MITHYL BANYMANDHUB
Times change. So does the landscape. A trip down memory lane brings to mind picture houses which had names like Paris, Royal and Major Atchia’s Cinema Hall. The first R.K. production I watched as a child was Ab Dilli Door Nahin at the Plaza theatre. I was too young to understand the story. It was related to me by my mother. Later, I happened to read Kamlesh Pandey’s review of the film. In his view, the story of Ab Dilli Door Nahin is simple. The plot revolves round a boy played by the talented Master Romi “trying to meet Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, to get justice for his father who is accused of a murder he did not commit”. Sulochana and Motilal are also cast in important roles.
One Sunday afternoon, I went to watch Aah which was screened at Paris. Nargis gives him the reply in this film which as the title suggests ends on a sad note. There is a song about the brevity of life which is picturised on his close friend, Mukesh Chand Mathur, who also provides the playback.
I watched Bhoot Polish and Andaz on television. To this day, I have not forgotten the role of veteran actor, David Abraham, who as John Chacha made an impact on me. I have watched Andaz many times both in cinema halls and on television. Bunny Reuben, an intimate friend of the Kapoor family in his book Raj Kapoor: The Fabulous Showman, which is also an intimate biography, writes, “Andaz was to me a Hindi Film in the finest Hollywood tradition. It was -it still is- one of the finest films ever made and the performance of the three stars, Raj Kapoor, Nargis and Dilip Kumar is something one can sit and watch even today”.
Those were the days when the popularity of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand was at its peak.
The Impact of Aag
And then I saw Aag. The title of the film drew me to the cinema house. As I watched it, I felt something momentous happening to me. I was to read later, “Aag swept the nation like a wildfire…. Thousands upon thousands of young men and women all over India were reacting…. to its lean, intense-eyed maker, a young man who seemed to move as though raw electricity blazed through his veins instead of that normal, mundane thing called blood which courses through the veins of ordinary mortals…”.
It was from that time that I wished to know more about the man and I followed his career graph thanks to the films which were produced under his banner at the famous R.K. Studios in Chembur and those in which he was cast by other producers. The filmography is impressive. Publications like Filmfare, Screen, Picturepost and Star and Style also satisfied my interest.
Birth and Childhood
It was on a cold day on December 14th 1924 that Raj was born to Prithviraj and Rama Kapoor. The story goes to the effect that Prithvi had written two names on a slip of paper which he placed underneath his wife’s pillow shortly before the labour pains began. On it he had written Ranbir Raj- and so he became.
He studied at St. Xavier’s School. He was very fond of acting. He has this to say about those days, “My childhood memories are pitted with the indelible scars of experience…. Apart from some vivid patches of happiness, my childhood years were quite miserable…. I soon picked up the most natural defence mechanism- the one used by all the great Jokers of the world. I learnt that the more one resisted being a target, the more one suffered. So, instead, I put the mask of a Joker by reacting as though I thoroughly enjoyed being made the butt of practical jokes”.
He also mentions that the child crush on his beautiful teacher played by Simi Garewal in Mera Naam Joker ‘is no fantasy of the scriptwriter. I was a great favourite of women teachers in every school I attended’. He goes on it say that white is his favourite colour and how that colour “came to be imprinted in his memory”. He enjoyed acting on the stage. He had the feeling, and rightly so, that acting ran in his blood.
He failed the matriculation examination. He decided to end his studies and told his father that he wanted to make pictures, to be a producer, a director and to act in films.
Prithviraj Kapoor reacted favourably to his son’s wishes. The following morning, he took Raj to Sardar Chandulal Shah. He appraised him of the desire of Raj in the following terms, “My son wants to learn direction. Let him start at the bottom”. And Raj Kapoor joined Ranjit Studios as third assistant to Kidar Sharma. There, he was made to do many odd jobs in addition to assisting him.
Prithviraj was shooting for Gauri then and Raj appeared briefly in the film. This, however, was not his first screen appearance. When the family was living in Calcutta earlier and Prithviraj was a star at New Theatres, the well-known film-maker, Debaki Bose, had called upon Raj to act briefly in After the Earthquake. He was just a boy then.
Studios and The Prithvi Theatre
Though he could easily have become a child star, Prithvi had other ideas. When he was confronted about it, he replied, “… I did not want to make a child star out of Raj. I am a great admirer of Hollywood child star, Jackie Coogan, and I never wanted any of my sons to go through what Coogan experienced- early glory followed by problems, obstacles and difficulties in later life”. His experiences at Ranjit Studios were “sometimes hilarious, frequently painful, always instructive”.
