Desi Train

Sanjeev Kumar’s house was strictly vegetarian. So whenever SK visited Gulzar, SK would ask for one of his favorite foods - “paaya” to be made and thus he would satisfy his non-veggie palate. And there were strict instructions given to Gulzar to keep a bottle of “Black Label” at all times at his house. SK only drank Black Label and Gulzar would ensure that a bottle of it was always available whenever SK dropped in.

According to “Because He Is…”, a look into Gulzar’s life by his daughter, there’s an incident where one of Gulzar’s friends was rushed to fly to Delhi to get “paaya” made from one of their, I guess, favorite places, and flown back on time, for SK to enjoy his paaya meal at Gulzar’s house.

That is one of the reasons SK shines in each of Gulzar’s cinematic gems. The off screen camaraderie efficiently brings in two geniuses to create nothing short of unbelievable magic on screen. Gulzar, I think, was still working as an assistant with Bimal-da when he came across this young talented actor who was 21 or 22 years old playing a 65 year old man on stage in Bombay. They met and agreed to work together one day. Gulzar’s first offer to SK was turned down, as SK didn’t find the character offered to him, quite appealing. The film was Gulzar’s first directorial venture - “Mere Apne” (1971).

Not sure if you know this, but SK – Gulzar had a strange pattern of making movies together. They would give us two movies any given year. Not One, Not three, four or five but Two.
1972 – Parichay, Koshish; 1975 – Aandhi, Mausam; 1982 – Namkeen, Angoor.

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The SK – Gulzar partnership took off in 1972 and with a mighty bang with “Koshish” (1972) – mentioned in Part I of this series, the other movie of 1972 was a short role in Gulzar’s brilliant adaptation of “The Sound of Music”…

Parichay (1972) – Nilesh
SK played Nilesh the son of a strict disciplined retired army officer (Pran in one of his most memorable roles), who marries against his father’s wishes and leaves the house along with his newly wedded wife. Wife dies and he has cancer. A talented singer, he trains his eldest daughter (Jaya Bhaduri) in singing and after his death, Grandfather Pran comes over and takes all his five grand children to his home. But bringing up the troubled and disturbed children proves to be a hard task and after changing many teachers, he finds the perfect teacher in Jeetendra, who helps each of the five children become better persons and realize the love in their grandfather’s heart through the sound of music.
SK barely had 3 - 4 scenes in this movie, but he performed them so sensitively, that the memory of his character lingers all through out the movie and after. His getup and facial expressions of a middle aged man with cancer, troubled with the thoughts of his children and what will happen to them, after his death, is so subtly portrayed – its as if SK speaks with his eyes. That worry about his children after he is gone, always lingers at the back of his mind, while he goes out singing “Beetee na beetayee raina…” with his eldest daughter. How did he let you know what he was worrying about? Beats me. But SK always had the knack of doing that. Besides Kamal Hasan and the earlier works of Robert DeNiro (especially Taxi Driver, Raging Bull), I have yet to see any of those “super freaking stars” tell us something without opening their freaking mouths – THAT IS WHAT SEPERATES A GENIUS FROM THE ORDINARY – And SK was one, a true genius.
This movie is a collector’s item. It is so difficult to not talk about the other elements when you talk of a Gulzar movie. The elements were binded in such a tight way, it’s difficult to pluck out one element for discussion without having others falling into your palms. The other element I’m talking about is none other than the GREAT BOSS…..the late R.D.Burman, one of Gulzar’s closest friends in the industry. “R.D. Boss” wakes up Gulzar in the middle of the night, pushes him in his car and they drive around the streets of Bombay in the night with the Boss playing some beats on the dashboard of the car. The beats were for a tune of a song they had been discussing for this movie. Modifications and re-modifications, driving a few more miles, the tune was ready and the car stops at the recording studio. The boss gets out of the car and asks Gulzar to go home. The Boss is all pumped up and on his way to record the song from the tune they just made up in the car. The song was the evergreen “Musafir hoon yaaron, na ghar hain na thikana, mujhe chalte jaana hain…bus, chalte jaana”

