The Non-Conformist

by Parikshat Sahni

  After a few sips of his second drink, the waiter’s face became flushed and a broad smile appeared on his face. He soon forgot where he was, and before long, the two were engaged in an animated conversation and laughing like children. Dad was regaling the fellow with jokes within earshot of the people standing around them. An uncomfortable silence descended in this group, as everyone hemmed and hawed, unsuccessfully attempting to cloak this boorish display of bad manners. A middle-aged, short and rotund man, who could barely get his pudgy hands around the whisky glass he was holding, snorted as a sip became a gulp. Dad raised his glass to him and winked conspiratorially, adding to his consternation. The man’s wife, equally fleshy, glared at Dad as if he had personally insulted her. Dad, immune to the explosive atmosphere around him, guffawed with pleasure as he got more and more comfortable with his new-found friend.

  Thankfully for the agonized group, dinner was announced. Dad reluctantly got up from the carpet and got a plate from an attendant. He offered another one to the waiter, but he had beaten a hurried retreat. He had finally realized that he was the target of disapproving looks and hobbled towards the kitchen looking confused and completely out of focus. Yet there was a joyous gleam in his eyes. This was a story that would probably become one for the generations.

  Dad piled his plate with a generous helping of rice and dal and half a tandoori chicken. He started eating the chicken with his hands. The woman, who had been witness to Dad’s rustic antics, could not help coming up to him once again with a plate of salad and some steamed vegetables, topped with a piece of chicken. Picking at her food daintily with her fork and depositing it carefully in her mouth, she asked, ‘Don’t you actors have to look after your figures?’ She pointed to the mound of rice, dal and tandoori chicken on Dad’s plate. I could see that by now Dad had had enough of this elderly woman and her persistent efforts to needle and belittle him. ‘No madam, not character actors like me. I like to eat well.’ Saying that Dad dug into the dal and rice and began to gorge the food with grunts of pleasure. A look of disgust appeared on the woman’s face. She tried, unsuccessfully, to cut a piece of chicken with her fork. Dad looked with amusement at her wasted efforts and said to her, ‘Madam, there is only one way to eat tandoori chicken.’ Saying this, he put down his plate on a side table, picked up the chicken and tore into it with unbridled fury, a look of utter pleasure on his face. The woman, her face ashen, her make-up threatening to pop off her face, wobbled away groggily, unable to stand it any more.

  After-dinner liqueurs and brandy and cigars were served. People sat down with snifters and lit their cigars. Someone put on Bizet’s Carmen on the record player. The high-pitched voice of a soprano rang through the drawing room. The woman, brandy in hand and a cigarette in a long ivory holder in another, looked mesmerised as she listened with her eyes closed. I was sitting next to Mr Kirpal in a far corner and chatting with him about my future plans. My eyes, however, were focused on the woman, whose wrinkles were now emerging through the layers of cake-like make-up on her face. Fascinated, I wished I had the artistic ability to capture her in a caricature. Her cigarette continued to burn, with a wisp of smoke rising in a curly dance to finally disappear into nothingness in the dense mist above. The residual ash at the tip of her cigarette grew longer and I watched with bated breath as it held its position, precariously balanced, until it finally let go and fell silently on the floor.

  Suppressing my laughter, I tried to focus on what Mr Kirpal was whispering to me. The conversation in the room had died down as people listened to or pretended to listen to and appreciate the operatic voice emanating from the intense vibrations of the vocal cords of the soprano.

  European classical music was something Dad did not understand or appreciate. Mummy was a good piano player and loved European music. There were plenty of long-playing records in the house with the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky et al, which Mummy had brought back from England and would listen to avidly. But Dad, as I have said, did not understand European classical music and he had a particular distaste of the opera. Whenever Mummy played some opera on the gramophone, he usually retreated to his room. Once in a while, when it became unbearable for him, we would hear the sound of loud moaning emanating from the far corner of the house. It was his way of giving people a not so gentle hint that he had had enough.

