Requiem for a dream: Meena Kumari

It’s indeed tragic that at an age when children play with toys, Meena Kumari had to contend with clapper boards and megaphones. Being a child star, the studios literally were her playground. She became an actor not by choice but to fend for her family and never got out of the rut throughout her life. Maybe it was destined that she would live for others and not for herself. She made her name for herself in her first film itself, Leather Face (1939), and started acting in mythological dramas as a teenager. At 20, she achieved star status with Baiju Bawra (1952), and won her first Filmfare Award. Great things were expected of her and she indeed achieved greatness in acting but sadly her life was bereft of real love. Like many of her screen personae, she was neglected and duped by those who pretended to care for her. Hurt and heartbroken, perhaps that’s why her portrayals were so vivid, so true to life.

Meena Kumari, born Mahjabeen Bano, began acting at the age of seven and was renamed Baby Meena. Leatherface (1939) was her first movie. She’s known to have then said, “I don’t want to work in movies; I want to go to school.”


MISTRESS OF PAIN
The actor won over the audience with her combination of quintessential Indian beauty and heavenly acting.  She was given the sobriquet of tragedy queen after doing films where she portrayed the suffering woman.

Few know that the tragedy-tinted Meena, aced comedy. Here, she’s seen impersonating a man with Kishore Kumar in the 1959 film Shararat.


In films such as Parineeta (1953), Daaera (1953), Ek Hi Raasta (1956), Sharda (1957), Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi (1960), to name a few, she made the masses reach out for their handkerchiefs time and again.

The actress is seen here attending the muhurat of Parineeta (1953). Bimal Roy gives the clap. The film, based on the novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award.


She offered a kind of catharsis to a receptive audience which loved to cry with her. She got author-backed roles and her male co-stars were said to be wary of starring opposite her.

The romantic Meena Kumari fell in love with the intellectual director Kamal Amrohi in 1952. That he was already married and 15 years older to her, didn’t deter her.

LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS
She met mentor and husband Kamal Amrohi on the sets of Baiju Bawra who, besotted by her beauty, proposed marriage to her. She married him despite knowing that the talented writer-director was married with grown up children.

Meena Kumari, Mala Sinha, OP Ralhan, Raj Kapor, V Shantaram and Asha Parekh with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, President VV Giri and Field Marshall Sam Maneckshaw at Raj Bhavan .

The duo produced Daaera (1953), which was a fictionalised account of their love story. However, the initial awe she felt towards the intellectual Amrohi soon faded and the couple started having marital problems. It’s rumoured that he couldn’t stand her rising popularity and started mistreating her.

Seen here at the Filmfare office sifting through her fan mail. The actress was flooded with fan letters during her heydays.

The differences led to separation in 1960 and divorce in 1964. It’s said she only wore white after that. She rumouredly drifted towards other men; chief among them were Dharmendra, filmmaker Saawan Kumar Tak and also lyricist Gulzar.

With Raaj Kumar on the set of Pakeezah. Directed by husband Kamal Amrohi, the film took 14 years to complete due to their rift. Sunil Dutt and Nargis convinced the estranged couple to complete it.


LONESOME DOVE
It’s said she started drinking heavily in her later days to nurse her broken heart. Films weren’t coming her way and as a result her social circle dried up. Alone, she slunk into depression. 

Sawan Kumar Tak, then an aspiring director, offered emotional succour to Meena, while she went to the extent of selling her bungalow to finance his film. She featured in his Gomti Ke Kinare despite her illness.

She did get films like Chandan Ka Palna (1967) and Majhli Didi (1967) or Bahu Begum (1967) but they didn’t have the spark of old. She was plagued with illnesses too and had to be rushed to England and Switzerland for treatment in 1968.

Meena’s alleged relationship with the much younger Dharmendra raised eyebrows. The duo is seen here in the ahead-of-its-time film Phool Aur Patthar.

She took to character roles like that of a rape victim in Jawab (1970), or Dushman (1971), where she played a widow and Mere Apne (1972), after her return. She reconciled with Kamal Amrohi at the insistence of Nargis and Sunil Dutt to finish Pakeezah (1972), which was started way back in 1956. It proved to be her swan song. She died just after the film’s release, unsung and alone...