Mausam (1975) – Amarnath Gill
If in the year 2235, by any chance, by any act of the Higher Power above us, people get to remember anything about Bollywood of the 20th century, then they may most likely be humming a song from this movie – “Dil Dhoondta hain, phir wohi fursat ke raat din….”.
It was SK time. It was SK’s moment. Playing a man growing old, tired from being a busy pharmaceutical magnate, he drives in his car in the foggy hills, watching the sunset by one of the mountain tops, a tired man, lonesome, searching for his lost soul in these hills. With Madan Mohan’s haunting music in the background playing “Dil Dhoondta hain….” as SK looks around the fog enveloping him - this scene has been permanently etched into the minds of each and every lover of cinema. The other haunting song I love from this movie is “Ruke ruke se kadam…” “Mausam” has both SK and Gulzar going on their cinematic genius Over-Drive.
SK played Amarnath Gill who returns to this foggy hill station in the mountains after 20 odd years. He had been at this place years ago to study and become a doctor. And the movie moves in a series of flash backs through out its entire length – a Gulzar trademark. SK as a student falls in love with Sharmila Tagore, has to leave the hill-station to go back home, and never comes back. Tagore gives birth to a daughter (Tagore in a double role), goes insane and daughter takes care of mom until her death. Forced by circumstances into prostitution, the younger Tagore has only memories of her mother and picture of the man whose illegitimate daughter she is. A chance encounter between SK and the daughter and memories flood back with SK now trying to help his daughter out of the prostitution and lead a better life. The movie ends with SK taking his daughter in his car, from those sad mountain hills to his home in the city, finally both of them accepting each other as father and daughter.
There could be no “Mausam” without SK, no “Mausam” without “Dil dhoondta hain…”, no “Mausam” without Sharmila Tagore’s brilliant performance and ofcourse no “Mausam” without the sensitive story and direction of Gulzar.
SK aced this one. To see the two different personalities of SK, one a carefree, humorous student and the other a tired, lonely, rich but left with no happiness business magnate, to watch these two personalities - all you have to do is watch the faster, lighter version of the song “Dil Dhoondta hain…”. With an old SK visiting the places he romanced Tagore at, the song playing in the background and a young SK and Tagore singing and flirting amongst the beautiful hills while an old SK simply watches them…Gulzar’s way of showing a lonely person re-living his memories…one of the first in Bollywood (This concept was later copied in many movies, the most famous being “Mera dil bhi kitna paagal hain…” from Saajan). But it was SK who effectively smashes the screen showing in that song, side by side, what he was and what he has become with a faint sad memory trailing him wherever he goes, wandering through the hills. It was a role worthy of the National Award. It is a shame when you don’t honor the genius in an artist when they truly deserve it.
Gulzar wanted to use R.D. Burman for this movie as the music director. But the producer had already promised his close friend Madan Mohan, this movie. It would be interesting to see what the Boss’s rendition of “Dil dhoonta hain…” would have been. Surprisingly Gulzar and Mohan did not work again inspite of the magic they together created in “Mausam”.

Aandhi (1975) – J.K.
So much ink has been used to sing the praises of this movie and it still doesn’t stop. This was an intelligent movie which was loved and understood by all classes and segments of the society. Initially banned by the Indira Gandhi government, because they thought the movie was based on Gandhi’s story, Gulzar started work on changing portions of the movie which had got it banned in the first place. But by the time he was done, the Janata government came to power and removed the ban over this movie.

