VARIOUS ARTICLES: ANARKALI

ANARKALI

SALIM

DILIP KUMAR AND MADHUBALA IN MUGHAL E AZAM

Who was Anarkali?

The lore of Anarkali goes like this. She was a court dancer of exceptional beauty in Akbar’s harem in Lahore, named Nadeera. Akbar’s son crown-prince Salim (later Emperor Jahangir) was returning home after fourteen years in the service of army (he was sent to army by Akbar because he was a spoiled boy) and a mujra was organized in celebration of this incident. In this famous mujra Nadeera danced. Seeing her beauty Akbar called her Anarkali (Pomegranate Blossom, ‘dalim ba bedanar koli’ in Bengali). Salim fell in love with this beautiful dancer and Anarkali returned his love. It was kept secret since she was of low birth. But eventually Akbar came to know of it as Salim expressed his intention to marry her and make her the Empress of Hindustan. Hearing this Akbar ordered to arrest Anarkali and sent her to prison in Lahore. Salim rebelled at this. He, with the help of a friend managed to free Anarkali from prison and hid her at the outskirts of Lahore. He managed to create a force from his army and attacked Lahore. Akbar retaliated with a much larger force and defeated Salim. Salim was imprisoned and offered with two choices, to surrender Anarkali or a death penalty. Salim chose death sentence. Hearing this Anarkali came out from her hiding and surrendered herself to Akbar. She asked Akbar to take her life instead of Prince Salim’s but asked him to let her spend a single night with her lover. Akbar agreed. After the pleasant night with Salim, Anarkali drugged him to unconsciousness while she was taken away by Akbar’s men. A ditch was made and she was put into it and the top of the ditch was covered with a brick wall. Anarkali was buried alive.

There is a variation to this lore. In that variation it says Akbar once promised Anarkali’s mother that he will fulfill any one wish of her. As Anarkali was doomed to death her mother asked Akbar for life. Akbar granted her the wish and Anarkali was let to escape through a series of underground tunnels.

This lore is so vivid in the minds of people that it is taken as a piece of history. Actually the authenticity of the lore is not at all confirmed. It was first written by the Indian writer Abdul Halim Sharar where he says it is a work of fiction.

However there is a tomb in Lahore which is said to be Anarkali’s. Also there is a place in Lahore called Anarkali Bazaar which is supposed to be the place near where Anarkali’s ditch was dug.

Scholars differ in their views on the Anarkali story. Some are of the view that she was actually one of the stepmothers of Jahangir. Some other says she was one of the Begums of Jahangir the marriage with whom Akbar disapproved. There are others who think that Queen Nur Jehan ( Meher-un-nisa, widow of Sher Afghan Kuli Khan, a Mughal officer ) was actually Anarkali.

Whatever may be the case the story has been embedded in the mind of public as an immortal love story. The legacy is many books, plays and films that have been created out of the Anarkali story. The most prominent among them is the famous movie by K. Asif ,Mughal e Azam.

Asif cast Madhubala (born Mumtaz Jahan Begum Dehlavi) and Dilip Kumar (Mohammad Yusuf Khan) as Salim. Incidentally they were both pathans, the people of the same neighborhood as the legend Anarkali.

Madhubala was born in a very poor family. And she was also born in Valentine’s day . His father Ataullah Khan was an employee of a biscuit factory in Delhi. He had 11 kids, two sons and nine daughters. His two sons and three daughters died in their childhood. When the biscuit factory closed in Delhi Ataullah went to Bombay to find work. He looked in different studios with his child daughter to find work for her. Soon Mumtaz was working in films as a child artist as Baby Mumtaz. Seven or eight year old Baby Mumtaz was earning the livelihood of her family. By the age of 14 Mumtaz was cast in a film as a heroine. She was noted not only because of her looks but also for her talent as an actress. By the age of 16 she was a ravishing beauty. Her screen name was changed from Mumtaz to Madhubala ( most probably at the advice of famous actress Devika Rani) and she did her first runaway hit film named Mahal opposite Ashoke Kumar.

Within two years she became one of the top heroines in the Bombay film industry and challenged the likes of Kamini Kaushal, Suraiya, and Nargis etc. Madhubala was of a very cheerful nature and fond of playing pranks with others (although at the beginning she was a bit reserved in nature). She had a habit of laughing uproariously , sometimes even at inopportune moments. People liked her on and off screen immediately and men fell in love with her. She also, although conscious of her beauty , liked others generally and found interest in many of her costars. She , perhaps unconsciously, gave the impression to the others that she was in love with them. In fact, as one of his costar Dev Anand said, she loved to be loved. This sometimes caused grievances and rivalry among her costars.

