India loses its Bharat Kumar

It was a sunny afternoon, sometime in the 1980s, when I was visiting Manoj Kumar for an interview at his Juhu residence. The filmmaker and actor was narrating stories related to his movies, when it suddenly started raining. Kumar got up to shut the windows and said, “Aise mausam mein pakode khaane ko jee karta hai”. A while later, the house-help entered with a tray of fragrant tea and hot pakodas. Kumar smiled and said, “My wife always knows what I’m thinking”. The attendant skilfully served us tea and snacks, and added, “Bhabhiji ne kaha hai ke pakode ghar par bane hai, zaroor khaiyega”. It was the sweetest line any homemaker had addressed to a guest, and I was touched. Their hospitality reflected their roots and show business of that time.

Kumar loved cinema, was passionate about homoeopathy and was an engaging speaker, which explains why journalists frequently sought him. He had a traumatic childhood and the wounds reflected in his characters. During the 1947 riots, he saw his baby brother collapse in his mother’s arms on a hospital bed when the hospital staff deserted all the patients and ran away. Kumar was only 10 years old and unable to help his mother!

Manoj Kumar turned director with Upkar. Pic/Instagram

His family migrated from Pakistan to Delhi, India, and for a long time lived in the refugee camp. Kumar was always interested in movies, and rushed to the cinema halls whenever he had a few coins in his pocket. His friends encouraged him to travel to Bombay and try his luck in movies, so he strolled inside a suburban studio seeking work. Initially, he did odd jobs like moving camera trolleys, and sometimes sweeping the set floor, till one day, he was asked to stand in for a missing actor. That’s when the cameraman declared that the 20-year-old had something in him!

Kumar’s debut film Fashion [1957] led to eight more movies, but none of them succeeded till Hariyali Aur Rasta [1962] launched him as a star. The magic truly started with Woh Kaun Thi? [1964], followed by two more murder mysteries Gumnaam [1965] and Anita [1966].

Playing a patriot in Shaheed [1965] impacted him deeply. It is said that our then Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, invited him to Delhi and asked him to make a film promoting the slogan, Jai Jawan Jai Kisaan. “Do it fast before the climate changes,” Shastri ji is supposed to have told him. Kumar had never written or directed a film earlier. He didn’t wish to work in isolation, and came up with a unique plan of writing the script. He booked himself on a Rajdhani train to Delhi and finished writing the film’s first half from Bombay to Delhi. The second half, he completed from Delhi to Bombay.

Upkar [1967] won two National Awards, but the person for whom Kumar made the film was no more. Shastri ji died on January 11, 1966, in Tashkent. The film was a turning point in his career, and made him a multi-hyphenate as he wrote, directed and acted in all his films—Purab Aur Paschim [1970], Shor [1972], Roti Kapda Aur Makaan [1974], and more.

His acting assignments continued simultaneously, and he was overjoyed when Raj Kapoor cast him in Mera Naam Joker [1970]. When the film bombed, a heartbroken Kumar watched it again and again to understand what went wrong. When he arrived at the answer, he phoned Kapoor to share that had he switched the second and the third story, the audience may have been more receptive. Kapoor agreed, but by then it was too late.

In 1980, he fulfilled his dream of working with his idol Dilip Kumar in Kranti. The film was a grosser, but by the end of the decade, he was losing interest in movies. A personal tragedy where his father died under unusual circumstances put him in depression. Slowly, he stopped meeting people. The only one he stayed connected to was his heartbeat, Sai Baba. Wherever he went, he carried a picture of the deity with him.

Rest in peace, Pandit ji [as his friends called him], and walk into the clouds with your deity.