HIS ILLITERATE MOTHER'S TWO WORDS,“TU PADH"CHANGED THE LIFE OF KADAR KHAN...

His family had to leave Afghanistan for political and personal reasons and from then it was one long journey crossing borders, barriers, and barricades. It was a very tough journey which had no destination, but the Khan family somehow landed in Bombay... There was no money to buy a decent house or have two proper meals. His father finally settled down in an area which Kadar Khan cannot even imagine when he looks back at life. The house (kholi) his father rented was in the midst of Kamathipura which was and still is known as the red light area of Bombay. There was prostitution rampant and gambling dens and local liquor distilleries and bars in every corner. There used to be the most dangerous kinds of fights at all times of the day and there were young men who were basically trained as mechanics, drivers or men who did odd jobs, but they were not interested in using their skills and spent all their time in doing things that were related to crime and torture. The area was considered so risky that even policemen refused to interfere in the constant crimes committed in different parts and chawls of the area...

It was in this background that the little Kadar Khan was brought up. To add to the misery of the Khans, the father and mother who had regular quarrels decided to separate and circumstances forced Kadar Khan's mother to get married again and the man who she married was a no-good man who was not interested in doing anything and the little Kadar Khan had to go to his father who was living far away and wait for him for the whole day to borrow two rupees from him. He came back walking and with the two rupees, he bought some rice, some dal, and kerosene. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were possible only when Kadar Khan came back home with the essentials needed for cooking anything, it was a way of life his mother had accepted and made Kadar accept too.

Kadar was sent to a primary school, memories of which used to give him the shudders. He saw all his friends working in the nearby scrap shops and cloth shops where the boys could earn three to four rupees a day. Kadar was on his way to school when some of his friends stopped him and asked him not to waste his time in all this ‘paddhai likhai' and join them in the work they were doing. Kadar threw his school bag on the bed and joined the boys. He was going down when he felt a soft and in his little shoulder. It was his mother who told him that she knew where he was going and why. She told him to go back and bring his bag and go to school. Kadar could never forget those two words of his mother, “tu padh tu padh". He remembered his mother telling him that she would bare all the challenges and responsibilities of the home and that her only interest in life was to see her son being educated. He sometimes compared his mother to the Hindi God Shankar who according to myth had the power to swallow all the poison of the world and like many other men who came up the hard way and became big names owed everything they were and had to dare mothers, Kadar also considered his mother to be his “friend, philosopher, guide and even my goddess".

Kadar started studying mainly because of the advice of his mother and went on to be one of the most educated men in the area and his community and was a qualified engineer. He could have taken up any other job, but he discovered different Kadar Khan in him. He loved observing life and people and there were times when he sat inside an Israeli senatery and acted out whatever he had observed all through the day and imitated the men and women who had made some impact on him during the day. This mad act was observed by a certain man who was one of the actors who had worked in Mehboob Khan's “Roti" and even helped him get some very small roles in which he stole the scene from some of the best and established actors of the time.

Time passed and he started writing plays and even acting in them. His regular stage was the Saboo Siddique auditorium (he had also studied in the same college). He soon became a popular name in theatre circles and one of his plays, ‘Taash Ke Patte' grew so popular that it even aroused the curiousity of Dilip Kumar who one day took Kadar Khan by complete surprise when he called him on the phone and congratulated him on the success of play and expressed his desire to see the play. How could Kadar Khan say no to the man he had idolised eversince he knew what cinema was. The thespian saw the play on the conditions Kadar had put before he could see the play. He was so carried away by the play and especially the performance of Kadar. Soon after the play, Kadar Khan could see how moved the thespian was after seeing the entire play which he rarely did. That same evening he offered Kadar Khan important roles in two films he was doing, “Sagina Mahato" and “Bairaag" in which he had a triple role. Kadar showed how good he could be in the films and it was also the experience of working with Dilip Kumar that saw the influence of the thespian rubbing of on him.