When a successful politician Aarti Devi (Suchitra Sen) visits her constituency to campaign for the forthcoming elections, she and her entourage end up staying at the hotel run by her separated husband SK. Memories flood back and they move on the paths to re-unite with each other only to find the opposition party using their getting together as a scandal to tarnish Sen’s image.
SK, as usual, is in his element. Watch the scene where his assistant brings the news that Sen was injured while campaigning. It shocks SK and he immediately picks up the phone to call Sen’s room (his separated wife), but for a fraction of a second thinks something and immediately puts the phone down. If you’ve seen the movie, then SK effortlessly conveys to you what he thought in that fraction of a second and then put the phone down which is - That no one knows, he and the politician – Sen, are a separated couple, and talking to his wife over the phone may reveal just that to his assistant. Ofcourse later he walks over to his wife’s room and in front of her entourage behaves just like a hotel manager concerned about the injury a guest in his hotel has incurred.
THAT FRACTION OF A SECOND, THAT SECOND, THAT FUCKING MILLI-SECOND, WAS ENOUGH FOR SK TO TELL YOU JUST BY HIS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND BODY LANGUAGE WHAT WENT THROUGH HIS MIND. THAT, MY DEAR BLOG READER, DESERVES A STANDING OVATION. It was a simplistic scene, so simple and short, that you blink and you miss it.

Again R.D. Burman and Gulzar combination brought you some of the most memorable songs from Bollywood. Even today while driving through the streets of Los Angeles or Orange County I get to hear someone playing “Tere bina zindagi se shikwa…” in their car. It’s fucking 2005. WILL THIS SONG EVER GET OLD? That’s magic. That’s genius. Though my personal favorite is the one filmed on a handsome SK and beautiful Sen singing “Tum aa gaye ho, noor aa gaya hain..nahin to chiragoan se lauj aa rahi thee…”. Aandhi – a must see for the serious cinema fanatic.

Namkeen (1982) – Gerulal
It would take another 7 years before Gulzar and SK would work together. And they came back with another gem of a movie…Namkeen. SK plays a truck driver who arrives in a small town to work for a construction project. Playing a truck driver to the hilt he rents a room in the house of an old woman (Waheeda Rehman) who has three grown up daughters (Sharmila Tagore, a mute Shabana Azmi and the youngest Kiran Virale). With time he grows closer to the entire family and each of the three daughters falls in love with him though he seems to be falling for the eldest daughter Tagore. But with the construction project ending, its time for him to move on to a new town, a new place, look for new work. A few years later he is shocked to find the youngest daughter Virale dancing at a cheap vulgar tamasha theater, and after talking to her he realizes how the fate of the family changed for the worse. Driving back to the town he finds Tagore and finally realizes he has reached his destination.

Gulzar’s deft direction shows the different facets of SK while communicating with each of the four women, how he has different feelings for each woman and THAT- he effectively communicates through his voice and body language. Also notice how effectively Gulzar hides the fact from the audience that Azmi is mute until a naughty incident she plays on SK turns into a disaster and the shock with which it is revealed to the audience, that Azmi is mute.
Gulzar’s sense of humor has always been pleasant and subtle. SK just having moved into the new room tries to switch on the fan, nothing happens. Virale and Azmi stand by the door watching him. After fidgeting much with the fan switch, SK asks Virale to get a stool so he can check the fan out. Virale runs out and gets the stool. SK stands on the stool and spends time checking the fan to find the problem. Virale in the end goes “What are you doing?”, SK responds “I am trying to fix this fan”, Virale goes “That won’t work”, SK surprised “Why?”, and Virale goes with a blank innocent face “Because our house has not had electricity for the past many years”…Watch SK closely flowing through a range of emotions IN HALF A SECOND and irritated that he is, he shoots back “To main kya itni der se jhak….” He can’t complete his sentence as both Azmi and Virale rush out laughing their hearts out. And the look on SK says it all - that he was being played all this time by both Azmi and Virale. Perfect comic scene from Gulzar. Perfect delivery by SK.

