The Non-Conformist

by Parikshat Sahni

  Many years later, after I had become an actor in my own right and after I had acted in a few successful films as a leading man, Kabir met me at a party. I did not recognize him at first. I had grown in height, but he had not. He was a very short man, as jovial and friendly as ever, with a ready smile. I towered over him. He must have been six inches shorter than me and was Sharmila-ji’s secretary. He reminded me about Hulchul and the slaps! We hugged and laughed at my stupidity in those days. Ours is a funny business full or ironies! And as they say, ‘There’s no business like show business!’

  When I returned from Russia after my higher studies, I met Dilip Kumar on the sets with Dad during the shooting of a film called Sunghursh. He greeted me warmly and we were back to our old equation. His sisters had grown up and two of them were married. Farida had settled in the US. The relationship between us was the same and remains so to this day. Earlier, I would phone him regularly and he was always kind and affectionate. After I joined films and Pavitra Paapi’s success, I remember calling him one day. He said ‘I see this vase full of roses in front of me. Beautiful roses! I want you to bloom like these flowers.’ I was touched by his feelings for me!

  Dilip Kumar had no formal training as an actor. But he mastered the art so well that before long half the film industry was copying his style. I can think of at least five or six established actors, many of them leading men, who became successful by copying him and delivering their lines exactly as he did.

  One day, I asked him how he had mastered the art of acting. Like all others actors who make it big, he worked very hard on his craft and went through a period of back-breaking study, introspection and rehearsing before a mirror. Evidently, his model was Sir Laurence Olivier in a film called Pride and Prejudice, written by Emily Bronte. ‘I saw that film again and again and studied the character of Mr Darcy very carefully. I also paid heed to some people’s criticism of my performance. It was by trial and error that I learnt my job,’ he said. Dilip Kumar was a voracious reader and could discuss any subject under the sun with great erudition. He was totally self-educated and something of a phenomenon. Once he had mastered the art of acting on the screen, nothing could stop him.

  Dilip Kumar was the greatest perfectionist I have ever come across. Shots were taken and re-taken endlessly till he was satisfied. His co-artists usually started off with their best shots, but had to repeat the shots again and again till they were exhausted and couldn’t be as spontaneous as they were in the first few takes. Their graphs went down, while Yusuf Saheb’s went up steadily!

  He told once me that ‘Work should be fun’ and that the idea should be ‘just to enjoy it’. He suggested he didn’t take things too seriously, but I don’t think he really meant it because he himself was as serious about his job as anyone I have ever come across! I can’t forget an incident when he was shooting for a film on an adjacent set to mine in Rajkamal Studio. I went across to say ‘hello’ to him and he greeted me, as usual, with a broad smile. Saira-ji was the heroine in that film, and in the shot, she had to run down a colonnaded veranda. It was. a ‘long shot’. I watched the proceedings for a while. Yusuf Saheb was ‘taking’ the shot. I couldn’t see the director anywhere.

  At first he was not satisfied with the décor of the set and asked for some changes to be made, pulling down one painting on the wall and putting up another, rearranging the flowerpots, and so forth. He explained to the cameraman how he wanted the trolley to move. While the arrangements were in progress (it was only a passing shot and no dialogues were involved), as usual, there were retakes after retakes. After the shot he came and sat down near me. I asked him where the director was. ‘The director is sitting outside!’ he replied. I was shocked when he told me the name of the renowned director who was from Bengal and had directed some excellent films. I knew him well. ‘Why is he sitting outside?’ I asked him. He looked at me and said, ‘I don’t like people smelling of liquor on my set. Ours is a serious business. We must be dedicated. And this fellow seems to have been drinking all night!’

  I went out to meet the director. He was sitting all by himself just outside the main door of the set looking miserable. True, he was fond of the bottle and often imbibed more than was good for him, but I don’t remember him ever drinking during the day. There was a foul odour was emanating from him, but he was stone sober.

