Meghnad Jagdishchandra Desai, Baron Desai is an Indian-born British economist and Labour politician. He unsuccessfully stood for the Speaker in the British House of Lords in 2011, the first ever non-UK born candidate to do so. He is Emeritus Professor of Economic at the London School of Economics and a member of the House of Lords. He is the author of twenty books on most of which are on Economics. It is amusing to think of him also as passionate analyst of Bollywood movies. Why would someone be interested in knowing about Pakeezah – a film that was released forty-two years back? The author responds:
“If there has been a film which has captured the Muslim culture of a certain period albeit with contemporary resonance, it has to be Kamal Amrohi’s Pakeezah.”
The defining element of this film is the time that it took to make the movie. How many things would have changed during the fifteen years it took to make the movie? To put it in perspective, it was started before Mughal-e-Azam was released and got released just before Sholay. Pakeezah opened to a rather lukewarm response from the audience in February 1972.One may argue that it became a hit because Meena Kumari, passed away a month later on 31st March, 1972. This was a film that was started in 1956-57, just after she had married Kamal Amrohi, who wrote and directed the film. He was known for his perfectionism. He was known to wait for weeks to film the perfect sunset. This was also the film that saw the disintegration of Meena Kumari’s marriage to Kamal Amrohi. She is said to have charged one rupee to act in a double-role in the film that remains what she is best remembered by the masses.Pakeezah was the film that will be remembered for some memorable dance sequences that were shot over seven years from 1957-’64. Whether it was Kaifi Azmi’s lyrics for Chalte Chalte, Yunhi Koi Mil Gaya Thha or Majrooh Sultanpuri’s poetry in Thade Rahiyo that remains watchable even today. Remember how the train’s whistle in Thade Rahiyo reminds the tawaif of a stranger who admired her feet and told her never to step on the ground, lest they dirty her feet.http://youtu.be/UC3F3zByL3IIt is not the trivia about the film that makes this book a good read. It is the chapter that analyzes the film at different levels where the author impresses. He describes Pakeezah as a fine example of a “Muslim Social”, to be compared with say films like Chaudhvin ka Chand by Guru Dutt and not “Muslim Historicals” such as Mughal e Azam (1960).Pakeezah depicts the nawabi culture complete with its elaborate tehzeeb (etiquette) and the way relationships are handled in this very woman-centric film. Despite this being a film about a courtesan (tawaif), the woman in Pakeezah is always unattainable. It is a film that shows the women creating their own space in a patriarchal society.It is this analysis that makes you want to see Pakeezah again. This time, with a new pair of eyes.———–My review of the biography of Meena Kumari <click here>Follow me on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduri