silver, Golden and Diamond jubilees. From a heroine who had signed Anarkali for Rs. 15,000, her price immediately jumped to one lakh. After her accident since she was indisposed, Meena Kumari lost some good films to other actresses. Even one of her favourite films, Noor Jehan, slipped out of her hands. The film was instead made with a little known Asha Mathur, Kamal Kapoor and Pradeep Kumar but the film couldn't be completed. 12 years later Meena got to play Noor Jehan. During the shooting of Baiju Bawra, for the shooting of the song Tu Ganga ki Mauj, Meena Kumari was alone in a boat and from the shore and the camera. She wasn't looking at the direction she was going in, suddenly unit hands started shouting, but she couldn't hear them. She was excitedly rowing the boat, unaware of the fact that she was at the edge of a waterfall. A couple of unit hands who could swim, jumped into the water and started swimming towards her, luckily her boat was stopped by some boulders from going over. By then one of the unit hands had been able to reach her boat, and climb aboard. Only then she realized just how close to death she had come. Meena Kumari, once walked out of Mehboob Khan's film Amar, because she couldn't spare the dates for shooting. For a heroine to actually walk out on Dilip Kumar was akin to sacrilege in those days. But Meena Kumari was like that, she made her own rules and lived by them. She was also a poet. A couplet taken from one of her poems describes her perfectly: Dilsa jab saathi paaya bechaini bhi saath mili. (If I found a companion of my liking I found restlessness with it too). She kept longing for a perfect mate all her life. In her search for that soul mate she also made some very significant friends like Gulzar, Pradeep Kumar, Dharmendra. After receiving the Filmfare award for Kaajal from President Radhakrishnan, she had dined with him and conversed at length with him in her faltering English. Meena was very excited upon receiving a letter from the Pesident within a week of their meeting. She immediately wrote back to him, and didn't let anyone correct her language in the letter, as she had wanted him to know that she had written the letter on her own. The actress was also awed when she was looking out for a bungalow and found that the one suited her requirements was inhabited by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930. She was so excited by this that she made it a point to find out from the old gardner, where Bapuji used to sit, where he kept his charkha, where he used to meet his visitors and hold evening prayers etc. Meena Kumari did the bathing scene in Footpath much against the wishes of her husband Kamal Amrohi. Drinking and ill health took its toll on her career soon. At one point in time she was away from films for five years. Meena Kumari came back to work after that gap with Pakeezah. She was unwell even while the film was being shot. Meena Kumari rushed out of the sets and started crying when she couldn't dance on Thare rahiyo o banke yaar ve. "I can't do it... it is too late." Kamal Amrohi got Padma Khanna to do the song in place of Meena Kumari but of course in a ghunghat. Meena Kumari had a chat with Padma before the picturisation. The perfectionist that she was, she wanted Padma to walk like her in the music pieces. Padma had to practise for hours before she got the nod from Meena Kumari. Pakeezah released on February 4, 1972. The film was declared a flop. Three weeks after the release of the film, Meena Kumari fell seriously ill and on March 31, 1972, at 3.25 pm, she died. Pakeezah became a hit.

Meena Kumari
The legend lives on

It was in tragedies that Meena Kumari triumphed. She could cry without using glycerine, a great achievement in acting. Regarded as the greatest tragedy queen of Indian cinema, she portrayed a unique blend of great sensitivity, pain, sacrifice and purity in her reel life. And there is a reason for this. It was because these tragedies pervaded her real life too, says Roshni Johar

MONTHS before her death Meena Kumari had written in an Urdu couplet, "I will leave this world alone, and then it will wait for me for centuries". Perhaps she had a premonition of her death.

On March 31, 1972, Meena Kumari lay in Mumbai's St. Elizabeth Nursing Home. Life was ebbing from her. When asked her last wish, she whispered, "Ek umda paan". A very simple desire for a great actress. After some time, 40-year-old Meena Kumari was no more. She was covered with a white sheet, her favourite colour symbolising purity. Incidentally her last movie running at that time, was the unparalleled Pakeezah, meaning pure.

No one could give her the happiness she longed for. It was not in her destiny. Life had contrived to plunge her deep into melancholia from which no one could pull her out. Restlessness had also gripped her. She had once expressed, "Ek dhadka sa laga rehta hai dil ko hardam.... zist hamsaye se maanga hua zevar to nahin?"

Her childhood was far from normal. Born Mahajabeenara Begum on August 1, 1932, she was the second of the three daughters (others being Khurshid and Madhuri) of Iqbalbi (formally Prabhavati, a renowned dancer and stage artist) and Allahbaksh, a music director hailing from Sargoda, West Pakistan. No wonder acting came naturally to Meena Kumari. After Partition, poor Allahbaksh used to make daily rounds of Mumbai's studios to get his little daughter roles to make both ends meet. Christened Manju, she was given the screen name of (Baby) Meena Kumari.

Beginning her career as a four-year-old child star, Meena Kumari soared high to become a shining star of the Indian silver screen. Starting with the unknown Leather Face, she reached the pinnacle of glory with her swan song Pakeezah. She won laurels with Filmfare Awards for Baiju Bawra, Parineeta, Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam and Kajaal.

Cinegoers were captivated by her enchanting personality, her cultivated smile, unhurried gait, impeccable dialogue delivery and her regal, almost ethereal, charm. Sometimes she even went beyond the script, so totally immersed was she in her roles. With ease, she conveyed a gamut of emotions in over 80 films depicting both Muslim and Hindu cultural backdrops.

Meena Kumari had acted in devotional films like Shri Ganesh Mahima, fantasies like Arabian Nights, historicals like Noorjahan comedies like Miss Mary and a variety of social films like Dil Ek Mandir, Bahu Begum, Manjhli Didi, Baharon Ki Manzil, Ek Hi Raasta, Aarti, Azad, Kinare Kinare, Yahudi, Kohinoor, Sharda, Dil Apna Preet Parai, Bheegi Raat, Phool Aur Pathar, Chirag Kahan Rohini Kahan, Shararat, Bhabhi Ki Chooriyan, Savera — to name a few.

It was in tragedies that she triumphed. She could cry without using glycerine, a great achievement in acting. Regarded as the greatest Tragedy Queen of Indian cinema, she portrayed a unique blend of sensitivity, pain, sacrifice and purity in her reel life. And there is a reason for this. It was because these tragedies pervaded her real life too.

Bringing joy to others through her films, she was herself a unhappy woman. She married Kamal Amrohi, a film director and writer who was 15 years her senior, already married and with children, much against her parents wishes. Realising her acting potential for certain kind of roles, Kamal chose the films she was to act in, thus controlling her life and finances. Meena Kumari relinquished her emotional and physical demands to fulfil his desires. But somewhere her soaring success made Kamal, suspicious as he was, feel threatened and insecure. Was this egoism or was it a desire to keep her under his own control? It was when the film ironically called Pinjare Ka Panchhi was in the making in 1964, that they finally parted, the dramatic marriage having an equally dramatic end.

She knew nothing of finances. Despite her successful film career she never kept any money for herself, always earning for others. Perhaps she was always deceived, especially by those close to her.

Though out of Kamal Amrohi's clutches, Meena Kumari fell into a pool of loneliness and self-pity. She tried to find lasting friendship in Gulzar, Dharmendra and Sawan Kumar. Suffering from insomnia and depression, she turned to liquor as her last refuge, hankering and searching for that elusive happiness which never came her way. She identified with her role in Sahib Bibi Aur Gulam. She felt she had suffered greatly and then there was her dependence upon liquor.

A dreamer, Meena Kumari found solace in poetry. The last line she wrote was, "Kya meri maiyyat ka waqt aagaya?" How true these were words! She died of cirrhosis of liver caused by excessive drinking, leaving nothing behind except her poems, ghazals, nazms and diaries to be given to Gulzar. Her book of verses is aptly entitled Tanha Chand.