  I think he had hit the bottle rather hard the night before and was now stinking of alcohol because he had probably forgotten to brush his teeth. I tried to commiserate with him. He said, ‘Hum, shala, Mumbai mein nahin rahega. Hum shala idhar aa ke cockroach ban gaya hain. Hum shala chala jayega!’ (I will not stay in this blasted Mumbai. I have become a cockroach here. I will go away!), and he was true to his word. He left for Calcutta after the release of this film.

  I met him in Calcutta at a function, and sure enough, he was boozed up to the hilt and was swaying like a palm tree when he shook hands with me. Show biz is a tough biz! If people don’t watch out, it takes its toll on them. After the experience of being thrown out of his own set, the fellow was never the same again.

  Apart from his acting, Yusuf Saheb was very serious about cricket. He loved the game and needed the smallest excuse to organize a cricket match. It was usually organized to raise relief funds whenever some disaster had struck in India. He took cricket very seriously, making the members of his team (the top stars of the film world) practice hard in Khar Gymkhana, where he sat with pen and paper and noted down the strong and weak points of each of his team members. He insisted that all the players abided by the correct dress code and used the appropriate kit for the match. He himself was a pretty good medium pace bowler and a middle order batsman.

  I remember one such match that was played in Kolhapur. The team was flown in by a Second World War Dakota aircraft (which can land and take off from almost any level field and does not always need a proper runaway). In this case, a make-shift runway had been levelled in a field in Kolhapur (which had no airport in those days) and the plane rocked and rolled its way to its destination, dancing in the wind as if to keep us in good spirits. The landing was also of a rock ’n roll kind. The plane bounced off from the runaway several times before it came to a halt and the cricket team heaved a collective sigh of relief!

  That cricket match was a memorable one. We were playing, I think, against the stars from the south. Yusuf Saheb inspected the field like a professional cricketer. He won the toss and asked the other side to bat first. Then he sat with the senior members of the team and planned out the field placing as if we were playing a serious one-day international match on which the country’s eyes would be riveted. ‘Parikshat, you can run and so are at deep mid-on on the boundary. I will stand at the fine leg position,’ he said.

  So I took my place on the long leg boundary when the opposition came in to bat. They all had rather rotund posteriors and most of them were overweight! When the third batsman walked in and took his stance (with his back to Yusuf Saheb), none other than Tiger Pataudi volunteered to be the umpire for the match! Yusuf Saheb called me from the boundary, went up to the umpire and said, ‘It’s the same player coming in again. We will lodge a protest.’ It was with considerable difficulty that Pataudi Saheb convinced him that they all had similar posteriors, and from the point of view of square leg, did resemble one another. Nevertheless, every time a new batsman came in and took his guard, Yusuf Saheb was furious, pointed out to him and said, ‘Look! It’s the same fellow again!’

  The most interesting time I spent with Dilip Saheb was when Saira-ji was producing a TV serial in which I had been cast in one of the main roles. I think it was being made for Doordarshan, which in those days, was a channel to be reckoned with. The serial was set in a Muslim background. One of my earlier serials, Gul, Gushan, Gulfam, had been recently aired and was a big hit. People were convinced after seeing the serial that I was a devout Muslim, perhaps even a moulvi. It was very well written by Mr Pran Kishore, a talented writer (and painter). I got phone calls from some Muslims in the
US, calling me a ‘faithful brother’ and the sort of Muslim every Muslim must try to emulate. It must have been a let-down for them when I informed them that I was not a Muslim but a kafir!

  Gul, Gushan, Gulfam was doing so well was that, as usually happens in our film industry, I was typecast as the perfect actor to play Muslim roles. In every second serial I signed after Gul, Gushan, Gulfam, I was cast in the role of a devout Muslim with beads in his hands, a mark on his forehead (do namaz), speaking impeccable Urdu and spreading the fear of the Almighty among all and sundry. In the end, I got quite fed up of playing the same kind of role again and again. But I could not say ‘no’ to Dilip Saheb, who was supervising the shooting and was present on the sets every day. Besides, it gave me a chance to see him at work with actors at close range.

