My uncles, the Anands

It was an evening exuding the warmth from memories and melodies of exquisite cinema at Gaiety Theatre, Shimla, with some in the audience humming softly along, nostalgic for the bygone times. Katyayini and the Three Arts Club recently gave a dramatised audio-visual storytelling by Sohaila Kapur, titled ‘Anand Hi Anand: Celebrating 75 Years of Navketan Films’. It was staged as part of the Mimamsa Children’s Literature Festival organised by the Keekli Trust. Sohaila’s mother, Sheil Kanta, was one of the sisters of the Anands — Manmohan, Savitri, Chetan, Kanti, Dev, Bonnie (Lata), Usha and Vijay (Goldie).

Their father, Pishorimal Anand, hailed from Gharota village, near Pathankot. The land was gifted to their ancestors by Maharaja Ranjit Singh for having served in his army. Pishorimal, however, broke away from zamindari and moved to Gurdaspur, starting this new family of his, and ensuring that all his children were well educated.

The Anand brothers started Navketan Films in 1949 with ‘Afsar’ (1950). Their story is reflective of a more humane angle in the era of Hindi cinema: many artists of those times (friends of the Anand brothers) came to Bombay during the British rule, and many in the aftermath of Partition. Most had faced the trauma of Partition. Yet, it never translated into animosity, hatred, or othering of any community, either in personal lives or in cinema, unlike much of the violent jingoism and sycophancy in mainstream Hindi cinema today.

On the inspiration behind this production, Sohaila says, “For four years or so, I had been thinking of my Mamas (maternal uncles), how they entered a dream world. I felt ecstatic but couldn’t understand this pull. Sometimes, there would be tears in my eyes. I felt that this emotion needed to be brought out on paper. So I started researching, spoke to family members, and started compiling their life stories. I wanted to write this beautiful human story of siblings who helped each other, stumbling into circumstances, and about a family that came together.”

Dev Anand, she notes, would not have gotten his star persona had it not been for Chetan’s wife, Uma, who insisted that a story had to be written celebrating his star appeal, after ‘Ziddi’ became a hit. Uma and Goldie together wrote ‘Baazi’.

“Look at Dev Anand’s films in the late 1940s and early ’50s, he is always the wronged young man, lean, hungry, seeking justice. Then he became a crook, though golden-hearted, in 1951. He gambled, smoked, cavorted with the nautch girls. Uma and Goldie built an image of Dev Anand that lasted more than 50 years. Had it not been for Chetan Anand, Dev wouldn’t perhaps have desired to become an actor. And Goldie would not have become the star director that he was had Uma not insisted that he write scripts,” points out Sohaila.

“Goldie was 10 years younger than Dev. He had written and directed 21 plays while still in college (St Xavier’s, Bombay). He filmed the first song for ‘Nau Do Gyarah’, which became a hit. In ‘Funtoosh’, he created Dev’s image as a comic (with the famous song, ‘Ae meri topi palat ke aa’). Chetan Mama was into social realism. He was the father of the concept of art cinema. His film, ‘Neecha Nagar’, won the first ever Grand Prize for the best film at Cannes in 1946. Chetan made ‘Neecha Nagar’ because he had Uma as his partner… He had that sensitive nerve for society and used art to send a message for social change. I was closest to him, but I also loved Dev Uncle. I admired Goldie for his technique and writing,” she says.

The nearly two-hour performance at Shimla urges one to revisit and discover in the process the relevance of their filmography for our times. For instance, in a seminal moment in ‘Haqeeqat’ (1964), directed by Chetan (playing an Army officer), we have the following dialogue:

Puran, tumne Gita padhi hai?

[Puran, have you read the Gita?]

Nahin, sir [No, sir].