In 1951 she paired with Dilip Kumar for the first time in a movie called Tarana. The young pair Dilip and Madhu immediately found a great liking for each other. If you watch the movie the budding romance is palpable by the way both so vividly portray the on screen love.

Madhubala’s father was a stern and conservative man in nature. Although he was a doting father he was very possessive about her and ruled on how she moved and behaved as well as her financial and dealings and contracts. She came early in the sets, ahead of even minor artists and left the studio at 6 pm sharp. She never attended functions, parties etc. She seldom got out of her home or studio because she had a fear of being mobbed. Studio and home were all that was known to Madhubala until even her death .

However ,within this restriction fondness began to develop between young Yusuf and Mumtaz. In the sets between intervals of the shots and in their rooms in the studio their closeness grew.

Ataullah Khan did not look at this romance favorably. Although both were Muslims and pathans of same category and of compatible age Ataullah found this dislikable because it threatened to take away his daughter away from him. He found it unpalatable on two counts, first because the family depended on Madhubala’s earning and secondly he felt an obsessive love for her pet daughter and did not want to part with her.

As Madhubala rose in fame and her romance bloomed an incident took place during one of her shootings that fundamentally changed her fortune. In the set of one of her films she became ill and vomited blood. Doctors diagnosed the illness as ventricular septal defect or simply put, she had a hole in her heart. The disease was congenital and no cure of the disease was known at that time. She tried to hide the disease for sometime to the industry but in 1954 she became violently ill in the set of another film Bahut Din Huwe and it became known to all. Madhubala’s fate was doomed as Anarkali’s was. She was going to die quite soon.

Shooting of Mughal – E - Azam, the brainchild of K.Asif portraying the story of Anarkali, was started in 1950. Asif had grand design about this film and he left no stones unturned to make that grand design a success. He made the sets in a grand scale. The ornaments that the actors and actresses wore were made of real gold, diamond and gems. The dresses were authentic to the core, made of actual material the kings and queens were known to wear. Although the film was made in black and white everything were made up of the color they really were. The cost of the film surpassed all previous record by far, a whopping 1.5 crore in 1950s! And the love the film portrayed between Salim and Anarkali was real, because the actor and actress who did the roles were madly in love with each other. The fondness which started in the sets of Tarana was in full bloom now. Mumtaz was full of Yusuf. And Dilip was full of Madhu. They met outside the studios at the dwelling of K.Asif secretly and had rare moments of intimacy. Both dreamed of marrying each other.

To watch the shooting and Madhubala many prominent people came to the sets .One of them was the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto , the politician from Pakistan ( this led to the rumor that Madhubala was having an affair with Bhutto). Another was Chinese Prime minister Chou en Lai.

But as the making of the film began to take an inordinately long time because of various reasons darkness fell on the romance. Dilip proposed to Madhu in one of the sets of a film in presence of an actor named Om Prakash. But he made a condition that Mumtaz had to sever all ties with her dominating and nosey father Ataullah Khan. Madhubala remained silent. A film was signed by Dilip Kumar and Madhubala named Naya Daur to be made by B.R.Chopra. Madhubala took Rs. 30,000 as advance. Some of the shooting had to be done at outdoor location near Bhopal. At this Madubala’s father objected. He said that he could not allow his daughter so far away because she was not used to outdoor locations ( Madhubala ate only those foods ,even water, that were made at her home) and he gave medical reasons. He also said that Dilip Kumar misbehaved with his daughter and the out door shooting was just a ruse to farther the dalliance. Ataullah feared the unrestricted intimacy between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala in an outdoor location. As Madhubala disagreed on her father’s insistence to go to Bhopal, B.R. Chopra sued her of taking money in advance and not doing her job. Dilip Kumar, full of vengeance against Ataullah Khan, was a close ally of B.R Chopra in the court case. He gave testimony in favor of B.R. Chopra. This vitiated the relation between Dilip Kumar and Madhubala for good. In rage against Madhubala and Ataullah Khan Dilip Kumar sarcastically said in court that he would love Madhubala “until her death”.

But the filming of Mughal E Azam was still unfinished. Meanwhile both Madhubala’s health and relation with Dilip Kumar deteriorated. Madhubala did an astonishingly large number of movies considering the state of her health. For this also her father was to be blamed. He made her sign almost any movie that was offered to her without considering the quality or her health. This had a terribly detrimental effect to her health and to some extent her career.

