Kamleshwar Success Really Went To His Head And...

I have always had this amazing fascination for writers and poets and only one painter (M.F Husain) in all my life which started when I was a nobody heading for nowhere and even to this day when some of my friends of my school's and college days have already given me up as a man who has finally left and gone to a place noone knows where.

I was in school when I had a neighbour who said he was a writer and wrote short stories in Urdu. I became an ardent admirer of the man who was considered a mad man by my own family and the entire neighbourhood who firmly believed that he did nothing and whatever he did was not worth anything, they respected a mill worker and a bus conductor more than him, but I was always fascinated by him and the scribbling he did on plain white sheets of paper and I was thrilled when he was the first man in my area to buy a Remington typewriter and type in English on it. I was doubly thrilled when a very great Urdu writer like Rajinder Singh Bedi visited him and since he had only one single small room, he asked my mother for permission to have his meeting with Bedi in my house which was three times bigger than his room. The very sight of Bedi gave me some kind of rare excitement and when he started talking to me, I was in what could then be called Bedi's land. I had a Sardar friend in school called Kiran Uday Singh who told me that a Sardar could drink as much as he could, but smoking was a sin for him. I saw Bedi breaking this custom in the most blatant way because he not only drank whisky but was also a chain smoker, smoking the high quality of cigarettes branded India Kings. He was once surrounded by a group of young sardars outside the Regal Cinema and was threatened and hackled till his turbon fell on the floor and he did not bend to fix it up, but quietly took out his packet of cigarettes and defided the crowd by smoking all over again and they just abused him and left him to what they called his fate and said that he would certainly go to hell of he continued smoking, but Bedi was an atheist for whom heaven and hell were like one good railway station and one dark and dirty railway station. I had many more meetings with him in his office at the Tardeo air-conditioned market, the first of its kind in Bombay. He often took my permission to start smoking and I used to remind him of the good old days and that evening outside the Regal Theatre and we both used to have a great laugh. He was a very good teller of jokes, most of them with him as the central character. The one joke (or was it real?) was about his writing the dialogue for Bimal Roy's“Devdas"starring Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala, Suchitra Sen and India's first natural actor, Motilal.

He said that was a big argument over one line spoken by Dilip Kumar as Devdas. Bimal Roy wanted him to change a line spoken by Dilip Kumar and he was adamant and said he would not change the line even if they had to look him. The very quiet Bimal Roy was embarassed and finally had one long puff at his cigarette (he too was a chain smoker) and finally asked him why he was so particular about that one line being changed and this time Bedi had one long puff and said,“because that is the only line written by me which has been left untouched by your great actor, Dilip Kumar". The actor was used to changing the lines of some of the greatest films he worked in. Another coincidence--both Bedi and Bimal Roy died of throat cancer years later all because of their not being able to live without smoking....

I was in college when I moved to spend all my holidays going to Churchgate without a ticket and walk from there to the Times Of India building opposite V.T Station. My first ambition was to enter the canteen of the workers where I could get a rice plate for only fifty naya paisa and luckily for me I was never caught travelling without a ticket or got caught for not being a mazdoor in the Times Of India and still having the time of my life relishing the rice plate for only fifty paisa.

Soon after having my grand lunch, I used to make myself comfortable on a sofa placed on the fourth floor which was for guests who came to visit all the editors,f feature writers and the two highlights of Times Of India, R.K Laxman, the renowned cartoonist and Behram contractor (better known as Busybee) and I could not meet, but see all the leading writers working for the Times Of India which included Khushwant Singh, Sham Lal, Inder Malhotra and the well-known Hindi writer, Kamleshwar who was the founder of a new movement in short stories and who had started a Hindi magazine of short stories called“Sarika"and was no less than a star.

I wanted to meet him somehow, but I had to wait for eight years to finally meet me and what a meeting it was!

He called me to his Pedar Road house which was given to him by TOI. He had left“Sarika"to make a better life as a writer in films. TOI wanted him to leave the apartment he was living in, but he refused and there was a long legal battle going on. He had found work as a script writer in the films of B.R Chopra, Ramanand Sagar, Sawan Kumar Tak and Gulzar among many others. But he had created a number of controversies. Like he claimed to be the original writer of Gulzar's“Aandhi"which was supposed to be based on his novel,“Kaali Aandhi"but he lost his case and all the credit for the film went to Gulzar. He was also supposed to be the writer of Prem Sagar's“Hum Tere Aashiq Hai"which was an adaptation of“Pygmalion". Kamleshwar and Sahir Ludhianvi together with Faridoon Irani who was the cinematographer of“Mother India"all left the film as the film because of what they called the director's interference.

Kamleshwar had called me for dinner, but it was only whisky that was served with some vegetarian snacks till midnight and he showed signs of success going to his head as he kept telling me one tall and untrue story about his achievements after another. His most popular subject all through the evening was his“close relationship"with Mrs Indira Gandhi who he said did not take any steps without taking his advice.

It was also the time when he had started what was the first talk show on Doordarshan called“Parikrama"in which he talked to common people and their problems. The show had become a must see show whenever it was telecast and he had become a household name....

Our drinking session continued and at one pm, he said,“let's go to my new house"and he started driving and I started shaking because he was quite drunk and was driving and when I looked worried, he said,“Kamleshwar is driving, not even God can harm him in any way".

He kept driving in his fiat and I suddenly realised that he was entering Parag Apartments which was very close to my house. But he suddenly changed his mind and said,“let's go to the Juhu Hotel which is as good as my house". I wanted to run away, but he did not allow me to.

We reached Juhu Hotel and it was the tenth of the month which was a dry day and and liquor was not allowed to be served on that day. He however said,“when there is Kamleshwar, there is no dry day, Sunday or Monday". He called the night duty manager and ordered him to serve us with drinks. His order was followed and whisky was served in cups and saucers made of silver. He was delighted and looking at me said,“dekha tumne Kamleshwar ka jaadu. Kamleshwar ko koi naah nahi keh sakta".

It was after another two drinks that I came to know a very different Kamleshwar. He talked about how young girls told him that they were madly in love with him. He told me how women came begging to him to have his child and he told me how he could work magic and solve the problems of even the most powerful people in the city and the country and the last thing he told me was that if he contested the elections against Mrs Indira Gandhi, she would lose her deposits. It was three‘O'cock and the man who I believed was the savior of Hindi literature turned out to be a monster. It was a real case of doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde for me. I don't remember how I ran down the steps of Parag Apartments and promised myself that I would never see him again.

The next morning I was standing at the Bus Stop opposite the Parag Apartments and he was driving and stopped his car near me and asked me to get into his car. I was in two minds, but I did. It was eleven‘O'clock in the morning and he took me to Juhu and stopped his car outside an old building called Rehana Ghar and asked me to follow him. I asked him where he was taking me and he said,“to a heaven which is better than heaven. It was a high class prostitutes'den and I for my life and he couldn't stop me and couldn't dare to cry and meet me again.

Success had driven him mad and within no time, he was out of all work and had to leave for Delhi where he got some kind of a comfortable job, but his madness and his love for alcohol did not stop and strangely one morning when I was standing at the same bus stop opposite Parag Apartments, I read the news about his death in a Hindi newspaper. He was one more evidence for me to prove what I have been believing for more than fifty years. Every so called great writer, poet or any kind of legend has both a good and an ugly side to him or her. I still hold on to my belief which was made very strong by my two extraordinary meetings with a man who I believed was an extraordinary man, but turned out to be more dirty and even devilish than the common man who is accused of being on the wrong and evil side almost all the time.

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