He next joined Bombay Talkies as assistant to the late Amiya Chakarborty. There also he started at the bottom. His father made it a point to tell the Indian screen’s first lady, Devika Rani, that it should be so. His last stint as assistant director came when S. Mukherji moved from Bombay Talkies to Filmistan Studios. Sushil Majumdar directed Begum for Filmistan. Ashok Kumar and Naseem acted in the film and young Raj Kapoor was Sushil Majumdar’s assistant.
Raj Kapoor then went on to play a few roles in films, and also took an active part in Prithvi Theatres both as a performer and an assistant to his father. He worked as general assistant in all the departments of Prithvi Theatres and was paid Rs 201/- per month. “It was a token one rupee more than the salary he had been earning at Bombay Talkies.
It was for his performance in the famous Sanskrit play Mrichakatika which was performed in Hindi that he won his first award. His compelling stage performances, coupled with his dynamic personality, did not leave the movie Moghuls of that era indifferent. Chandulal Shah was the first to notice him. The veteran ‘Sardar’, as he was respectfully referred to, cast Raj in Neel Kamal opposite Madhubala. The film was directed by Kidar Sharma. Then came Murari Pictures Chittor Vijay and Amar Jyoti’s Dil Ki Rani, in both of which he again co-starred with Madhubala. In Gajanan Jagirdar’s Jail Yatra, Kamini Kaushal was his co-star. All these films were released in 1947.
Acting and Singing
His role in Deewar impressed both Baburao Patel, Editor of Filmindia and Master Vinayak, the father of actress Nanda, who was an important film-maker of the thirties. He said, “Watch Prithviraj eldest son. He’ll become a great actor soon. This prediction proved to be true. It was the beginning.
He also sang. He was much appreciated in this capacity and was requested to sing on different occasions. He sang his own songs when he acted in the play Deewar. He was able to create a picture of life itself through his voice and one wonders why he did not exploit this talent.
It was Prithvi Theatres which gave Raj Kapoor his earliest and oldest associates. He met Inder Raj Anand who scripted his first production Aag there. They were to work together again in Aah and Sangam. He also met the musician, Ram Ganguly, who was to score the music for Aag.
It was again there that he befriended Shankar and Jaikishan, one a young tabla player from Andhra and the other a young harmonium player from Gujarat, who went on to score the music for Raj Kapoor’s second film Barsaat, the biggest box-office hit of its time. He also befriended the two poets, Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri.
By the mid-forties Raj Kapoor had managed to gather around him, one by one, all those persons who were later to become his closest and most creative colleagues for the next twenty years or so.
Raj Kapoor started Aag on February 6,1947 at Eastern Studios, Worli. The film was completed in less than a year. He launched it on July 6,1947 and its first release was on July 6,1948 in Shimla. Aag was a film made by and large by a group of people who were in their twenties. Vishwa Mehra was around twenty years old. Raj himself was twenty-two. Babubhai Thakar, their first editor, was twenty-three. So was Arun Bhatt, in charge of processing Raj’s Films at the famous Cine Laboratory, Tardeo. Only cameraman V. N. Reddy was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old.
Down Memory Lane
I remember those Sunday mornings in the early seventies when I travelled from the University of Delhi campus to Connaught Place where Odeon is located. There, I watched Andaz, Aag and Barsaat with a lot of pleasure. In Awara I noticed what Kamlesh Pandey has termed “the metaphor of a rich and affluent Nargis kneeling before the poor and underprivileged Raj Kapoor and begging to be embraced “. He further adds, “It must have soothed the ego of the poor people then. The India of Awara was still innocent and hopeful”.
Awara, Shree 420, Aag and Barsaat are acknowledged classics of the Indian cinema. The song “Nunhe-Munhe Bachche, Teri Muththi Mein Kya Hein” in Bhoot Polish still hurts as much as it did. Specially when David asks the two kids, Baby Naaz and Ratan Kumar, to tell him what the future holds as he will not be there to witness it. They tell him that in tomorrow’s world no one will go hungry and misery will not rule. The faces of the two kids lit with hope to be enshrined in the constitution of India forever!” is Kamlesh Pandey’s comment.
And the rest, it can be said, is history. Everyone who takes an interest in Indian Cinema knows the range of films in which he gave some memorable performances. They include Aashiq, Anari, Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai, Sangam and Mera Naam Joker. Though the stories are familiar, I still enjoy watching them. The lyrics, songs and music soothe my mind as they take me to another world.
I have come to the realization that it is very hard to outgrow Raj Kapoor no matter how old one is. I still wear my watch on my right wrist only because he did so.
Bibliography
- Reuben, Bunny. Raj Kapoor- The Fabulous Showman. New Delhi: Harpercollins publishers, 1995
- Nanda, Ritu. Raj Kapoor: The one and Only Showman. Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201 301, Harpercollins publishers, 2017.