Can this be called a natural death?

This article tries to understand the circumstances which led to the death of the famous actress, Meena Kumari.

by: AbhiSrivastava on Jul 16 2006

Can this be called a natural death?



More than 34 years have passed since that tragic incident came to pass on 31st March, 1972. On that day, in a hospital in Mumbai, the greatest film actress ever known to humanity, MEENA KUMARI (real name MEHAJABEE BANO), died. The official reason of her death was cirrhosis of liver.

Medically, that reason is 100% correct. Just 40 years of age at the time of her tragic death, Meena Kumari was too young to die of failing health. But this is exactly what happened. During the later part of her life, she has become a heavy drinker and due to excessive intake of liquor, ultimately her liver failed completely and hence, doctors recorded her death caused due to illness.

Well, if that's the end of the story, why am I recounting those events today? Is it because I am a huge fan of her, and therefore desperately want to write something, anything, about her? The answer is NO. I am recounting these events because although for all purposes, the death of this great actress and poet is the natural result of very excessive drinking, no one ever bothered to find out why she began drinking so heavily in the first place? This question needs to be asked even today because the person who ruined her life and totally shattered her spirit and will to live is still alive today, and no one, till now, has asked him a few pointed questions as to what major role he played in destroying a precious life.

Born on 1st August, 1932, Meena Kumari was literally pushed into films as a child artist, by her parents, at the age of 4. He was given the screen name Baby Meena. Throughout 1940's, she acted in many films, first as a child artist, and then, after few years, as the leading lady of few mythological films, now under the screen name Meena Kumari. Her big break came in 1952, when the super success of "Baiju Bawra" made her a top heroine. Around that time, she fell in love with writer, director Kamaal Amrohi and the two got married in 1952.

This marriage was successful for about a decade and Meena Kumari was quite happy with her life. Then in the early 1960's, came a certain Mr. Dharmendra, whom Kamaal Amrohi offered the same role in his film "Pakeezah", which was ultimately played by the legendary actor, RaajKumar.

Now, a whole lot of people believed that Dharmendra used Meena Kumari, who was then at the zenith of her popularity, to further his career. The whole truth is still not out, but the fact remains that within 2-3 years after the arrival of Dharmendra, relations between the once happy couple nose-dived so much that Kamaal Amrohi divorced Meena Kumari in 1964 and stopped the shooting of "Pakeezah".

Even after all these sorry incidents, Dharmendra kept close to Meena Kumari because that was required to further his career. The super success of films like "Kaajal" proves this fact. Dharmendra's first super hit as a solo hero "Phool aur Pathar" was in great measure courtesy Meena Kumari, only because of the presence of Dharmendra in the film had Meena consented to act in it.

And yet, once Dharmendra was a star on his own, something changed again. He apparently moved on to greener pasture while Meena felt dumped. And then began the phase of excessive drinking in Meena life which ultimately cost her, her life.

But throughout all these years, that Meena continued to love Kamaal Amrohi is never in doubt. That is why when she realized that she may not live very longer, she, despite her terrible ill-health, consented to shoot for "Pakeezah" because she knew that "Pakeezah" is Kamaal Amrohi's magnum-opus and he desperately wants to make that film. The shooting of "Pakeezah" restarted towards the last days of Meena Kumari's life, this time minus Dharmendra, with RaajKumar taking his place, which in fact, was a great boon for the film because Dharmendra, his acting skills never to write home about, could never have played the character of "Salim" the way RaajKumar did. RaajKumar excelled in "Pakeezah" and the performance of Meena Kumari in the film is simply unbelievable.

By the time Pakeezah released, it was all over for Meena Kumari and within weeks of its release, she died a lonely, sad death. Significantly, Dharmendra, the man a whole lot of film buffs of that era hold responsible for breaking the happy home of Meena Kumari, was no where near her during the last, painful, bed-ridden days of her life. That Meena herself realized that outsiders have broken her happy home is all too apparent when once she said to Pradip Kumar "Allah will never forgive those who have broken my home".

