Sometimes, we discover that reel and real are not just a cliched turn of phrase. Like last week, when the most hardened of critics developed a lump in the throat after watching Sushant Singh Rajput’s Dil Bechara. Not necessarily because of the screenplay but because of how it reminded them of events in his life off it.
It is not the first time though that life and death created a nebula around a film. There was a time in the 1980s when Doordarshan’s Chitrahaar often climaxed with a song of Love and God. There were no social media but old-timers would collectively gasp, ‘Oh! This is the last film of K. Asif. Poor chap could not complete it.’
Asif attempted four films in his career out of which two remained incomplete. But the one that he completed carried more weight than the voluminous filmography of many directors. Perhaps, that’s why everybody wanted to know, ‘what will he create after Mughal-e-Azam?’.
Well, he mounted Love and God with Guru Dutt and Nimmi in 1963, a timeless tragic romance of Laila and Majnu. But Guru Dutt’s sudden demise in 1964, which is another sad story, forced him to replace him with the then-emerging actor Sanjeev Kumar. The shooting started in 1970 but in 1971, Asif passed away at the age of 48.
Guru Dutt
A token of tribute
In the 1980s, the film was revived by his wife Akhtar Asif with the help of K.C. Bokadia. It was not a Bokadia kind of film, but he was repaying the debt of help he had received from Asif during his days of struggle. But once again fate intervened and Sanjeev Kumar passed away in 1985. He was 49. Not just the actors, even the original playback singers Mohammed Rafi and Mukesh were no longer around.
Eventually, the incomplete film was released in May 1986, 23 years after it first went on floors. Actors dubbed for their younger selves and Naushad returned from retirement to record the background score.
The film released after H.S. Rawail had already brought the tale of Kais and Laila home with Rishi Kapoor and Ranjeeta in 1976, and at a time when love stories had to compete with Jaanbaaz or find a way through Aakhri Raasta.
However, over the years, the film’s incompleteness and jinxed nature haven’t diminished Asif’s vision. Like Mughal-e-Azam, it is mounted on a grand scale and carries a deeper comment on the freedom of expression beneath a timeless love story. If Salim stands up to a monarch, here Kais questions the clergy.
Take the scene where a group of clerics assembles to decide his fate on the basis of a question. Kais, dressed in white, tells his white pigeon, “See, what a time has come when a man is keen to decide another man’s fate.” The head cleric shows him a mirror on which Allah is written. Kais is asked what he sees in it. At that time, Laila appears on the balcony and her reflection finds its way into the mirror. Kais responds, “Laila!” All hell breaks loose, but Kais bursts into a song that carries Asif’s voice: ‘Yeh Nadaano Ki Duniya Hai’ (This is a world of innocents)’ Bodies come and go, it is the voice that lasts.
Epic tale of love
Unlike Love and God, Asif’s good friend Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah, another epic tale of love marred by real-life barriers, had a happy ending at the box office. Some feel the audience of the 1970s took time to grasp the pace of a film that was envisioned more than a decade ago. Others say it got a push from the untimely death of Meena Kumari just two months after the film’s release, in February 1972.
Amrohi dreamt of the story of a Lucknow courtesan way back in 1956, when his love for actor Meena Kumari blossomed. However, as their relationship soured in between, the film got shelved, only to be revived when Meena Kumari developed a serious liver complication. Still, she had to be persuaded by fellow actors such as Nargis and by a letter from Amrohi, where he described the film as a sinking ship that could reach ashore only under her care.
In between, the film’s music composer, Ghulam Mohammad, and cinematographer, Josef Wirshing, who both played a vital role in making Amrohi’s dream film see the light of day, passed away. Ashok Kumar moved on to a different role and was replaced first by Dharmendra and then by Raj Kumar. However, as one could sense the presence of Guru Dutt in Love and God in some of the shots, here too Dharmendra’s shadow is palpable in the train sequence.
Loosely inspired byAmrohi’s own life and his love for Meena Kumari, the film lives on as a comment on social perceptions that question the idea of purity. Amrohi pays the ultimate tribute to the beauty of a woman with evocative lines like ‘Aap Ke Paaon Dekhe...’ and ends with a bride’s palanquin arriving at a brothel. It still rings a bell, for life on and off screen has stayed intertwined.