December 18th, 2010

Mehboob Khan – Early Life

It’s difficult to imagine that a cult film like Mother India, the first ever Indian film to come close to winning an Oscar, was made by a man who had no formal education and no grounding in filmmaking. But then, that was Mehboob Khan, the man who came to be identified as the Cecil B. DeMille of Indian cinema, with his uncanny penchant for achieving the impossible.

Mehboob Khan’s body of work goes far beyond the oft- acclaimed epic Mother India. It comprises an Andaaz too, made in 1949, which was revolutionary in its theme and treatment. And many others like Aan and Najma set him apart as a dynamic filmmaker.

Like all early Indian filmmakers, Mehboob Khan had to learn his craft on the job. His early films might have lacked cinematic finesse, but they had a defined thematic predilection. The films of Mehboob Khan, like those of V. Shantaram, and the early Raj Kapoor, were socially relevant and commercially viable. Mehboob’s films dwelt passionately on social issues, especially the schism between the rich and the underprivileged. This was clearly stated in most of his significant films. Roti (1942) was about a poor tribal ranged against a capitalist; Aan (1952) was a commoner’s fight against prince; and his magnum opus, Mother India (1957), which was the first and the only Hindi film to contest for an Oscar until Lagaan came along almost 45 years later. The film had a woman protagonist — a poor peasant woman who takes on a cold-blooded, greedy, lecherous old zamindar (landlord) against daunting odds. The appeal of Mother India transcended emotional and cultural barriers. Well-known historian Garg recalls watching Mother India in Algeria where he found Arab women sobbing uncontrollably at the travails of the protagonist, as played by Nargis.

Ramzan Khan Mehboob Khan was born in a tiny village, Sarar, near Baroda in Gujarat, into a poor family that had served the British Raj for years. His father was a policeman and his grandfather a jamadar in the pre-independent Baroda state. From the time he was a little boy, Mehboob was fascinated by Hindi movies. His early exposure to cinema was through touring cinemas that visited his village. Sometimes he travelled free to neighbouring towns to catch up on a film or two, courtesy a friend of the family, Ismail Jeeva, who was a railway guard. The films he saw instilled in Mehboob an intense desire to be a part of the tinsel town. He was convinced that he had it in him to be a hero one day!

To fulfill his dream, he ran away from home at the age of 16 and landed in Bombay (now Mumbai), the City of Dreams. His policeman-father, however, wasn’t amused by his ‘crazy’ son’s misadventure. He tracked him to Bombay and dragged him back home. And to put an end to his ‘unattainable’ dream of being a film star, he got him forcibly married to a child bride called Fatima Bi, who hailed from a nearby village called Kashipura. But the ploy did not work. Not even the birth of a boy could swerve a resolute young Mehboob from his long-cherished mission of making it to the tinsel town. Day after day he would sit on a bench at the nearest Bilimora Railway Station and intently watch trains chugging out at regular intervals, hoping that some day someone would buy him a ticket — just a one-way ticket ‘to the Mecca of his dreams’ that was a mere 135 miles away.

His dream came true one day, courtesy the kindly Ismail Jeeva, the railway guard, who had so often bought him a ticket to a film in a local theatre. Touched by the youngster’s single- mindedness, Ismail gave him a free ride to his destiny. In 1929, exactly two years after his father had dragged him back to a mundane Sarar, Mehboob Khan was back again in Bombay, with just three rupees in his pocket! – Rauf Ahmed

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