  It didn’t take me long to realize that I was in the presence of a real master. Dilip Saheb was an actor’s director. It was a pleasure to be guided by him. I still do not understand why he did not become a full-time director. However, when I mispronounced some Urdu words and didn’t know the meaning of others, he said something that left a deep impression on me. ‘Sir Charles Laughton, one of the greatest actors of all time, said that an actor must “know his language better than his mother”! So, whether it is Hindi, Punjabi or Bengali, when you have to speak it on the screen or stage, you must first master it!’

  In this context, I understand why Amitabh is such a remarkable actor. I am told, in his younger days, he accompanied his illustrious father, Shri Harivansh Rai-ji Bachchan, to every Kavi Sammelan to which the latter went and also knew many of his father’s poems by heart. Speech and voice (and of course, his eyes and the intensity of his performances) are his greatest assets! So it was with Dad. He polished up his Hindustani during the years he spent in England working with the BBC and his dialogue delivery was impeccable.

  As I said, Amitabh is a perfectionist. He thinks about a scene a hundred times and sees it in his inner eye from a hundred different angles before he performs it. I have tried get in touch with him lately, but have not succeeded in doing so.

  Dev Anand

  Dev Saheb was another great star it was my privilege to be quite closely connected with, also thanks to Dad. His was another family to which we were very close since early childhood. Dad had, as I have said earlier, studied with Chetan Anand in Government College Lahore and the two had become close friends. As a rule, Dad always made friendships that lasted a lifetime!

  What intrigued me most about Dev Saheb was his energy and dedication. They say ‘as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he’. That is exactly the case was with Dev Saheb. He was convinced that even before he thought about joining films, he was convinced he was destined to be a great man and that he was unstoppable. He told me once that in his younger days in Gurdaspur, he once met a sadhu who looked at him and said, ‘I see the mark of the sun on your forehead. So you will outshine everyone around you in whichever field you choose. You are meant for greatness!’ And so it turned out to be.

  As I have said earlier, our business is replete with ironies. Long before Dev Saheb joined films, when Dad and Chetan-ji were working in the IPTA, Dev Saheb was asked to play a role in one of the plays that IPTA was putting up. Dad tried his best to get a performance out of him, but in the end, came to the conclusion and told him to his face, ‘You will never be an actor!’ This is something Dev Saheb never forgot, but he was too much of a gentleman to take things to heart or hold a grudge against Dad. It was Dad who was forced to eat his words and apologize to him after Dev Saheb beat everyone and hit the headlines as the number one ‘romantic hero’ of Hindi Cinema!

  There are two categories of actors. There are the actors and there are the stars. The latter are the ones that are born with or cultivate an alluring persona as a result of which they captivate the audience from the moment they appear on the screen. They have an uncanny screen presence. Gregory Peck in Hollywood, among others, and Dev Saheb in India are the best examples of stars. They did not have to do much except look suave and good and deliver their lines in their own inimitable manner.

  ‘Stars’ are eminently watchable. But what people do not know is that an incredible amount of discipline, labour and sacrifice goes into assuming that persona and screen presence. Dev Saheb, for instance, worked extremely hard. He exercised every morning, abided by a strict regimen and kept himself abreast of the latest happenings in the country and the film industry. He had a huge bathroom with huge mirrors in front of which, I think, he would exercise his body and face, and practise his mannerisms and the rhythm of his dialogue delivery.

  He was blessed with an incredible amount of will power and ambition. Once he had become a star, he moved heaven and earth to cultivate his ‘image’ as a romantic hero in the eyes of the public. He changed his persona, his hairstyle and his wardrobe with every passing decade till the Dev Anand of the eighties looked totally different from that of the forties and fifties!