Kadar Khan always said that he was blessed when it came to success because success always came to him and he never had to go looking for success. His popularity had reached the well-known director Narender Bedi who was making a film called “Jawani Deewani" with Randhir Kapoor and Jaya Bhaduri. He called Kadar to the office of Ramesh Behl who was the producer of the film. They told Kadar that they wanted him to write the dialogue for the film. Kadar asked for a narration and then drove on his Lamberta all the way to Nariman Point and wrote the dialogue of the entire film in four hours and came back to the office he had left. Bedi and the others felt he was too excited about getting the assignment and had gone a little mad. Kadar Khan was serious and he told them that he had come with the entire dialogue of the film written. The group was so excited with what they heard and were inspired to prepone the shooting of “Jawani Deewani" and it was the dialogue that was one of the reasons for the film to be a big hit. Bedi continued to have Kadar as the dialogue of all the two films he made, “Benaam" with Amitabh Bachchan and “Adaalat" also with Amitabh, but this time in a double role.

The industry had woken up to a new dialogue writer who could also be a good actor. Manmohan Desai was making “Roti" with Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz. He called Kadar and told him exactly what he wanted in his film. He said he didn't want any shaayari or poetry or any kind of philosophical language in the film and said he would tear the pages he had written if they were filled with ‘nonsense' by which he meant all the high and flowery kind of language and would carry him on his head if he came up to his expectations. Kadar took a train to Churchgate and in the midst of boys playing football and cricket at the Cross Maidan and wrote the dialogue of “Roti" and went back to Manmohan Desai who lived in Khetwadi and loved playing cricket with the gully boys of the area. He was surprised and even a little concerned about why Kadar had come back so fast. Dialogue writers those days sometimes took months to sit in five-star hotels to write the dialogue of a film and Manmohan Desai knew it. He was taken by shock when Kadar told him that he had come with complete dialogue of “Roti". Manmohan was in a confuse state, but still asked Kadar to get into his house and then asked him to read out the dialogue he had written. ‘Manji' who was a man with an excited child in him asked Kadar to read out the dialogue and he went berserk with happiness. He didn't know how to express his feelings to Kadar, but he had made up his mind to have Kadar Khan as the dialogue writer of all the films he made and kept his promise.

Soon, it seemed like there was only one successful dialogue writer in the industry and he was also an actor who could play any kind of role without any effort. He raised his price, he had several assistants working with him and he didn't let anyone change a word of what he had written. And the makers accepted him with all his conditions granted without any questions asked.

The South wave had gripped the Hindi film scenes and next to Jeetendra who was the most wanted hero for the producers from the South, it was Kadar Khan as the dialogue writer and with a key role to play he was now the highest paid writer. He was sometimes writing five or six films in a day and had assistants who used to carry pages on which he wrote his dialogues and travelled to wherever a unit was shooting a film. He sometimes wrote a few lines which were needed immediately on the air tickets with which the assistants flew and rushed to places where films were being shot for the makers in the South and for his favourites like Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai. He had never dreamt of this kind of success, but as he said success always came to him.

But like every rise has a fall, there was a fall waiting for Kadar Bhai too. The South had stopped producing Hindi films. His mentors, Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai were losing their touch as their films kept flopping. Kadar Bhai thought of investing his money and so started a shopping mall in Holland with his son in charge. This grand experience also fell flat on its beautiful face and Kadar Bhai was shaken up by the sudden onslaught of the shocks of the same life which had given him everything once giving him now. He decided to produce films and the first artistic films he produced was an unmitigated disaster. His biggest shock was when he approached Amitabh Bachchan for whom he had written the dialogue for some of his best films. He asked Amitabh to work in a film called “Jaahil" for him, but Amitabh did not show the kind of enthusiasm Kadar had expected. The film was expected to start on three different dates given by Amitabh, but everytime the plan was to be dropped because of some reasons given by Amitabh.

The Kadar Bhai who had started a one-man revolution, Kadar Bhai who had given dialogue writing a new dimension, the Kadar Bhai who had brought the common mans language into Hindi films. The Kadar Bhai who had given actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Shakti Kapoor, Asrani, Prem Chopra and even Pran a new kind of life which only led to success, was now a broken man. His career had reached a new low. He was losing on all fronts and finally he fell seriously sick with an ailment that no doctors anywhere could find a solution to. He finally decided to go on his Haj pilgrimage and the videos of his visit showed him as a very seriously sick man who could not even move on his own. That was the beginning of the many rumours about his death which mostly turned out to be false. But he finally died in Canada and even expressed his wish to be buried in Canada itself and not take his body to Mumbai which was a decision that showed how angry, disillusioned and frustrated he was with life. I wonder what dialogue he would have written for himself when he looked back at his life at its worst, then at its very peak and finally down to where no one cared for him or his work till he had to die to let the world know what his worth was.

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