Like “Dil dhoondta hain…” and its on-screen picturization, “Namkeen” has a similar song, atleast for me, since this song is always in my car and I play it on long drives or days when its raining. A classic from the Boss again “Rah pe rehte hain, yaadon mein basar karte hain…” – The song has SK driving his truck through many towns and countless seasons…

An interesting anecdote of this movie is that all four women would be very irritated with SK. The reason was that, Gulzar was very strict on the sets and expected everyone to be on the sets on time. But the rules were relaxed for SK, Gulzar’s favorite, and SK would arrive late each day on the sets. This irritated Rehman, Azmi, Tagore and Virale and one day they pushed Gulzar to scold SK as soon as he would come to report for the shooting. SK comes in, dresses up for the shot, and delivers a perfect smooth shot in the very first take which is Okayed and canned. Gulzar looks at the 4 women and all of them have their jaws dropped and looking at SK in awe. They have completely forgotten about being upset or angry over SK. It was one of the most difficult scenes of the movie and SK just breezed through it with the very first take.

Angoor (1982) – Ashok (double role)

I wrote about Angoor in one of my past blogs (Gems – Movies that will never age). Following is a copy of the part written about Angoor with a few additions/modifications to suit this blog.
If Angoor can’t make you laugh, not just laugh – but have tears in your eyes and you are rolling on the floor begging someone to switch the movie off cause you can’t breathe with all that laughing – if Angoor can’t do that for you, you need to go to a therapist immediately. Angoor is what comedy is. Comedy is Angoor. There are very few comedies in Hindi Cinema which come even close to Angoor (Jane Bhi Do Yaroon is the one which comes to mind).

Angoor is Gulzar at his best comic state. Based on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, Angoor begins with two sets of twins (Sanjeev Kumar 1 & 2, Deven Verma 1 & 2) who get separated and land up in two different families as Kumar-1 (master) and Verma-1 (servant) in one family and Kumar-2 (master) and Verma-2 (servant). The comedy of errors starts when the first pair is visiting the city of the second pair to buy a grape orchard. Pair-1 gets mixed up as pair-two and the family of pair-2 forces pair-1 into pair-2’s house, and other times Master-1 gets together with Servant-2 and Servant-1 mistakes Master-2 as his real master or the jeweler giving Master-1 the expensive diamond set when it was intended for Master-2…..confusing enough. Well you don’t care… Gulzar is extra precocious in the movie (unlike my blog here) to let the viewer know each second who is who as the movie moves along, so the viewers don’t miss the comedy in situations where twins get mixed up.

For students of comedy, Sanjeev Kumar provides the complete A – Z of comic acting via this movie. But for the first time I came to realize how two opposing thoughts could be expressed by one – just one expression. Take for example any movie from your memory where the villain apologizes to someone and hugs the person. Shot 1 – Villian’s face is apologetic, even may have tears in his eyes and moves to hug the person he is apologizing to – Cut – Shot 2 has a closeup of the villian’s face who now shows his evil eyes and cunning smile – which tells the viewer that apologizing to the person was a cunning ploy on the villian’s part. Two shots needed to convey two different expressions in-order to relay to the viewer the two different thoughts of the villain. Enter Sanjeev Kumar in Angoor (though he may have done this before, but I am pressed to remember any such scenes at the time of writing this blog) and he does this:-

The shot – SK enters Deepti Naval’s bedroom with a plate of bhang pakodas in his hand. The intention is make Naval have those pakodas, put her to sleep and run from the house. The reason – Naval has mistakenly brought the wrong brother in law (SK) back to the house. Naval looks up from the book she’s reading, smiles at SK saying “Kya mijaaz hain janab ke?” (How are you doing now?). Cut to a focus – head to waist - on SK. SK is slightly leaning to the door, plate of pakodas held upwards in one hand, head tilted, - on listening to Naval’s question – the head tilts further, eyes blink shut, sly smile and the slight masterful body and face movement – and SK achieves the unthinkable – he relays TWO DIFFERENT THOUGHTS from ONE COMMON EXPRESSION – ONE COMMON SHOT. To Naval that expression means – “Wow I’m doing great” – but to the viewer, SK effortlessly communicates – “I want Naval to have these pakodas asap so she can doze off, and I can fucking escape from this trap” – That’s Sanjeev Kumar for you.

