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Raj Kapoor – Coming Into His Own

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Back to Legends – Raj Kapoor
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Nimmi and Prem Nath in Barsaat (1949)

As filmmaker, Raj Kapoor was never young. He was neither hesitant nor an amateur. Even to his first film Aag, he brought an experience which may have been simmering in his brain long before he actually took up the director’s baton. He knew what he wanted and executed it to his satisfaction.

In Aag, he dealt with the idealistic but subjective theme of a man who is in love with theatre, and explores his relationships with three women while on this idealistic trip. The film also revealed Raj’s tendency to pick up real-life incidents and situations and dramatise them, make them larger than life for his celluloid dreams.

The famous confrontation scene between father and son in Aag, is a take off on his real life showdown with Prithviraj, when he announced his intention of quitting school midway. This real life translation into reel life was seen over and over again in his films, most notably in Bobby, where Dimple the leading lady is introduced to Rishi Kapoor with besan (gram flour) on her forehead and hands. This is how Raj Kapoor  himself had first met Nargis.

After Aag and before his own second production Barsaat, audiences saw him in a love triangle with Dilip Kumar and Nargis — in Mehboob Khan’s Andaz. This film was a box office wonder and for Barsaat, Raj Kapoor cast Nargis opposite himself. In Barsaat he was delicately suggesting that the rural woman is so much purer than the urban, educated but more brazen female.

Barsaat had a musical score which remains immensely popular half a century after it was composed. The film was a pure and clear romance, and also provided Raj Kapoor with the emblem that adorned all RK Films. Raj Kapoor froze the shot where he’s playing the violin and Nargis comes running into his arms. He holds his violin in one hand and his lady in the other. This utterly imaginative picture, however, had to be replaced after Nargis’ marriage to Sunil Dutt.

Barsaat also entrenched Lata Mangeshkar in the RK fold forever thereafter. Songs like ‘Jiya beqarar hai…. ‘ , ‘Hawa mein udta jaaye’ and ‘Humse mile turn barsaat mein’ even while they were being recorded suggested to those present, that history was being created. Barsaat was another big triumph for Raj Kapoor.

Raj finalized Nimmi for a role in Barsaat, while he was working in Andaz. Nimmi was a shy, tongue-tied teenager, visiting the set as Mehboob Khan’s guest. Remembers Nimmi reflectively, “I was sitting next to Nargis’ mother when Raj Kapoor walked up to her to pay his respects. He asked me my name, but I was so shy that I could hardly reply. He was looking for a totally new and innocent face to introduce in Barsaat, and had rejected everybody he had met. My shyness seemed to do the trick. He requested Mrs. Mehboob Khan to ask my grandmother for permission to cast me in his film.

“I was so nervous during the screen test that, though I had learnt my dialogues, I started sobbing as I said them. But Raj Kapoor was very happy and signed me on. He realized that I was new and frightened by this unfamiliar atmosphere. So the first thing he did, was to make me tie a raakhi on him saying, ‘From today, you are my sister, you own this studio and can be comfortable here.” – Lata Khubchandani

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