Filmi Belles from the South, Part II - Waheeda Rehman

Like a million men before me, I fell in love with Waheeda Rehman at age 21. If you’ve watched her movies, especially the early ones, I don’t have to tell you why. Among other things, I think I particularly fell for the way her luxuriant hair seemed to grow all the way past the temples from the sides of her forehead.

There’s so much about Waheeda Rehman on the net and on other blogs that there is scarcely anything original for me to write about. I knew from early on that her origins lay down south. On a visit to the leather industry town of Ranipet many years ago my aunt proudly spoke of her as a ‘Ranipettai girl’. This, I realised only recently, was slightly off the mark for she was actually born in the neighbouring district town of Chengalpattu, or Chingleput as it was known in her time. Minor inaccuracies apart, the fact is that life took her a long way across the Palar, the river that flows past both Ranipet and Chengalpattu en route to the Bay of Bengal. (I imagine that it carried a lot more water seventy years ago than it does today. Industry has killed this river but we’ll talk about it another day.)

Like Vyjayanthimala (see earlier post), her illustrious peer from the south, Waheeda Rehman was a skilled danseuse who put her skills to good use. Unlike her, however, she did not act in a single Tamil (or Malayalam or Kannada) movie even though her career originated in Telugu filmdom in Chennai. (There being no Ramoji Rao Film City in the early 1950s, and the Nizam having become the ex-Nizam, Hyderabad had only the Char Minar.) This was, of course, before she was whisked away, barely two films old, to Bombay by Guru Dutt.

Despite her long innings and rich repertoire as a leading lady it is in the early part of her career that I count my favourite characters. The novitiate debutante brings to the screen a certain energy that remains unmatched in its naivete and freshness. So here we go as Gulabo the prostitute, all grace and risqué elegance, seduces the pensive poet, Vijay, in Pyaasa:



The song was probably shot on a set but the tall columns tend to remind me of the curved stretch between the Mumbai Samachar building and the Central Asiatic Library at Horniman Circle in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, in this evergreen number from Bees Saal Baad, Waheeda is the classic village belle, lively, teasing and coy at the same time, being sung to by Biswajeet:


My favourite song from Bees Saal Baad is actually the hummable Beqarar karke humein yoon na jaiye. Incidentally, this is the song that we find Amitav Ghosh humming to himself as he walks down London Bridge in The Shadow Lines, surprised at having picked on it for he ‘never had the record’. Zara nazron se kehdoji is visually more pleasing though.

Considering that her latest film release was Delhi – 6 earlier this year, it is evident that Waheeda Rehman has enjoyed a remarkably lengthy professional run for a female actor in Indian moviedom. Indeed, from Bharatnatyam-loving daughter of a liberal Muslim father to peerless veteran, this lady has travelled a long way.

Is Boost the secret of your energy, Waheedaji?

Telangana

(Picture source: http://www.topnews.in/bjp-reiterates-demand-separate-telangana-state-219420)

I wonder whether Potti Sriramulu, had he been buried rather than cremated (as I assume he was), would have turned in his grave. Or whether he would have been pleased that a leaf had been so ably and successfully drawn from his book by K. Chandrasekara Rao, whose long fast, backed by popular support has won for the people of Telangana the promise of a separate Indian state.

As is known, the Madras-born Sriramulu went on a fast-unto-death beginning 19 October 1952, demanding the creation of a separate Andhra state for Telugu-speaking people. Sriramulu already had a quirky history of emulating his icon, Gandhi, and in the mid-forties had fasted for the rights of Dalits to worship in the temples around Nellore. Unlike KCR, Sriramulu was not a politician and took himself seriously, perhaps too seriously. In fact, he began his own fast quietly without any fanfare, and did not go through the motions of breaking his fast upon a token acceptance of his demand (we-will-look-into-it sort of assurances were not for him) and then hastily resuming it in response to public anger as happened in the current case. Public support for Sriramulu’s cause picked up only in due course. Barely six months into his first elected term as Prime Minister, Nehru was inclined to ignore Sriramulu; likewise, Rajaji, the Chief Minister of Madras, was also against the creation of provinces on a linguistic basis, seeing it as a fissiparous tendency and a potential danger to the survival of a nation still in its infancy. But the intransigent Sriramulu had his mind all made up. Even as the government began responding grudgingly to mounting public pressure, Sriramulu passed away after almost two months of fasting on the night of 15 December, barely a few hours before Nehru made a formal declaration initiating the formation of an Andhra state. Sriramulu’s fast and death served as the impetus for the reorganisation of Indian provinces on a linguistic basis. Now, exactly fifty-seven years later, KCR has ensured that the Andhra Pradesh that Sriramulu gave up his life for will be split, at least into two.

(Picture source: http://maharashtrapost.gov.in/htmldocs/march2000.htm)

It is however, unclear what exactly Sriramulu had in mind. He asked for an Andhra state for the Telugu-speaking people. I do not know if he had in mind the merger of Telangana (then already in existence as a distinct Hyderabad state) with the Telugu-speaking parts of Madras state. He believed that Madras, the city, would be the capital of Andhra – his fast was, in fact, carried out in Madras, but this did not happen. The Andhra state that came into being in 1953 did not initially include Telangana/Hyderabad, and its capital was based in Kurnool. It was only in 1956 that Andhra Pradesh as we know it today took shape with the merger of Telangana and Andhra.

The creation of Telangana is something of a watershed for independent India. It debunks the theory of linguistic unity, which is the basis on which the larger Indian states are organised. Unlike the states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh from which new states had been carved out in recent times, Andhra Pradesh seemed to have a more cohesive linguistic-cultural identity. This identity has now been shown to be tenuous.

Considering that India’s population has grown nearly four-fold since independence, the creation of smaller states is not a bad deal. Small states ought to make administration and governance easier and more responsive by helping cut down on the distance between the average citizen on the one hand and bureaucrats and elected representatives on the other. But as the experience in other parts of India shows, small states seem to be more prone to political instability and are hardly marked by exceptional governance. On the contrary, their administrative mechanisms are weak, their politicians exceptionally corrupt and their people often subject to violent conflict.

So, where is Telangana likely to lead us? Will the idealism that has driven its creation sustain itself? Or will another illustrious successor of Sriramulu (and KCR) call for a bifurcation or trifurcation of their state some years down the line? Too early to tell.

Humankind has a tendency to draw lines around itself and to shut itself up in ever smaller boxes.

For the moment, may the Telangas rejoice!