Meena Kumari was no ordinary person. She was not only an extra-ordinarily talented actress, but also a very promising poet. And her voice is the most surreal voice I have heard in my life. Just listen to the memorable album "I Write, I Recite", composed by the one and only Khayyam, in which Meena Kumari recites her own poems, to realize how a voice can transport you to a different world. Such a talented person was taken away from this world at the age of 40 years. And everyone believes that alcohol is to be entirely blamed for this. But who drove her to such desperation that alcohol became her last refuge? Now that Kamaal Amrohi is also not with us, only Dharmendra can answer this question truthfully. But will anyone ever ask him, and even after being asked, will he ever accept the truth?

Really, can Meena Kumari's death be considered natural? If you ask me, then NO. There is a man responsible for ruining her life so much that she lost her will to live. And the irony is, no one has ever pointed an accusing finger towards him.

as everything about meena kumariwas so tragic..I used to like her light hearted movies and songs very much..in dil apna preet parayi todayI enjoy these songs better..

"sheesha e dil itna na uchhalo".....meena looked so happy frolicking on the beach with her friends

"mera dil ab tera oh saajna"she is dancing wearing a puppet like costume...

"andaaz mera masthana maange dil ka nazrana"...she plays the temptress to the hilt...

Meena Kumari and Pakeezah

	Below: Sahibjaan's dance on broken glass in Pakeezah

Like Nargis, Meena Kumari was a fundamentally modern, nationalist construct: both were symptomatic of that amalgamation of 'modernity' and 'tradition' central to the discourse of nationalism. However, since Nargis stood as the symbol of an Indian nation that, while effectively imbricated in religious (read Hindu) and aristocratic structures, presented itself as secular and modern, Meena Kumari's characters tended to operate within a space that can be best characterised as the modern nation's image of 'tradition'.

The fundamental contradiction between the modernity of the Meena Kumari construct and its ostensibly traditional paradigms produced, in Hindi cinema, the romantic courtesan. Meena Kumari's off-screen life extended her persona as the lovelorn woman who drowns her passion in drink, writes poems in Urdu and dies an early death. Her courtesan and the public persona functioned simultaneously as an object of nostalgia and a powerful challenge to nationalist ideology.

Pakeezah/Pure Heart (Kamal Amrohi, India, 1971), Meena Kumari's best known performance, tells the story of Sahibjaan/Meena Kumari, an orphan raised by her (courtesan) aunt who, growing up to become a courtesan-singer in Mughal Lucknow at the turn of the century, falls in love with a benevolent, aristocratic stranger. The film also presents the clearest example of how meena Kumari functioned as Nargis' 'other'.

First planned in 1958 by Meena Kumari and her husband, the director Kamal Amrohi, Pakeezah took 13 years to finish. At one level, the film is rooted in the 1950s and what was then the dominant genre, the 'feudal romance' (Prasad 1998). By the time Pakeezah was released, however, Hindi cinema had found new ways to address an audience increasingly disillusioned with nationalist modernisation. Disillusion manifested itself in the genre now associated with the 1970s, the modern action Hindi cinema and its star, Amitabh Bachchan, noted for his portrayal of the urban anti-hero.

Parineeta (Bengali: ??????) isParineeta (1953 film) a
1914 Bengali language novella written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and is set in Calcutta, India during the early part of the 20th century. It is a novel of social protest which explores issues of that time period related to class and religion.

Lalita's family
Lalita: the protagonist of the novella. Lalita came to live with her uncle's family after she was orphaned at the age of eight. At the beginning of the novella, she is thirteen years old and is close with her cousin Annakali (Kali) and her next door neighbor, Charubala (Charu). Lalita is considered a member of not only her uncle's family but of Charu's and of Shekhar's family as well. Indeed, Shekhar's mother Bhuvaneshwari is so attached to Lalita that she tells Lalita to call her "ma". At a time (1914) when young women were typically married at the age of thirteen, Lalita becomes the object of a triangle between her neighbor Shekhar and Charu's uncle, Girin.