  There were interminable arguments about this between Mummy and him. ‘But I don’t have an ear for music, Tosh,’ he would say plaintively. ‘Please forgive me, but I just don’t understand this opera thing.’ And he would quote Tolstoy who had also said derogatory things about opera singing. In his book, What is Art, Tolstoy wrote that when he saw the first rehearsal of an opera, he found it ‘one of the most gigantic absurdities that could possibly be devised.’

  To go back to Prem Kirpal’s party, during the rendition of Carmen in the drawing room that night, something similar happened. Suddenly, the music was disturbed by loud moaning. Eyes closed in repose popped open; auditory senses disturbed by the rude interruption caused heads to turn as everyone stared at the far corner of the room, where the sounds were emanating. I was the only one who knew what was happening; I had witnessed this sort of scene many times. It was Dad. He couldn’t stand it any more and was objecting in his usual manner. The woman was furious now. She bounced off her seat, hurriedly discarding her glass, and made a beeline for Dad. Mr Kirpal, laughing under his breath, asked me to go to Dad and pacify him, saying, ‘He was like this in college too. He has a strange sense of humour and a penchant for the ridiculous. He loves playing the fool!’ I got up and began walking towards Dad. The music was still playing and Dad was still moaning as though he had a terrible stomach ache and was in great pain, when I reached him at about the same time as the woman. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she demanded sternly. ‘You are disturbing the peace! Don’t you appreciate operatic music?’ ‘I love it, madam. It is just that I have a terrible pain in . . . in . . . in my innards.’ She gave him a disdainful look, which would have withered someone of a weaker mettle. But Dad was unaffected and simply looked at her, smiling mockingly.

  Before things went any further, I butted in to remind him that I was getting late and that it was time for me to get back to the hostel. ‘Let’s go Dad! Or the gates of the hostel will be closed.’

  Mr Kirpal escorted us to the gate to see us off, laughing heartily. Dad turned to him and said, ‘Prem, yaar, I hope I didn’t ruin your party. But you know I can’t stand these pseudo-Britishers and their affected manners. I know I went a bit over the top, but I was having too much fun playing the joker.’ Mr Kirpal patted Dad on the back, a broad smile on his face, ‘Balraj, you livened up an otherwise dull party. I enjoyed your performance immensely.’ Just before getting into the car, Dad said, ‘I thought you loved Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, yaar! Since when have you taken to the opera?’ ‘Do in Rome as the Romans do, Balraj!’ he said, waving to us and returning to the drawing room, still laughing.

  That was Dad—the non-conformist, rebel, revolutionary and free thinker. He remained thus throughout his life. And his performance that evening at the party sprang from his hatred of the bourgeoisie and their hypocrisy. He stood on the side of the proletariat, the masses and the working class. But after a long and hard struggle, he had become a star and that resulted in many contradictions in his life.

  Some might think that such behaviour is boorish, crude and unbecoming in polite society. But one must remember that Dad had lived in England for four or five years and was well-versed in etiquette and knew how to behave in polite society. In this case, he was put off by the insulting and impolite remarks of the woman and also by the fact that these were his own countrymen and women with a distinct identity of their own, behaving like their departed masters and aping them, rather than being proud of their own roots.

  Perhaps his actions may be labelled as melodramatic, belonging on screen rather than in real life. I was embarrassed at the attention Dad was drawing to himself, and as a young man stepping
into adult life, was perhaps critical of him. I didn’t condone his actions then nor do I do so now. There are norms to be maintained in any society and decorum should be maintained. But, in hindsight, I can appreciate that Dad’s motives were never questionable, although his methods were sometimes over the top.

  His simplicity, honesty and guilelessness manifested themselves on other occasions as well. Often, watching a particularly bad film, he would start pulling at his hair, much to the consternation of the people sitting around him. But he was not performing at those times; just being himself. For him, acting was reserved for the stage and the screen; it had no place in real life.