In Mughal E Azam Madhubala had to suffer on two counts. On the one hand she had to act with her once lover costar with whom her relation has soured and on the other she had to do horribly strenuous things in set to depict the “reality” of Anarkali. . In one of the scenes Dilip Kumar slapped her so hard that she almost cried. In the dungeon scene she was put on real heavy chains made of steel and made to walk with those and sing. She also had to do the rigorous kathak dance in the scene of the famous song “pyar kiya to darna kiya”. The scene was completed in no less than 30 days. Added to this were regular night shifts.

As the movie was finally completed Madhubala’s health worsened very badly. At this juncture her intimacy with the eccentric genius Kishore Kumar began to flourish. Kishore Kumar, with whom she found a rapport in the sets of hilarious Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi , made her laugh and forget her pain. He did outrageous things in front of her. Once he tried to cut his own hands by the fan blades in her room so much so that Madhubala screamed in fear and people gathered inside the room. This new diversion kept Madhubala fascinated . But she never forgot Yusuf and continued to love him at her heart.

Mughal E Azam was finally released in 1960 . The movie theatres where the movie was released were decorated with special lights. The story of making of Mughal e Azam by that time was known to all. The movie became a success of monumental proportions. It grossed an all time record in box office which was eventually broken only by Sholay many many years later.

Madhubala did not attend the premiere of Mughal e Azam. In fact only once in her life time she attended a public function of any kind. However fame of Madhubala spread outside the barrier of countries. She was recognized internationally. An article was written in a widely circulated American journal that Madhubala and not a Hollywood actress was the most popular heroine of the world. Frank Capra, an Oscar- winning director came to India at that time and wanted to meet Madhubala with a view to find an opening for her in a Hollywood production. However she did not meet Capra. Reason: her father thought she will not be able to eat with knife and fork in Hollywood! One can only surmise what could have happened with the treatment she could have had in United States.

After Mughal- e- Azam she did not appear in too many films. Her health became very bad. In this dark moment she married Kishore Kumar. She thought Kishore would fill rest of her life with fun and reduce her pain. But after only a few days they became a very ordinary couple.Kishore’s fountain of laughter dried up. Madhubala became a very jealous and nagging wife. And in her heart there was still Yusuf. Madhubala and Kishore separated only after a month of their wedding although they remained married legally. The relation soon came to such a pass that Kishore was unavailable to accompany her for her health check up in London.

Madhubala became reclusive. She had her own projector and she used to watch the ‘ pyar kiya to darna kiya ‘ scene ever so often. It is said she watched it more than 500 times. The few acquaintances who visited her told a sorry tale. She called a very close film journalist and told him that it was only Yusuf , Yusuf ,and Yusuf that dwelled in her heart.

Madhubala was a large hearted person from a different angle. She could not refuse anybody who asked her help. She did whatever she could financially. For this reason she always carried four, five thousand rupees along with her ( it was a considerable sum those days). She donated very magnanimously. In 1950 when refugees from East Pakistan poured in to India she donated an abnormally large sum of 50,000 rupees. The then Home Minister of India, Morarji Desai was astonished and thanked her profusely for that.

But the saga of modern Anarkali was almost at end. In the 1960s she almost totally remained at her home. Only a flicker of a hope came along when she recovered a little bit and started to shoot for a movie in 1964. But it was very short lived. She succumbed to her illness in 1969 nine days after her 36 th birthday ( the Valentine’s day).The day before her death she wanted to see Dilip Kumar for one last time. But alas no one was there to convey this message to Dilip Kumar who was busy shooting in Madras.

We do not know about authenticity of the historical Anarkali. But the 20 th century Anarkali in form of Madhubala was real. Her love for her beloved was unquenched as was Anarkali’s. She was as beautiful as Anarkali . She had an unconquerable barrier in the path of her wish to unite with her lover like Anarkali. For Anarkali it was Akbar, Salim’s father and for Madhubala it was her own father Ataullah Khan. Both were ordained by God to die young and become a legend for future generations. She was the same epitome of beauty with whom men fell in love for generations.

In 2010 Indian Post and Telegraph department of India chose to immortalize her by choosing to preserve the stamp in her memory by engraving it in solid pure silver ingots, layered with pure 24 carat gold. Only twenty four others from history of India including Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautam Buddha, the Taj Mahal , the peacock , J.R.D. Tata and Mother Teresa were in this elite league. Except Madhubala only Satyajit Ray from film world was honored thus.

I was studying engineering when I first saw Mughal e Azam . When she dropped her veil and showed her face in the dance song “Mohe panghat pe Nandlal” I almost dropped dead by her beauty. To me she remained the ultimate throughout my life. As I went on reading and recapturing her life it seemed to me that the real Anarkali was not in the history books but who died in Bombay in 1969.