And then, all of a sudden, the words of the young priest in Helsinki rang in my ears. ‘You do not live by bread alone, my friend. I wish you well. Only God knows where you will find your salvation when the time comes . . .’ What he had said made sense now; one needs a reason and a purpose to live for—a religion, an ideal, a goal, a philosophy or a set of beliefs.
I had laughed at and mocked Howard Fast for becoming a Buddhist monk. I had laughed at and insulted the young priest in Helsinki. How wrong I had been was proved by events that took place soon after. The monolith that was the USSR began to show cracks and disintegrated, and with it began to fade the philosophy that went hand in hand with it. The church was reinstated in Russia and the High Priest of the Russian Orthodox Church began to take part in all major government functions and ceremonies.
Nikita Khrushchev’s infamous speech at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in October 1961, in which he denounced Stalin as an arch villain, sent the communist world into a tizzy. Dad saw his dream crumbling as he realized that the idol he had worshipped had feet of clay and could not hold its own. Much of what he had so steadfastly believed in and lived by turned out to be an idealistic chimera. Marxism had fed some inner need in him, feeding his emotionalism and idealism, and appealing to his intellectualism.
With the collapse of Marxism, Dad was bereft of a purpose in life and was left floundering, like a rudderless ship at the mercy of the winds and the seas. Khrushchev’s exposure of Stalin as a false god that his party and comrades had so ardently worshipped created an ideological vacuum within him, and it was then that he took to reading the Guru Granth Sahib towards the end of his life; it was then that I turned to Buddhism. This was one of the biggest paradoxes of our lives.
Marxist economics
The other paradox I encountered in Dad’s philosophy was of Marxist economics.
After the first lectures on Marxism in Dharamsala, and later on God and sex, the next was on the correct attitude to money, which Dad said emphatically, could only be found in a Marxist society. As with all other things he said, this too had a profound effect on me, and to some extent, it has not worn off to this day. It has been the cause of, to put it mildly, much confusion in my life and much inconvenience to my family. The world has changed and everyone now recognizes the fact that ‘money makes the world go around.’ China and Russia—the two pillars of Marxism—have radically changed their attitude to money and are now thinking, talking, planning and breathing it!
But it was Dad’s contention that ‘money was at the root of all evil’ and that the motive of profit could only belong to the devil. ‘Money means nothing in the Marxist state,’ he told me before I left for the USSR. ‘People don’t even think about money there. All their needs are met by the state. There is no ownership of private property or land, so the question of hoarding or saving money does not arise. The banks in Russia are meant just to keep money for the citizens for monthly use. There are no fixed deposits, no investments and no stocks and shares. And people get paid judiciously according to the level of difficulty of their labour. A famous actor gets paid less than a scientist, and a scientist gets paid less that a labourer who performs dangerous work. Come to think of it, all the ills of mankind stem from greed and avarice. These are not good qualities. Simple living and high thinking should be our aim. Chekhov and Dostoyevsky, Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin didn’t ever think about money. They thought only about their art. As far as I can remember, they were always short of money, but they didn’t bother about it.’
I remember that one day some of my young cousins were playing a game called Monopoly and asked me to join them. They taught me the rules of the game and I took to it like a duck to water. I found myself, at the throw of the dice, buying and selling land, houses and other properties, and making a huge profit (with small fake notes). I was enjoying myself thoroughly. I loved the game and found it fascinating till Dad came strolling along, had one look at what was going on, and took me aside. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me to stay away from this capitalist game because it was ‘reactionary’ and anti-Marxist and was looked down on in the USSR. ‘It is counter-revolutionary and revisionist, so please don’t ever play it any more.’ I promptly got out of the game and have never played it again.
One day, during the Diwali season I found Dad playing cards with some ‘comrades’. They were playing with real money (one paisa a point, I think, since those were lean days for everybody). I watched the proceedings with fascination. Dad was winning and looked elated, until he glanced at me. On seeing a look of fascination in my eyes, he left the game abruptly, forfeited the money that he had won and walked over to me. His comrades were surprised and implored him to play again, but he said he had had enough. He sat down in a corner with me and said, ‘Gambling is a bad habit, son. I succumbed to it in a moment of weakness. It was wrong of me. I apologize!’ ‘But Dad,’ I interjected, ‘you were winning!’ He looked serious and said, ‘Money won in any way other than from labour is dirty money. It is sinful. Money should be earned with the sweat of one’s brow. Never gamble, Parikshat! And forgive me that I did so and set a bad example for you.’ His words stuck in my mind and to this day, I try to avoid gambling.
One evening I remember, we were playing table tennis at Danny Dengzongpa’s house. Some film people—Romesh Sharma, Vindu (Dara-ji’s younger son) and Amitabh—were also there. It was Diwali eve and Amitabh invited us all to his home. Everyone went to their homes to get dressed, but I didn’t bother to change, thinking I would just drop in for a quick drink and then leave. But when I got there, I realized that he had invited us all for a night of gambling. The men started playing flush. Everyone revealed the three cards dealt to them very slowly and dramatically. I had no idea why nor did I have any knowledge about the game. But I could not refuse when they invited me to sit down and play. I didn’t have much money on me, but I obliged and promptly lost it all. Amitabh looked embarrassed to see me ‘broke’ so soon. But, the magnanimous host that he always was, he promptly went inside and brought out a bundle of notes, which he distributed to everyone. I played a few ‘hands’, accidentally winning two of them, with no skill or technique to boast about. Soon a pile of money was deposited in front of me. For a moment my eyes lit up at the ease with which I had ‘earned’ this money. But when I lost the next hand, I realized very quickly how fortunes could be lost just as easily. And then I remembered Dad’s admonition about gambling. I deliberately lost the money I had won as fast as I could and left quickly. Our host, Amitabh, must have minded that. It was foolish of me to leave so abruptly. But he is a sport and didn’t show it.
Dad’s advice about gambling was sound, but I think in this case he went too far in the name of Marxism. One day I asked him what stocks and shares were all about.
‘Don’t even talk about the subject!’ was his immediate reaction. ‘It is gambling of the worst kind! It is a sure-shot step towards ruination. The less you know about the subject the better.’
As a result, even today I know nothing about capitalist economics. Antipathy towards it is embedded in my subconscious. I am ignorant about economic matters nor do I know much about stocks and shares, property matters or about the banking system. This has proved disastrous for me and led to my making major blunders in my life, which have had a disastrous effect on my family.
It was only after the fall of Marxism in the USSR and the change in China’s Marxist philosophy that I realized that there was no question of India turning Communist, and that in order to survive in a capitalist country it was necessary to know the basics of capitalist economics.
A few years later I read somewhere that ‘To become rich is the noblest aim you can have in life . . . All that is possible in the way of greatness and soul enfoldment, of service and lofty endeavour and creativity comes by way of getting rich.’
Dad had mentioned Van Gogh, Chekhov and Dostoyevsky. I read what G.B. Shaw had said about money (and he was a Fabian Socialist!):<
br />
Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honour, generosity and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness and ugliness.
I have earned money through the sweat of my brow, as Dad advised me, but have very little to show for it! I have never been able to conduct business matters satisfactorily. My carelessness in this regard was brought home to me when a friend of mine said to me one day, ‘Producers love you, brother, because you are stupid, gullible, a simpleton and a duffer!’
With this theory of Marxist economy is connected the second big paradox in Dad’s life, one that was the cause of much anguish and pain for our family, and in the end led to its disintegration.
In spite of his beliefs, he did something in his life that went against the very grain of Marxist philosophy. Forgetting all about ‘simple living and high thinking’ and the need to be close to the ‘salt of the earth’, he succumbed to the ‘revisionist’ and ‘anti-Marxist’ advice given by his friends and well-wishers, and built a palatial house—a house he named Ikraam—that was a glaring contradiction of the beliefs he had held all his life.
10
Extraordinary People
I was lucky to meet some of the stalwarts of the film industry, thanks to Dad. Most of them knew him very well and some had worked with him. They were all extraordinary human beings (an exception to the rule), otherwise they would not have made the place for themselves in the film industry that they finally did. They were at their time the crème de la crème of the film industry—Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Nutan, Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan (whose father was very close to Dad, as I have said earlier).
Some inherited their talent, Raj-ji and Shammi-ji did so from their illustrious and famous father Prithviraj Kapoor Saheb, but the rest of them had to make it on their own the hard way. Among those that I got to know, Dilip Saheb, Dev Saheb, Amitabh, and Sanjeev Kumar (Haribhai as we called him) had to go through the grind to make it big. Most of them were my seniors, except Amitabh and Sanjeev Kumar.
I doubt if any of the stalwarts I have mentioned had been to an acting school or believed (as Dad, being a Marxist) in socialist realism or followed the Stanislavsky School of method acting, except perhaps Haribhai, who had the unique quality of metamorphosing himself into any character he played. He was par excellence at doing that! I remember a film made in Chennai in which he played twelve distinctly different characters. Dad joined films rather late. He was in his forties when he got his first break and he had to go through the grind and study hard to make it and understand the basics of film acting.
But all of them had some extraordinary quality, which made them stand out from the crowd. Most of them, as far as I can remember, had a great capacity for hard work, and an incredible amount of will power, discipline and overpowering ambition.
Sanjeev Kumar
The first person I came into contact with was Haribhai Jariwala. He had changed his name to Sanjeev Kumar and had to wait for a long time before he got his first big break, Anokhi Raat, which was also my first film (not counting the two or three films that I had acted in as a child-artiste). Haribhai was already a seasoned actor when he joined films. He had worked in the theatre and had a natural talent. He made an immediate impact in the film world. He was a soft-spoken, docile sort of a person, but became a tiger as soon as the camera was turned on. Then his eyes flashed, his voice became deep and he hypnotized and mesmerized his audience. His screen presence was awe-inspiring! Haribhai was a simple and straightforward man to whom, in a way, I owe my entire film career as an actor. As I have said earlier, when I joined films, it was not my intention to become an actor because I had been trained as a director and script writer in the Moscow Film Institute.
I was doing Anokhi Raat just to bide time and gain some knowledge of the Indian film industry. Facing the camera was something new for me. So, I was neither serious nor well equipped for the job. As I have said, I had little knowledge of Hindi and spoke my lines atrociously. There were many retakes. It was Haribhai, a newcomer himself and my co-artiste, who came to my rescue. He canvassed for me and helped me at every step. It was he who taught me proper diction and told me about the importance of correct pauses during dialogue delivery. It was he who insisted that I change my name to Ajay Sahni, (which I did with alacrity because I was convinced that this would be my first and last film, as an actor anyway).
However, Anokhi Raat was a big hit and before I could say Jack Robinson I was flooded with acting offers. People either forgot or did not know that I had been trained as a director.
My friendship with Haribhai deepened. Whenever I had a problem it was to him that I turned. Whenever I was in trouble it was he who helped me. We were like brothers.
Within a few years after Anokhi Raat, Haribhai had climbed to dizzy heights and left most of his contemporaries, including me, far behind. He was soon acknowledged as one of the most versatile actors on the Indian screen. My father had a special fondness and respect for him. ‘This boy will go far,’ Dad would say.
And Haribhai did go far! But he could have gone so much further . . . but unfortunately died prematurely in his late forties. It was a personal tragedy for me. At his funeral, I pushed my way to his bier through milling crowds and touched his feet before his body was consigned to the flames. I wept bitterly. I had lost a dear friend.
All great artists are sensitive and Haribhai was no exception. Little things hurt him deeply and being an introvert, he seldom shared his hurts with anyone. He suffered in silence. And alcohol is an analgesic for sensitive souls! So it was with Haribhai.
We often drank together in the evenings. He could drink anyone under the table! He could polish off a bottle of Dimple scotch as a though it was a bottle of Pepsi. One could rarely tell if the booze was having any effect on him. It was usually well past midnight before food was served. He could eat an entire handi of payas (a kind of milk pudding), mutton curry, a couple of tandoori chicken, kebabs and other delicacies with half a dozen naan-roti, without batting an eyelid!
But even that was nothing compared to what I witnessed on the night when he and I were shooting in a casino in Las Vegas for a film by Jagmohan Mundhra called Suraag.
The shooting got over at two in the morning and Haribhai declared he was hungry. We made our way to a Chinese restaurant not far away. The restaurant was deserted, but remained open to clients all night.
Haribhai took a fair amount of time ordering the food. After he had finished doing so, the waiter politely asked him when the ‘rest of the diners were arriving’. ‘Which others?, Haribhai asked in surprise. ‘Surely this food is not just for the two of you!’ the waiter asked. ‘Yes, it is!’ Haribhai replied nonchalantly. The waiter left looking totally dazed.
When the food arrived, the table creaked under its weight. It was enough for an army platoon! I had ordered a plate of jumbo prawns and rice for myself. When Haribhai started eating, the entire staff of the restaurant stepped out and stood against a far wall to see how two people could possibly finish off so much food.
They couldn’t believe their eyes when Haribhai polished off the dishes almost single-handedly with consummate ease. He didn’t even spare the plate of jumbo prawns I had ordered for myself. I got to eat just one prawn. I heard one of the Chinese chefs saying, ‘Indian people velly stlong people . . . velly stlong people!’ before returning to the kitchen.
Haribhai was indeed strong. He was a strong friend, a strong artist, and a strong comrade and confidante!
Nutan
When I laid eyes on Nutan-ji for the first time, I barely came up to her waist. I was in school at that time. Dad was acting with her in a film called Seema. One day, they were shooting on Juhu beach, not far from our house and Dad invited her home for lunch. She obliged.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was like a Greek goddess—tall, stately, dignified with the perfect features of Venus de Milo. She was silent right throu
gh lunch. I remember she had a voracious appetite. She ate in silence and then left quietly when she was called, along with Dad, for the shot on the beach. She left quite an impression on me!
Dad thought very highly of Nutan-ji as an actress. ‘She is a great actress,’ he said. ‘Most of the glamour girls (and she is the youngest of the lot) are self-conscious about their looks, their make-up, their outfits and the angles at which they are being shot. They all want to look as alluring as possible. But she is not self-conscious about these things. She is not bothered about the clothes they give her to wear—and she is dressed very ordinarily in this film. She put on no airs and the best thing about her is that she really puts her heart into the scene she is enacting. Acting for her is believing. She emotes from the heart. One can see that she is realistic. She does not bother about how her face is looking when she has to cry on the screen. The other actresses are conscious about this, use copious amounts of glycerine and merely go through the motions of crying. This girl does not care a damn if she looks ugly (distorting her face when she is crying).‘
Nutan-ji was very young when she joined films. I think she was still in her teens when she acted in her first film. Dad’s words proved prophetic. She matured to become one of the finest actresses of Hindi cinema.
I completed school and then went to college in Delhi for three years. After that I pushed off to the USSR for six years. When I came back in the late sixties, Nutan-ji was still a heroine and among the most sought-after actresses in the film industry. She hadn’t changed at all. She had the same figure and looked as young as she had when I first set eyes on her almost a decade-and-a-half ago.
The Non-Conformist Page 22