Subhash K Jha shines the spotlight on Nargis the reel and the real her in this special feature.
There were so many facets to the iconic Nargis Dutt .
I once remember her son Sanjay telling me, “Others knew her as the joyous, generous, large-hearted woman. For the world, she was Mother India. For me, she was my mom. Yeah, she pampered me silly. She would deny me nothing. Dad was the disciplinarian. For me, she was…everything.”
When we think of Nargis, we think immediately of Mehboob Khan’s Mother India. It is to Nargis’ career what Sholay was to Amjad Khan. Nothing that Nargis did thereafter could compare favourably with Mother India.
Indeed, Nargis in Mother India is a marvel of Nature. She was only 28 when she played mother to Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar so convincingly. To take such a bold risk of playing a mother so early in her career requires immense courage. Nargis never lacked in that quality. Years later, when Sharmila Tagore was in two minds about playing Rajesh Khanna’s mother in Aradhana, she used Nargis as a reference point to convince herself.
Interestingly Mother India was not the first significant film that Nargis and Mehboob Khan collaborated on. A decade earlier, in 1949, Mehboob made the contemporary love triangle Andaz in which Nargis played a Westernized girl who loves Raj Kapoor but is only friends with Dilip Kumar. The film asked a question that haunts all man-woman relationships to this day: can there be friendship between a man and woman with no strings attached?
Nargis thereafter drifted towards Raj Kapoor in real life. Raj Kapoor wanted to bring the Andaz trio together again in the film he had titled Gharonda. Dilip Kumar declined. The film was eventually made as Sangam with Raj, Vyjayanthimala and Rajendra Kumar.
It is tragic but true that Nargis’s proximity to Raj Kapoor isolated her from the rest of the film industry. Yes, her career did suffer as she was seen to be the unofficial hostess at R K Films. For the ten years that they were together Nargis was seen to be exclusive to the RK banner. Her efforts to prove her star power through films outside Raj Kapoor’s production house,proved largely futile.
In 1956, Nargis finally made the break with Raj Kapoor when it became clear that he wouldn’t marry her.
Ironically, the end of her relationship with Raj Kapoor signaled the most fecund phase of her career. Nargis approached her old friend and mentor Mehboob Khan who was then casting for the protagonist Radha’s role in Mother India. Much as Mehboob wanted to cast Nargis he was not sure she could pull off the role where she had to age from 17 to 70.
Nargis apparently told Mehboob Khan this: “Mehboob Saab, you leave it to me. I’ve to prove myself , and this is my chance.”
Mother India immortalized Nargis. But I feel she was equally powerful and emotive in Raat Aur Din, where she played a schizophrenic woman who leads two lives. The film was released a good ten years after Nargis had retired from acting after marrying Sunil Dutt, the man who rescued her from a fire sequence during the shooting of Mother India. Sparks literally flew as the protective Dutt lifted his future wife off her feet and escorted her to safety.
When I interviewed Sunil Dutt, I asked him what made Nargis so special. “What made her special? Everything! Everything about her was unique. She was fearless; she was kind and compassionate. She gave and gave to everyone indiscriminately. She had the largest kindest heart any human being could possibly have. My life began the day I met her. A part of me died the day she left me.”
Nargis wanted to see her son Sanjay Dutt’s debut film Rocky before she died. She passed away days before the premiere. Decades later, Raj Kumar Hirani made a biopic on Sanjay Dutt (why the son, why not the mother?), where he cast Manisha Koirala as Nargis.
This would rank as monstrous miscasting and I could just hear Nargis’ throaty laughter chasing down Hirani all the way from Heaven. The woman who didn’t spare Satyajit Ray (and chided him for selling Indian poverty to the West) wouldn’t have hesitated in letting Hirani know what she thought of his casting.
