Pakeezah

In 1955, Meena Kumari and Kamal Amrohi were in South India and here Kamal Amrohi began outlining the plot of his next film with his wife Meena Kumari and decided that he would call it Pakeezah (the name has a fascinating history too. It was changed many times due to superstitious reasons, but finally the original stayed).[5] After the failure of Daera in 1953, Pakeezah as an idea was roaming Amrohi's mind.[5] A concept, Kamal Amrohi says was irretrievably fixed with his love for his wife Meena Kumari, he hoped to create a film which would be worthy of her as an actress, and worthy of the love he felt for her as a woman. Kamal Amrohi declared that for every line he wrote he had Meena in mind. He wished to present her on the screen as no one had before: beautiful, sad, sanguine, dejected, calculating, sexy - his ambition was to capture as many dimensions of her as he knew of.[5] Kamal Amrohi's son Tajdar Amrohi, raised by Meena Kumari, said: "What you see in Pakeezah is exactly how our home looked like -- the same windows, chandeliers, arches, and curtains." The grandfather's character was taken from Amrohi's father. "The dining table sequence in which Raaj Kumar says, 'Afsos, log doodh se bhi jal jaate hai (Alas, people get burnt by milk, too),' was inspired by everyday domestic scenes at our home. "When an elder enters the room, the womenfolk put on their veil. This is what baba showed in Pakeezah and that's how women at our home behaved."[10] says Tajdar, "And his romance with my chhoti ammi was very dignified. Despite being separated, they felt for each other. But they never divorced as rumors go. They loved each other and chhoti ammi respected my father and never allowed anyone to say anything against him."

Kamal Amrohi's blurb for his film explains this best: 'For her to fall in love was forbidden—it was a sin, she was told. A nautch girl is born to delight others, such is her destiny. She preferred to die a thousand deaths than to live as a body without a soul. And yet when her restless soul could not suppress this surging desire to love and be loved, she took birth as Kamal Amrohi's Pakeezah.'"[11]

In 1964, Kamal Amrohi and Meena Kumari separated due to their mutual differences, but the separation never led to formal divorce. The project came to a halt. In moments of desperation, Kamal thought of a substitute for Meena Kumari. He even searched for a replacement actress, but each time he came back to where he had started. The one and only woman who could play Sahibjaan was Meena Kumari.

Vinod Mehta says that "Kamal Amrohi came to a stage where he thought of abandoning the film. Since he had conceived it as a tribute to his wife Meena Kumari and since his wife was no longer by his side the raison d'être of the film had disappeared. Pakeezah was a work of love and a man with a broken heart was not qualified to pursue it.".[11]

According to Vinod Mehta, Meena Kumari had a special niche for Pakeezah. There is, however, one sentence worth considering: 'the surging desire to love and be loved'. And it was this line in which Meena saw a reflection of her life. [5] Kamal Amrohi himself pronounced, 'Pakeezah is Meena Kumari.'[5]

It was planned together by Kamal Amrohi and Meena Kumari in 1956 and at first, was launched as a black & white venture. Later, with color technology coming in, Kamal Amrohi started it all again in the new color format. But soon after that, when Cinemascope was introduced, Amrohi decided to shoot the film in Cinemascope. So he bought the required lens from MGM on a royalty basis and started shooting. However, after a while, an error was detected in the shooting done with the new lens. The problem was reported to MGM, who after studying the problem, decided not to collect their due royalties and also gifted the lens to Amrohi as a gesture of appreciation.[5] The film was still being made when in 1964 Kamal Amrohi and Meena Kumari separated due to mutual differences. The project came to a halt for some time when it was more than halfway complete.[12]

Kamal Amrohi wrote a letter to his estranged wife on 24 August 1968.[5]

"Only Pakeezah's completion remain unsettled. You have made a condition that unless I give you a divorce you will not complete Pakeezah. Even this knot can be untied ... I will free you from your marital ties. After this, if you wish to complete your Pakeezah. I would be the most happy to do so. This is my request, that Pakeezah on which the fortune of many people depends, and which had the good wishes of so many people should not be left uncompleted if possible. You have better means. You have box-office appeal, and most of all Pakeezah needs you personally ... Pakeezah that is like a sinking ship will reach a shore under your care."

Meena Kumari wrote to her husband in early 1969.[5]

"In regard to my working in Pakeezah, I have always been willing and clamouring to work. Pakeezah is my life dream and it will be my greatest pleasure to see it completed. As for my remuneration, I am glad you have given me an opportunity to prove my regards and respect for you. I shall accept only ONE GUINEA as a token of goodwill for my entire work in Pakeezah."