Arre, padhi to humne bhi nahin hai, lekin suna hai ki usme likha hai, ki zindagi mein sabse badi cheez hai karm, amal. Action, John, action! Yeh baat hamne ek Musalman shayar ki nazm se seekhi hai…

[Neither have I, but I hear it is written therein, that the greatest thing in life is action. This, I learnt from a song by a Muslim poet]

That nazm was Kaifi Azmi’s ‘Farz’, a few lines of which are as under:

Aur phir Krishna ne Arjun se kaha…

[And then Krishna said to Arjun]

Zindagi sirf amal, sirf amal, sirf amal

[Life is action, just action, just action]

Aur ye bedard amal sulah bhi hai, jang bhi hai [And this hard-hearted one is action, even as it is, reconciliation]

Amn ki mohini tasveer mein hain jitne rang,

Unhi rangon mein chhupa khoon ka ek rang bhi hai… [The innumerable illusory colours of peace hide within them, one colour of blood, too]

Saathiyon, doston, hum aaj ke Arjun hi to hain [Friends, aren’t we after all today’s Arjun]

Hamse bhi Krishna yahi kehte hain

[That’s what Krishna tells us, too]

Not to forget the context: the India-China war. In striking contrast is a Sahir Ludhianvi song, ‘Kabhi khud pe’, preceded by Dev Anand’s angst-ridden soliloquy in ‘Hum Dono’, directed by Vijay Anand:

Yeh kaun si taakat hai jo hamein apne gharon se, apne maa-baap se, door laakar, humein apne kandhon pe bandook rakhne ko majboor kar deti hai

[What is this power that obliges us to go far from our homes, our parents, placing a gun on our shoulders?]

Chetan’s ‘Aakhri Khat’ (1966), an official entry to the Oscars, was a classic, shot with a hand-held camera outdoors. It was one of the most sensitively picturised filming of a child. It was the candid film we know today, with haunting melodies by the Kaifi-Khayyam duo.

Sohaila points out that “if you see their films ‘Tere Mere Sapne’, ‘Haqeeqat’, ‘Prem Pujari’, ‘Tere Ghar ke Samne’ — they were all political, but subtly so. There was the message of the Nehruvian idea of peace, Panchsheel, for a newly Independent country. ‘Tere Ghar Ke Samne’ was about two neighbours wanting to outdo each other, building a house: a simple story! They hate each other and, in the end, embrace each other. It was about India and China. ‘Haqeeqat’, though a bit jingoistic or nationalistic, still ends with the message that there is no point in war and that we are brothers. ‘Hum Dono’ discusses the futility of war, as well. They belonged in a different world. Their friendships were above and beyond religion and other dividers”.

They worked with, and were, close friends of several Muslim poets, artists — Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ali Sardar Jafri, Sahir Ludhianvi, Waheeda Rehman, Meena Kumari, KA Abbas, and so on. “They believed in the freedom of expression. IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association) brought Chetan and Balraj Sahni together. I remember a certain play that they were performing for mill workers with Balraj. Uma and Chetan were very upset that it had not gone well and Chetan apologised to the audience. Balraj thought there was no need to do so, since it was meant for a larger cause and the mill workers had enjoyed it. But, for Chetan, art was supreme. They had a falling out over this, but eventually made up… There was not a film of Chetan’s in which Balraj did not act,” she says.

‘Anand Hi Anand’ lends warm moments during interviews with the family: Sohaila’s aunt (Usha) recounting Dev Anand’s love affair with Suraiya, whom he gave a ring to, which was apparently thrown out by her grandmother.

You find friendships in the film fraternity beyond Indian shores, with Charles Chaplin, Frank Capra and Pearl S Buck, and stories of the bilingual film, ‘Guide’. You learn of Dev’s father’s disapproval of his marriage to Kalpana Kartik (Mona), a Christian from Shimla.

Among her uncles, Sohaila was closest to Chetan. “He was closest to my mother, and watching them chat felt warm. But all three brothers admired my mother, who worked with a British organisation, International Wool Secretariat. She used to organise the Sweater Queen in Shimla (a precursor to the Miss Shimla and Miss Delhi pageants)!”

Sohaila envisages a film or perhaps an OTT production, which hopefully would have more personal bits.

— The writer is an independent journalist and historian

Arts