  I think it is to no one more than Dev Saheb that Dad’s contention applies, ‘A good actor is a good man.’ As far as I can remember, ‘goodness’ was his hallmark. In spite of being one of the biggest stars on the Hindi screen, he was totally bereft of pride and arrogance, and was civil and respectful with everyone he met. He loved himself, no doubt, as we all must love ourselves, be proud of our achievements and have a healthy self-respect, but that did not at any stage turn into a superiority complex or haughty behaviour. Everyone knows that he had innumerable affairs, but I don’t know if it was because he was over-amorous and abnormally romantic by nature, or this was aimed at cultivating and keeping intact his image as the ‘evergreen’ romantic hero.

  What astounded me the most was Dev Saheb’s capacity for work. He was the greatest workaholic I have ever come across. He just had to keep working, planning and being obsessed by a project all the time. Once he started a project, he was like a man possessed and worked on it night and day, forgetting all else. His autobiography is a huge book that in length resembles Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I am told that once he got down to writing the book, he worked on it day and night and completed it within a month. And it was so humongous that the publisher was forced to edit out half of it to make it manageable. To top it all, he wrote it in longhand, with pencil and paper!

  Once he had decided to switch from acting to film production, Dev Saheb became immersed in scriptwriting and direction with equal enthusiasm and excitement. He had no need of a ‘bounce board’—someone to read his scripts and give their reactions. He wrote the scripts alone, usually cloistered away in Frederick’s Hotel in Mahabaleshwar, writing them, as he did everything else, at breakneck speed, and then shot the film in a similar fashion.

  I had the privilege to work in two of his films. One was shot in Bombay and the other in Copenhagen. In both of them, it was impossible to keep up with his frenetic pace. He enjoyed whatever he was doing with childlike wonder and excitement. He loved his work and his work loved him! Life for him, as it was with Dad, an exciting and engrossing adventure. He enjoyed every moment to the hilt and there was nothing that could dampen his spirits.

  I shot with Dev Saheb for a film that was made in Denmark. At the time, I was going through a massive ‘downer’, so to say, a sort of depression that tends to descend on me unannounced from time to time. During such periods nothing interests me and I like to be left alone. But a day or two with Dev Saheb rejuvenated me.

  I remember how one day he decided to take a shot from atop a hill. He ran up the hill like a gazelle. I couldn’t help laughing when I saw the cameraman and his assistants climbing up slowly, grunting and groaning. Some of them carried heavy equipment and were huffing and puffing when they reached the top of the hill where Dev Saheb was standing. He looked around with wonder and excitement at the view around him. After doing this for a while, he decided that there was not a good enough angle and ran down the hill like an Olympic sprinter. He was at the bottom of the hill within seconds! I could hear the camera crew moaning, groaning and cursing und
er their breath as they picked up their equipment and descended the hill at snail’s pace! And they were comparatively young fellows. Dev Saheb was eighty at the time!

  Another phenomenon that demoralized the young actors (including the hero of the film) was the fact that whether it was in Mumbai or Copenhagen, London or Paris, women were drawn to Dev Saheb like bees to honey! There was something about him they found irresistible. It was his looks, perhaps, or his suave manner, or just the raw sexuality that oozed from him. He had a way of captivating anyone he spoke to.

  One day, I remember, he saw an ancient building made of stone with some beautiful carvings on it and decided to find out if he could shoot a scene there. As luck would have it, it turned out to be the headquarters of the world-famous Carlsberg beer factory. The manager was so captivated by Dev Saheb’s manner and looks that he asked him to shoot as much of the film as he wanted within and outside the precincts of the building for as long as he wanted to, as long as he made sure that the name of the beer was displayed in the background in some of the scenes.

  When Dev Saheb asked the man how much he would charge for shooting the film on the premises, the Manager said he didn’t have to pay anything, and that on the contrary, the company would supply a truck full of Carlsberg beer to the unit every day as long as they shot in Denmark. And so, crates of one of the best beer in the world followed the unit from that day onwards to every place. My depression disappeared as quickly as it had come! We were all was chockfull of beer all day long, and our only request to Dev Saheb was that he shoot the next film in this country as soon as this one was completed!