In 1969, Hindustan Times described the meeting which Sunil Dutt and Nargis had organized between the Meena Kumari and Kamal Amrohi:[13] "Not much was said, but streams of tears were shed... Amrohi greeted her with a token payment of a gold guinea and the promise that he'd make her look as beautiful as the day she had started the film. They had dinner together and she gave him her diary to read."

As the shooting resumed in 1969, Meena Kumari was suffering from liver cirrhosis and was in critical condition. But since Kumari was still Amrohi's only choice, she agreed to complete the film, despite her severe ill health.[5] On 16 March 1969, five years and twelve days after Kumari left her husband, gravely ill, Kumari again reported for work on Pakeezah.[5] Kamal Amrohi organized a great reception. He gave his wife a peda (sweet) as a peace offering, and made a documentary film on her arrival at the studio.[5] Meena Kumari was determined to complete the film and, well aware of the limited time left for her to live, went out of her way to complete it at the earliest.[5] Her condition became so bad that during the filming of the last song "Teer-e Nazar," she collapsed. A body double, Padma Khanna, was used who was personally trained by her for the scene. Throughout the song, Padma Khanna's face remained veiled and the veil was lifted at instances to show Meena Kumari's face.

In 1956, at the initial stages the following had been signed: Josef Wirsching as photographer, Ghulam Mohammed as music director, Ashok Kumar as the hero, Meena Kumari as the heroine, and a handful of Urdu writers as lyricists Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaif Bhopali including Kamal Amrohi. When the project got resumed in 1969, Amrohi was confronted with another difficulty; Ashok Kumar was getting no younger. He had to find a younger leading man for his film. Dharmendra, Rajendra Kumar, Raaj Kumar and Sunil Dutt were considered for the same role which eventually went to Raaj Kumar. Raaj Kumar and Kamal Amrohi had worked previously together in Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi, and according to Kamal Amrohi, the one thing that he liked about Raaj Kumar was his voice. Not only did Raaj Kumar knew literate Hindustani, but he also spoke it well and deep. And after finalizing Raaj Kumar, the role was modified from being a businessman's character to a forest officer according to the strong built and impressive persona of Raaj Kumar. During the making of the film, composer Ghulam Mohammed and cinematographer Josef Wirsching died, leaving director Kamal Amrohi at a loss. Eventually, though, composer Naushad was brought in to compose the background score; and after Wirsching's death, over a dozen of Bombay's top cinematographers stepped in as/when they had a break from their other assignments, and they maintained an even look.

A one-and-a-half-crore rupee film, CinemaScope, Eastmancolor, fourteen years in the making, Kamal Amrohi sketched all the set designs and camera movements, and personally selected every costume, right down to the bangles worn by the minor characters.[5] Tajdar Amrohi said the haveli in Pakeezah is inspired by their family haveli back home in the city of Amroha, Uttar Pradesh, Kamal Amrohi recreated the exact replica in Mumbai. Most of the film was shot at Filmistan Studios, where the magnificent sets were mounted. The chandeliers were imported from Belgium and bills of the carpets alone ran into lakhs.[10] Vinod Mehta said: " Kamal Amrohi saw in Pakeezah an epic, a larger-than-life film with hundreds of extras, with expensive and exotic sets, with superhuman effort made to preserve period flavor; and all this he wished to do with the collected professional proficiency he had acquired in nearly two decades. This was no do-it-yourself cinema; instead, it was visioned as the ultimate in spectacle and pageantry."[5]

When Pakeezah was resumed in 1969, many exhibitors suggested Kamal Amrohi to change the music according to the then famous trend and style. To this, Amrohi said that he would have readily done this if only Ghulam Mohammed was still breathing alive. But, now he cannot betray a man, who gave him such melodious songs, after his unexpected and untimely death. So he kept his music intact, but used fewer songs as planned to keep up with the fast changing times.[14] Ghulam, the music director of Pakeezah, sadly could not be alive to see the success of his film. It is said that he did not get his due in the Hindi Film Industry in spite of his brilliant work in films like Mirza Ghalib (1954) and Shama (1961).[14] The composer Naushad was brought in to do the background score for the movie and he also added some fine 'Thumris' in it as required. In January 1977, HMV (now SAREGAMA) released all the remaining 9 unreleased tracks in a different LP titled PAKEEZAH – RANG BARANG, about which many are still not aware of.[14]