By Tirthankar Mitra
When Pakeezah (The Pure) first hit the screen on February 4, 1972, it was a moment of transition for Indian cinema as it was shifting from refined Urdu-inflected studio melodrama towards gritty action blockbusters in an urban backdrop. But the period piece in celluloid, where a beautiful star-crossed courtesan was thumping her feet imperiously to tabla beats, became an all-time hit, and is now scheduled to be screened in Lyon and London.
Set against the backdrop of twilight years of Lucknow nawabs, it showcases the life of a famous courtesan Sahibjan, in which Meena Kumari essayed a performance of a lifetime. Now it will be premiered in a restored version at France’s Festival Lumiere in Lyon in October.
A second screening will be held at London at BFI film festival. Directed by Meena Kumari’s husband Kamal Amrohi, the overseas viewing is preceded by a gap of 54 years, since it was first screened at Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir.
Conceptualized in 1950s, the film was dogged by deaths, budget constraints and technical changeovers. And when the shooting started, the film making progressed at a snail’s space.
Struggle for respectability of a tawaif or courtesan is the central theme of the film. She is trained in poetry, music and dance and it needs to be mentioned Meena Kumari was a poet in her own right.
A stranger had left a note at the feet of a sleeping Sahibjan during a train journey asking her not to soil her feet. They later meet, rekindling their feelings and the courtesan struggled to cross over from her soiree to a household.
The dialogue is mostly in flowery Urdu prose. It invokes a refined, sensuous world which was overall alluring.
The footage of the railroads is the film’s central vector of modernity. It sharply contrasts with fairyland creatures in gauzy veils pirouetting before playing fountains.
A bitter sweet nostalgia is evoked with a vanished world. Only when the film ends do many starry-eyed in the audience realise that world on screen has gone with the wind.
The film started in black and white in 1956 before shifting to Eastman colours two years later. Casting shifts, script revisions and Kamrohi’s perfectionism slowed the film’s progress and added to its cost.
In 1964, Meena Kumari and Amrohi were separated owing to personal reasons. In 1968, she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of liver and she fought the disease till her untimely passing in 1972.
The shooting almost ground to a halt when its legendary cinematographer Josef Wirsching died. His visual aesthetic was meticulously matched by a rotating collective of India’s top cinematographers.
Pakeezah had iconic music and its songs are hummed to this day apart from being used as tests to newcomers in musical contests. But Ghulam Mohammad, the film’s music director, suddenly passed away.
Yet overcoming apparently overwhelming hurdles, Pakeezah became a sensation on its release. Its estimated budget was Rs 1.5 crores while the revenues generated from it was in the region of Rs 6 crores.
It turned out to be one of the biggest hits of the year. Its grand visuals and snag-hit shooting schedule seemed to have been wiped away by its box-office success.
A two-year restoration process by Film Heritage Foundation precedes the reappearance of the cinematic masterpiece. Thanks to FHF’s efforts, the tribute to the beauty of Meena Kumari, Kamal Amrohi ‘s wife and muse, has a new lease of life.
The original camera negative had almost melted. Other film elements had scratches and moulds with faded colours.
An Interpositive and a Cinemascope print of the film was found at Ramnord Lab by the FHF team. It also found a colour reversal Internegative preserved by NFDC-National Film Archive of India.
FHF was helped by the Amrohi family. The 153-minute-long restored Pakeezah is now set to hit the screen again.
More than five decades ago the film cans of Pakeezah were carried in a palanquin to Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir just in the manner courtesans of the bygones days commuted when they stepped out of doors. The reception of the restored auteur of this period film at Lyon and London are eagerly awaited. (IPA Service)
