The iconic Rekha spoke to Subhash K Jha about the making one of her classic films, Umrao Jaan in this fascinating feature.
Muzaffar Ali’s classic study of the Kotha culture in the Lucknow of the 1850s Umrao Jaan is all set to release on June 27. Rekha, who received the National Award for her mellow, muted meditative performance, doesn’t think much of herself in this, her most celebrated work.
There is a supreme stillness that shrouds Rekha’s character, Umrao Jaan Adaa; an inexplicable tranquillity which Rekha famously called “doing nothing”. Not too many of our actors know much about the art of doing nothing. In Indian cinema, the more you do on screen, the more your chances of being noticed. Rekha took the risk and sailed through a character which is dreamy, distant, sensuous, and impregnable. I don’t think any of the men who cross her path ever get to know who Umrao really is.
In that sense, Umrao is the daughter of Meena Kumari’s Sahibjaan in Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah. Neither tawaif is all there. When Meena Kumari sings, ‘Yun hi koi mil gaya ttha sare raah chalte chalte’, she has the dreamy, faraway look of a woman who is physically here but emotionally somewhere else.
I saw the same look in Rekha’s eyes as she sings ‘Justju jisski tthi ussko toh na paya humne/Iss bahane se magar dekh lee duniya humne.’ The lucid words of regret and hope by Shahrayar in many ways define Rekha’s own life.
Like Umrao, Rekha never found what she was looking for. I speak in the past as the time to find that elusive idea called True Love has passed her by.
Just like Umrao. Rekha didn’t play Umrao Jaan Adaa. She lived the character through the sighing silences.
How on earth did she retain that “not here” look so consistently?
“Because I wasn’t there,” Rekha once giggled when I asked her this question.
One thing is for sure: no other actress could have made Umrao look so unattainable, so far removed from the men who adored her.
A great deal of the central performance’s efficacy depends on the poetic aura that Muzaffar Ali, along with music composer Khayyam and lyricist Shahrayar, created for Rekha’s character. The words that Umrao throws so casually, even in her ‘saheli’ scenes with Prema Narayan(there, only so that Umrao could speak her mind), are so embedded in the elixir of life, they seem to have been carved by the pen of destiny.
Pravin Bhatt’s cinematography, Muzaffar Ali, Manzoor, and Bansi Chandragupta’s art direction, Gopi Krishna and Kumudini Lakhia’s choreography, and Subhashini Ali’s costumes gather their glory in embodying Umrao as the pinnacle of seductive enigma.
I don’t think Rekha is aware of what she has achieved in Umrao Jaan. It is one of the most silently articulate portrayals of love’s pursuit ever seen. Its wordless lucidity is timeless. Fifty years hence, Umrao Jaan would still remain the work of art that it is now.
With her chiselled expressions, mysterious smile, and subtle adaas, Rekha was sufficiently able to cover up her inadequacies as a dancer in Umrao Jaan. Cinematographer Pravin Bhatt (director Vikram Bhatt’s father) did an outstanding job of catching Rekha’s face in the light of approaching evening. She never looked more dusky, inviting, and sensuous.
Director Muzaffar Ali later complained that he had a tough time getting Rekha to concentrate on the role. Luckily, like Smita Patil in Shyam Benegal’s Bhumika, Umrao Jaan was the story of a restless woman whose wandering soul takes her through warm and robust relationships with a bashful Nawab (Farooq Shaikh), her childhood friend and admirer (Naseeruddin Shah), and a long-haired dacoit (Raj Babbar).
Rekha shocked me by saying she “sleepwalked” through Umrao Jaan. “I mean it. I don’t remember a single shot or moment. I was thoroughly disinterested in what I was doing.”
But what about the stunning dances? “That’s no big deal. I think I danced well even in Sheshnaag. How many people remember that film? It’s not the dances that make a film.”