Gurucharan: Lalita's uncle is a bank clerk with a small salary and five daughters, as well as Lalita, to support. He becomes impoverished due to his attempts to follow social custom and pay large dowries for the weddings of his daughters. Indeed, the marriage of his second daughter was paid for by Shekhar's father, Nabin. In lieu of returning the money with high interest, Gurucharan's house was mortgaged to Nabin.
Lalita's aunt: She is never named in the novella and has only a minor role.

Annakali or Kali: Gurucharan's ten year old daughter and Lalita's cousin and playmate. It is during Kali's imaginary "doll-wedding" that Lalita and Shekhar exchange garlands.

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Shekhar Roy's family
Shekhar: The youngest son of the Roy family, Shekhar is twenty-five years old. He has a master's degree as well as a law degree and is working as a teacher. From the time of her arrival to Gurucharan's house, Shekhar had taken an interest in Lalita's upbringing. While Shekhar contemplates marrying Lalita, he is restrained by social customs as well as by the resistance of his father who wants him to marry a wealthy woman with a large dowry.

Nabin: Shekhar's father, who is a millionaire and an unscrupulous businessman. He becomes so enraged when Gurucharan's debt is repaid and when Gurucharan converts himself and his family to Bhramoism, that he builds a wall between the two houses.

Bhuvaneshwari: Shekhar's mother, who is an advanced thinker. She wants Shekhar to choose his own wife rather than marry the woman whom Nabin selects. She also accepts Lalita as her daughter despite the difference in wealth and position.
Abnash: Shekhar's married elder brother, a lawyer, who is mentioned in passing but never appears in the novella.

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Charu's family
Charubala or Charu: Lalita's next door neighbor and playmate. She introduces Lalita to her uncle Girin.
Girin: Manoroma's cousin and a university student who as been away for many years. He, as with the rest of the family, is a Bhramo, and convinces Gurucharan to convert himself (and his family). As a Bhramo, Gurucharan will no longer have to pay large dowries for the weddings of his daughters. In addition to repaying Gurucharan's loan, Girin repeatedly proves himself to be a man of integrity who acts according to the common good rather than his own self-interest.
Manorama: Charu's mother and Girin's cousin. She is an active card player and involves Lalita in many card games.

[edit]
Plot summary
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Parineeta takes place at the turn of the 20th century during the Bengal Renaissance. The story centers around a poor thirteen year old orphan girl, Lalita, who lives with the family of her uncle Gurucharan. Gurucharan has five daughters and the expense of paying for each dowry has impoverished him. He is forced to take a loan from his next door neighbor, Nabin Roy. Roy's son Shekhar, is a twenty five year old successful lawyer who is close friends with Lalita. While she is infatuated with him, the differences in wealth and class (and later religion) preclude marriage (as Swagato Ganguly states in the introduction to the 2005 English translation, "child marriages were the norm during much of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's life time...and did not attract any penalties from the law at the time of Parineeta's publication in 1914", pp.v-vi).

Shekhar is nonetheless jealous of Girin, a student who is the uncle of Lalita's friend, Charubala (her mother's cousin). Girin, Charubala and the rest of their family are Bhramos and Girin exerts a great deal of influence over Lalita's family. Girin helps Gurucharan repay the loan to Nabin Roy. He also convinces Gurucharan to convert himself and his family from Hinduism to Bhramoism as it forbade the giving of dowry in a marriage (a move which so enrages Nabin Roy that he builds a wall between the two houses). As a triangle develops between Girin, Shekhar, and Lalita tragedy ensues in the wake of a number of misunderstandings.

Parineeta (1953 film), directed by Bimal Roy, starring Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parineeta