And SK’s control over the range of voice pitch or voice modulation is to be seen to be believed. How effectively can that be used to enhance the comic effect of a shot is perfectly shown in Angoor via SK. This is a complete actor for you. Not only does he follow the timing factor, but the face, body, and voice are used to add the vital punch in delivery of a comedy. Example – Watch Maushami Chatterjee with the wrong SK. Chatterjee thinks it’s her husband. SK thinks Chatterjee is from some gang who wants to steal all his money. He’s adjusting the Nada (string) of his pajamas.

Chatterjee gets concerned and asks “Kya Hua”(What’s wrong?)
SK - “Kuch nahin..nada jor se bandh diya aaj” (Nothing, I tied my pajama strings extra tight today)
Chatterjee: “To pajama nikal do” (So remove the pajamas)
SK – his response in terms of face expressions is worth seeing.
SK “Tumhare samne kaise nikaal doon pyjama” (how can I remove my pjs in front of you)
Chatterjee “Tum to aise keh rahe ho jaise maine tumhe bina pyjama ke pehle nahin dekha”(You are talking as if I have never seen you without pjs before)
The classic SK voice modulation with large surprised eyes: “Kya? Tumne mujhe Nannnnnngaaa dekha hai?” (You have seen me naked before?)
That last line – would not have cracked you up as much if SK hadn’t raised his voice on “Kya” and then softly speaking, then thinning his voice as much as possible and expanding the word “Nanga” before ending the dialogue with his voice trailing as if he now has a big lump in his throat. Comic dialogue delivery at its best.

Or watch out for the scene where Naval is mistakenly forcing the wrong SK to come home with her, who she thinks is her brother in law. SK is surprised over what this woman is doing and refuses and screams in public. A cop who is family friend of Naval and the other SK too mistakes SK’s identity and orders him to sit with Naval in his jeep so he can drop them home. SK left with no choice says with repressed anger to the cop “Main tumhe dekh loonga….” – quickly glances at the cop’s name badge and continues “Sinha…main tumhe dekh loonga.” The comedy SK pumped into that miniscule scene is to be seen to be believed.
Strangely, Gulzar never dabbled in comedy again. I wish he would. The sensitivity of Gulzar is such a vital ingredient to make - out of the world - comedies. I miss it. Hope Gulzar can give us atleast one, atleast one comedy in the league of Angoor again.

The SK – Gulzar magic. We now wish we could have seen much more of this. Tragically nothing can be done, with SK’s untimely passing away. In the seventies, Gulzar was planning a movie on Mirza Ghalib (he later made it into a television-series in the nineties), with SK as Ghalib. The movie was announced. A young student at the National School of Drama in Delhi read this announcement and immediately shot a letter to Gulzar. The student believed that he was most ideal to play the role of Ghalib and it was his passionate dream to do that role. SK, the student believed was not suited for that role as he was too heavy to play a lean and thin Ghalib. The student also thought that SK would be unable to get the Urdu words right in tone and pronunciation cause of SK’s Gujarati background. For one reason or the other, Gulzar could never get this movie started, until destiny opened its doors in the nineties to make way for him to make a television-series on his favorite poet. Gulzar approached Naseeruddin Shah to play the part of Mirza Ghalib, to which Shah readily agreed and did play the role of Ghalib to near perfection. - So what’s the idea of writing the above paragraph? Dear Blog reader, the young student who shot that letter to Gulzar in the seventies, was none other than, Naseeruddin Shah.

………And that’s all the strength and energy I could muster to write about one of the greatest actors of all times. Sanjeev Kumar. There is so much more to write and go into details of each character he portrayed and how it is nearly impossible for any one else to breathe that kind of life into those characters, as only Sanjeev Kumar could do. To research this great actor requires most of your life dedicated to writing about him, which speaks volumes of the infinite depth this actor possessed. A born actor, boon to the world of art and cinema, one of the best gifts to the movie lover, that is Sanjeev Kumar for you, for me and for generations in the future who wait their turn to be mesmerized by the magic created on screen as only Sanjeev Kumar could. We humbly offer our salutes and a standing applause to this finest actor of all times……..Sanjeev Kumar.
End.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2005 at 10:47 am
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