  In his personal habits, although he began to earn a sizeable amount of money, he disdained a bourgeois lifestyle. I never saw him buying any new clothes for himself. He had one brown suit that he wore all his life, and two neckties so old that their colour had faded. The good life was thrust on him and he was expected to live like a film-star—drive limousines, attend film parties, drink expensive Scotch and smoke imported cigarettes—but he lived modestly, insisting on driving an old Ambassador without a chauffeur, drinking Indian whisky, smoking Indian cigarettes (cutting them in half and throwing away the other half because he wanted to cut down on his nicotine intake), wearing simple clothes and going around like a working-class man.

  A producer whose movie had not done very well and who owed him money, but was not in a position to pay it, presented him with an imported car. This was driven by the family, but Dad never drove it himself; he never hired a driver for himself, although there was one for the family. He ate frugally, did his own make up and rarely went to film parties. He did not just profess ‘simple living and high thinking’, but was himself a living example of it. Dilip Kumar Saheb once said about him, ‘He was a man who hated hatred.’ But if there was one thing he did hate in earnest, it was the bourgeoisie and bourgeois lifestyle. And this rabid hatred stemmed from his basic belief system.

  3

  Marxism

  Revolution is a much-maligned word and brings forth images of the guillotine, mass and indiscriminate killings, gulags, injustice, and yes, wanton violence. And yet revolution is necessary and a valid historical process without which social progress is not possible. The American and French revolutions, the revolution in England with the advent of Cromwell, and the revolutions in Russia and China are all glaring examples; they were all born in violence and bloodshed and resulted in a new order that brought immense progress. Marxism, in its intent, was not a regressive philosophy and people who adopted it as their personal, social and political purpose were, during their time, justified in doing this. But every movement and philosophy (even religions sometimes) is subject to growth and change. If there is no growth, rigidity sets in, and in time, becomes an anachronism. That is what happened with Marxism. It became stagnant and over time, so did the ideas of those who espoused it. Any mention of Dad is incomplete without a mention of Marxism. It was his life, his religion, his faith, and was integral to everything he did, whether it was his career, his personal life or his family life. Marxism, for him, was a philosophy that fitted his belief system at that critical time in Indian history.

  He manifested his faith in the then General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, Mr P.C. Joshi, and was deeply influenced by him and in awe of him, a man who was his guru. Dad consulted him on everything—on how to conduct his career or even his personal life. The guru-chela (teacher-student) relationship continued till his last days.

  How did Dad become a Marxist? One of the reasons that he went to England, I think, was to take a closer look at the nation that ruled India. It was there that the Marxism bug bit him. He became an admirer of the Soviet state, not by reading the tomes of Lenin or Das Kapital, but by watching Soviet films, which were widely shown, as the British and Russians were allies then. As he mentions in his autobiography, it was a Russian film called Circus that converted him. He writes that what struck him was the storyline:

  An American circus troupe comes to Moscow. Its star attraction is the daring feat of a white American girl, who is catapulted from a gun-barrel. A Russian youth, himself a circus artiste, falls in love with the girl. Although it is evident to him that the girl also finds him attractive, he cannot understand why she shuns his company. At last, he can no longer restrain himself. He storms into her room only to find her breast-feeding a dark-skinned baby! The cat is now out of the bag. In her home town in the United States, she had fallen in love with a Negro boy, whom she met secretly. Eventually, she finds herself pregnant. Afraid that the whites would kill her Negro lover if they came to know of her ‘condition’, she runs away from home only to land in the clutches of a scoundrel who sells her to a circus owner. Her Russian friend assures her that despite the baby, the progressive Soviet society would accept and honour both her and her child, since it was totally free from colour prejudice. She leaves the American circus and they get married, and continue to work as a husband-and-wife team in a Russian circus troupe. The last scene, which is the highlight of the film, shows her dark son endear himself to not just his fellow troupers but of all Russia.

  Dad wrote, ‘The film had a profound effect on my mind—so much so that, when I came out of the picture-house, I was in a world of my own, totally unmindful of the splinter of glass and rubble flying about me, the result of a bomb that had exploded close by! After seeing the film, I could not help contemplating the wide gap that separated Russian films from American ones. It was thus that Russian films introduced me to the Soviet Union as well as Marxism and Leninism.’

