Dimple Kapadia in Bobby (1973)

Although Raj Kapoor is now best remembered for the films he made with Nargis in the 1940s and 50s, such as Awaara and Shree 420, this late film is justifiably regarded as key to his oeuvre. After the box-office failure of Mera naam joker (MNJ) (1969), it seemed that Raj Kapoor’s long career as star, producer and director was over. Having decided that he no longer wanted to act, he came up with the idea of making a teenage love story with his middle son, Rishi, who had already appeared in MNJ. Rishi was still a teenager, and Raj Kapoor presented a new heroine, Dimple Kapadia, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Nargis.

Raj (Rishi Kapoor) has just finished school and returned to his rich but unloving parents. He meets Bobby (Dimple Kapadia), the granddaughter of his wet-nurse, Mrs Braganza (Durga Khote), and falls in love with her but his parents forbid the relationship …

K. A. Abbas, who had earlier worked with Raj Kapoor, wrote the Romeo and Juliet story, but with the addition of a happy ending to avoid the risk of box-office failure. Laxmikant-Pyarelal, with the lyricist Anand Bakshi, composed many hit songs, including among others an Ashkenazy wedding waltz (‘Main shair to nahin’), a qawwali (Sufi- inspired devotional song), a Goan folk song (‘Jhooth bole kauwa khaate’) and the suggestive ‘Hum tum ek kamre mein’. The young couple, in their outrageously fashionable clothes, ranging from hotpants, bikinis and miniskirts to leather suits and goggles, set a trend for all youngsters and sparked a host of teenage romances from Love Story (1981) to those of the 1990s.

Rishi Kapoor assumed the role of major romantic hero for the next twenty years, beginning his career during the reign of Amitabh Bachchan, and ending as the new generation of Khans dominated the box office in the early 1990s. Dimple, aged about sixteen when she made this film, married the reigning superstar, Rajesh Khanna, during the shooting of the film (the henna of her wedding decorations can be seen on her hand during the song ‘Mujhe kuch kehna hai’) and she was pregnant with Twinkle before the premier. Her comeback was with Rishi in 1985′s Saagar, after which she became an iconic figure in the film industry, appearing in films such as Farhan Akhtar’s Dil chahta hai.

One scene in particular stands out: when Raj visits Bobby’s house, she is making pakodas and wipes the batter into her hair, as Nargis was said to have done when Raj Kapoor visited her house. Her line, ‘Mujhse dosti karoge? Will you be my friend?’, has inspired a generation of younger film-makers to emphasise love as friendship, from Sooraj Barjatya, whose Maine pyar kiya quoted several scenes from Bobby, to Karan Johar’s Kuch kuch hota hai, where the teacher is called Miss Braganza (Bobby’s surname), to Kunal Kohli’s film Mujhse dosti karoge (2002) – Rachel Dwyer

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 1973, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer –Raj Kapoor, Director – Raj Kapoor, Music Director – Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Cast - Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, Pran, Premnath, Sonia Sahni, Durga Khote, Aruna Irani, Farida Jalal, Piloo Wadia, Prem Chopra, Sashi Kiran, Jagdish Raaj, Narendra Chanchal

Pran & Noor Jehan

Right from his first film, in which he played villain, Pran was cast opposite some of the most beautiful women in the subcontinent.

Noorjehan was the first of them.

Noorjehan, which means light of the world, went on to become the singing sensation of the subcontinent. About her, the famous author Saadat Hasan Manto wrote: ‘To me, there was just one thing about her that was phenomenal — her voice! [It] was pure like crystal. Even a suggestion of a note was discernible when she sang, being perfectly in command whether the notes she employed were in the lowest range, the middle one or the highest…. Noorjehan only had to strike a note to make you sit up.” Mallika-e-Tarranum (the queen of melody) Noorjehan was certainly a well-deserved title.

However, when Pran met her on the sets of Yamla Jat, she was just a young teenager being systematically introduced to the realities of the world. Still, in keeping with the artifice of her background, she was given the prefix `Baby’.

By the time Khandaan began to be made, the `Baby’ from her name had been dropped. She had graduated to playing heroine. But Noorjehan was still quite short then and Pran remembers that, in their scenes together, they had to make her stand on some bricks in order to make her look taller!

Although during the making of Khandaan she fell in love and eloped with her young director, Shaukat, eventually marrying him, Noorjehan apparently also shared a good rapport with her co-star of three films, Pran. It appears that a common love for Urdu shairee and music was at the foundation of their friendship.

That there may have been some undercurrents of a romantic nature on Noorjehan’s part is revealed in her gesture of running to Pran’s house on the day his baraat was leaving for Delhi.

Jotting down her memories, Pran’s eldest bhabhi, Kuldeep Prem Krishen Sikand, recalled the moment: Pran was looking so handsome, wearing the sherwani specially stitched for the occasion. Sitting there on the mare, with the sehra on his head, he really looked regal.

`Suddenly, Noorjehan came running and asked, “Pran ghodi chad gaya? And the people around said: “Yes.” Apparently, whatever needed to be said would now remain unsaid.

Pran’s firstborn, Arvind, who has lived for many years in London, recalled receiving a telephone call in the early 1970s from the legendary singer: ‘Out of the blue I got a call from a lady who said: “I am Noorjehan and I am here visiting from Pakistan and I would like to see you.”

`I was quite surprised. I mean, I knew that she’d acted in some films with my father. I remember Khandaan was her first role as leading lady and it was also my father’s first role as leading man. But this was rather unusual — she was my father’s first heroine in Lahore, and in the many years that had elapsed since then, we hadn’t had much contact with her.

