I must confess that I tried watching Mehboob Khan’s Mother India (1957) several times but in vain. I just could not go beyond a point for reasons unknown. After a point I gave up. I know I am in abject minority. It was only a few days ago I happen to read the synopsis of Mehboob Khan’s Amar (1954) starring Dilip Kumar, Nimmi and Madhubala where Dilip Kumar, engaged and much in love with Madhubala rapes the milkwoman played by Nimmi! I was flabbergasted to say the least! The reigning tragedy king of his generation, the hugely venerated actor-star that Dilip Kumar was had the courage to play a villain bigger than any villain, as that article mentioned.
The first thought that came to my mind was which modern-day star have the guts to do this? Shah Rukh Khan? No; Amir, Salman? No way; Akshay Kumar or Ajai Devgn? Not at all. They are all not only trapped in the images of their own making they simply do not have the wherewithal, the talent and conviction to pull off something like this and explore the guilt within thereafter. That is why we maybe had a Dilip Kumar, and I am not a blanket fan of his also. My liking of his work is very film specific. Forget stars which filmmaker seventy years after Amar will think of making a film like this and with strong women characters as well. Amar is as much about Nimmi and Madhubala as it is about Dilip Kumar. The second half, as Dilip Kumar’s guilt digs deep into him the screentime is taken over by Nimmi and Madhubala, with Dilip Kumar almost sidetracked. The point being the star did not hog the limelight when under the tutelage of a director of formidable reputation like Mehboob Khan.
However, it is not just the story of Amar that is bold for any generation, but the making displays some amazing understanding of mise-en-scene by Mehboob Khan. The film begins with Nimmi waking up in the morning in the quasi-natural setting of a village, in harmony with nature. A song is picturized on Nimmi with the birds and the trees singing along with her. Suddenly the melodic harmony is disturbed by the tense sound effects of relatively scary animals like a dog for instance. Mehboob Khan in the course of introducing the heroine foreshadows the lurking danger on her cinematically.
But what is a real stroke of genius is the scene where the village goon played with aplomb by the one and only Jayant is chasing Nimmi, the milkwoman to rape her and a tree falls stopping Jayant. But before Nimmi can escape another tree falls stopping her from going any further. She is trapped between the trunks of two huge trees before she succeeds in running away, but lands up where? In Dilip Kumar’s house, for whom she has considerable liking! Dilip Kumar looks at her and what follows is off-screen rape with Mehboob Khan wonderfully dynamizing space. He cuts to three large windows of Dilip Kumar’s mansion through which we see lightning and thunder. Mehboob Khan escapes the use of cliched symbols of sex so common in Hindi films. But what gorgeous way to foreshadow once again the idea of a girl trapped between two men through the use falling trees! If she avoids one (Jayant), the other tree traps her (Dilip Kumar). The good part is that when she is running and the trees fall, we take it as something normal on a stormy night in the jungle, not realizing the connotation until Dilip Kumar traps her. It is not obvious and therefore brilliant. Despite the old-fashioned art direction with the whole film set in a tacky studio set Mehboob Khan demonstrates fine technical command as well with some graceful tracking shots and dynamic crane movements in the film. Not to forget some wonderfully effective use of chiaroscuro lighting in the post-rape scenes of Dilip Kumar, that effectively conveys his conflicted state.
The depiction of Dilip Kumar’s guilt fluctuates and Mehboob Khan uses many moods to depict it making Dilip Kumar’s character a coward who can be conceited as well. In a very complex scene where Nimmi is getting married to Jayant but finally refuses saying she is already married, the villagers insist on her revealing the name of her husband. Dilip Kumar looks at her in anticipation, that perhaps if she blurts out his name, he will escape the agony of confessing. But Nimmi remains mum, thus making him angry and losing his temper on her. A complex response coming from a character who should be hanging his head in shame. Khan humanizes all three characters in the film and redeems the village goon Jayant also rather graciously. No one pontificates or acts in a self-righteous manner but responds to the human agony.
The director also makes the second half largely about female bonding between Madhubala and Nimmi, with Nimmi getting pregnant, while Dilip Kumar is lurking around contemplating with nothing much to do in terms of action. Madhubala ensures Nimmi not only gets justice but also gets to marry Dilip Kumar, whom she herself loves deeply otherwise . This may seem problematic when seen from the lens of twenty first century- a rapist marrying the girl, but Khan does not depict it as an act of largesse but remorse and redemption at a given time in post-independence history. Madhubala not only walks out on him but gets him to confess as well and Nimmi does not relent despite the “shame” that she deals with until Dilip Kumar confesses himself and comes to her.
The weak part of the film is in the second part of the second half with no significant movement, overloaded with songs repeating the same emotion, as gorgeous as they may be, and all the characters seem to be waiting for Mr. Dilip Kumar to come out. Perhaps the insistence by the distributors back in the fifties to have a minimum two-hour plus duration of the film was the reason, for clearly after a point the film runs out of story. This doesn’t however take away anything from a pathbreaking story and understanding film art that Mehboob Khan nonchalantly exhibits.
I can only be happy to share my birthday with the one and only Mehboob Khan!
Sharad Raj is a Mumbai based independent filmmaker & Senior Faculty at Whistling Woods International
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