  This kind of racial equality was unknown during British rule. Dad was deeply impressed by the ‘nobility and magnanimity of the human spirit’ depicted in this film. He became interested in the Soviet Union and its philosophy; the tenets of Marxism laid hold on him for good. Or perhaps it was a call of the times that he succumbed to. But ultimately, it was his years in Britain, amidst the horrors of war, which inspired him to embrace Marxism.

  Back in Bombay, he was primarily a stage actor and an active member of the IPTA, which became not only a theatre group, but also a centre for political activities. It was a perfect backdrop for him to not only practice his art, but also to follow his new-found philosophy. He says, in his autobiography, ‘What was it that gave the IPTA movement such phenomenal popularity in so short a time? Surely, no movement of such a magnitude can strike root all by itself.’ The answer to the question, I think, is that the IPTA flourished because in those days the Communist Party was following the right policy—a policy that evoked an immediate response from people.

  But, although Dad latched on to this philosophy, he was not a theoretician. He did not go into the intricacies of the ideology. His Marxism was a kind of vague humanism that, to my mind, was more idealistic than ideological. He loved the poor, the hungry and the underprivileged, and felt genuine, heartfelt compassion and empathy for the people around him. For him ‘class conflict’ meant justice for the poor and the downtrodden. His heart went out to them and he went out of his way to help them and be close to them. With this intent, he often visited slums.

  Some years ago, I was directing a TV serial in a suburban studio. It was a party scene with many junior artistes. Most of them were young men who were required to do no more than fill the screen as guests at a party. Usually, these junior artistes come in their own suits and ties to look like high-class guests, and I normally get along well with them—probably a legacy from Dad! And I address them as ‘brother’.

  Most studios are centrally air-conditioned nowadays, so wearing suits and ties is no problem on the sets, but in the old days, there was no central air-conditioning. There were, however, huge fans which were switched on between shots, but while the camera was running, one perspired profusely in the heat and humidity of Mumbai.

  On a particular day, shooting had to be extended well into the night because the scene was long and complicated, and we overshot the shift timing. I asked my Production Manager to keep a few junio
r artistes back for the mid and close shots and let the rest go. Among those who chose to stay back was an old man wearing a crumpled suit—one of the senior-most ‘junior artistes.’ I thought he had stayed back for the extra money he would make working overtime, but that was not the case. By three in the morning the old man looked exhausted and worn out. I asked him to pack up and go home, but he refused to leave, although I assured him that he would be paid the full amount for the extra time. He just smiled and said, ‘I am not staying back for the extra money, sir. I am staying back because in the good old days, I had the chance to work with your father. How can I leave a set of Balraj Sahni Productions without completing my work?’ I didn’t understand his reasoning. ‘Sir,’ he continued, ‘your father was a man with a golden heart. He sympathized with the poor. I can never forger an occasion when we were shooting with your father; it was terribly hot, but the chief assistant was an inhuman person who ordered us all to keep our coats on, irrespective of the terrible heat. Only the stars were allowed to take off their jackets. But we noticed that your father kept his jacket on although he was drenched in sweat. Even when the chief assistant told him that he could take it off, since to fix the lighting for the next shot would take some time, your father brushed him aside and kept his coat on. When the director saw his plight and asked him why he was torturing himself, your father replied, “If you are aware of how difficult it is for me to sit around in this heavy jacket in this hot and humid place, then surely you must be aware of how uncomfortable it must be for the junior artistes as well. They are as human as I am. But they are not allowed to remove their jackets”. “Balraj-ji, that’s the rule. They have to keep their jackets on,” the man said. “Then I will keep my jacket on too. No problem!” Dad replied. The director had no choice in the end, but to ask us all also to take off our coats. You call us ‘brother’ maybe out of habit and convenience, Parikshat-ji, but your father truly treated us like brothers.’