`She came across to our home one evening. She was very affectionate, and as we were having dinner that night she suddenly said to me: “You know, when I look at you, you could have been my child.”

`I think it must refer to some, perhaps romance, that they may have had at that time. It was very sweet of her, I must say. I didn’t take it at all in any bad way’

Although Pran and Noorjehan had not kept in touch, for Pran never returned to Pakistan, not even to visit, apparently there was at least one occasion on which they had spoken to each other.

Pran’s friend and samdhi, Satish Bhalla spoke about that occasion which took place some years ago: Pranjee had given an interview to the BBC. During the interview he mentioned that, when in Lahore, he had been the hero in a picture opposite Noorjehan. He mentioned that she had been a very famous heroine and a great singer of her time. Then he casually remarked to the interviewer, a trifle regretfully: “She must now be very old.”

`This interview must have been telecast a few weeks later and Noorjehan must have seen it. I remember that day very well because I was sitting with Pranjee in his house. While we were chatting, an overseas call came through.

`It was Noorjehan — and wherever she was, she was p-r-e-t-t-y annoyed! Because she came right to the point and said: “This is Noorjehan speaking. So? I’m getting old, eh? And what about you? You’re not getting any younger!”

Decades later, during the early half of 1982, thirty-five years after she left for Pakistan, Noorjehan and her daughter, Heena, were coaxed to make a visit to India, to be special guests at a music programme in celebration of the golden jubilee of the Indian talkie, which would bring together several living legends of the world of music and which, happily for Pran, fell on his birthday, 12 February. There, she sang her famous song, `Aavaaz De Kahaan Hai…’ from the 1946 film Anmol Ghadi.

Pran recalled that joyous and affectionate reunion: Noorjehan was so nervous about the trip, she called me at least eight—ten times before she boarded the plane, just to be reassured that I’d be waiting for her at the airport with a special bus. It was an evening to remember and she was so thrilled that she’d let herself be persuaded to make that visit to Bombay. I also threw a party in her honour where she could meet many more of her old colleagues and friends.’

That Pran is a fan of Noorjehan’s voice, just as the rest of the world of her listeners are, is clear from this very telling incident that took place many years ago on board an aircraft, high up in the skies.

During the flight, there was some sort of heated discussion going on in the neighboring seats between some Pakistanis and Indians, and the topic was focused on Kashmir which then was, and still is, a flashpoint. One of the passengers asked Pran about his opinion in the matter.

Pran’s reply? ‘You want Kashmir?’ he asked. ‘Well, you take Kashmir!’ he said. ‘But in its place, you will have to give us Noorjehan!”

Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala in Madhumati (1958)

Madhumati was the biggest hit of director Bimal Roy. His hallmark neo­realist images and social concern are evident in this unusual reincarnation/ghost story scripted by Ritwik Ghatak, later acclaimed as one of India’s greatest directors. Two of the top stars of Hindi cinema, Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala, take multiple roles in this complex narrative.

Devendra (Dilip Kumar) is on his way to collect his wife and child from the station when he and his friend are forced to take shelter from the storm in an old mansion. Devendra has a sense of déjà vu and tells the story of his previous birth. Anand (Dilip Kumar) was a manager of a timber estate who fell in love with a tribal girl, Madhumati (Vyjayanthimala) he met during his walks in the forest. The owner of the timber concern is Ugranarayan (Pran), who comes to hate Anand. When Anand confronts Ugranarayan about his connection with Madhumati’s disappearance, he is beaten up. He meets a girl in the forest called Madhavi (Vyjayanthimala), who looks identical to Madhumati. He gets her to pretend to be Madhumati’s ghost, whose appearance so frightens Ugranarayan that he confesses to her murder and is arrested. However, Anand realises that Madhavi really is Madhumati’s ghost when she shows him where she fell to her death running away from Ugranarayan. Just as Devendra reveals that his present wife is Madhumati, news arrives that her train has crashed. However, when he reaches the station, his wife Radha (Vyjayanthimala) appears, unhurt, with their child.

Although the story was much criticized as melodramatic and unconvincing, it is gripping and well told. The film depicts negotiations in a transitional society between powerful social groups of zamindars (landowners), tribal rulers and new middle-class professionals. Bimal Roy creates an atmosphere to suit the uncanny in this almost gothic ghost story, which he connects to the theme of reincarnation.

Dilip Kumar is as charming as ever as the middle-class professional with a passion for art and nature, while Vyjayanthimala, besides looking stunning in the Hindi-film idea of tribal clothes, shines in both her acting and dancing. Pran is wonderfully villainous and it was films like Madhumati that established him as India’s top villain.

Salil Choudhury composed a set of songs for this film that I think constitute one of the best scores of any Hindi film. Many people (including Lata Mangeshkar) would choose ‘Aa ja re pardesi’ as one of their favourite Hindi film songs, but there is also the ever popular ‘Suhana safar’ and the catchy ‘Dil tadap tadap’ or ‘Ghadi ghadi mera dil dhadke’ as well as the sad ‘Toote hue khwabon ne’. With the exception of the latter, the songs are mostly joyful and happy, which may seem surprising in view of the uncanny, romantic atmosphere of the film, but they work wonderfully within the film itself too.

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 1958, Genre – Mystery, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Bimal Roy Productions, Director – Bimal Roy, Music Director – Salil Chaudhary, Cast – Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala, Johnny Walker, Tiwari, Pran, Misra,  Jayant, Tarun Bose, Baij Sharma, Bhudo Advani