Refugee, Jubilee Star Or Clever Businessman?

Ali Peter John

Some of the biggest names in the world of Hindi films have been those who have crossed the borders during partition in 1947. They went through the kind of hardships that cannot be even imagined today. Dr Ramanand Sagar has written a novel about those cruel, grim and gruelling days and nights called“Aur insaan maar gaya"which gives a true depiction of how the circumstances changed human beings to the most cruel kind of animals. The book was a rage and was translated into all the major Indian languages and even in languages abroad. The book can still run a strong wave of fear and pain even today when the“insaan"and his“insaniyat"is dying every day in every gully, lane, road and cities and where various political parties are trying their worst to bring about many other partitions and Indians are fighting pitched battles over gods and religions.

Dr Sagar was not the only refugee. There were others like Dr B.R Chopra and his family, Gulzar and many other actors, writers, directors, poets and even men who came with nothing and stayed on in India and built their own empires. India and Pakistan became two independent countries which was further broken up into three with the creation of Bangladesh.

A young and handsome Hindu youth called Rajendra Kumar Tuli and his family was part of that mass exodus. Half his family died due to starvation and thirst. They had to depend on the bread and other food that was dropped down from helicopters and other aircrafts and had to wait and look up at the sky to see hopes of food falling down and then fighting like wild animals to get their hands on the packets of food and many died in this mad scramble and ferocious fights over roti ,kapda and there was no hope of their finding any makaans.

Rajendra Kumar found a room to live in when he was told about it by some friend who was living in Bombay. The guest house in which he lived with four other men living in one room was called“Marina Guest House"which was a ramshackle building owned by a lady called Mrs Mirchandani who is said to have a soft corner for all young men who came to Bombay to make it in films.

Rajendra Kumar had to face an uphill struggle till he found leading roles in films like“Vachan"and“Mother India",a role which he got because of the chief assistant of Mehboob Khan, Mr Chimankant Gandhi who had seen him in“Vachan"and saw in him the ideal young actor to play the good son in“Mother India", Mr Gandhi had also found Sunil Dutt who had done just one film who was finally chosen to play Birju, the bad son of Nargis who played the title role, which she opted to play after breaking up Raj Kapoor and R.K Films for whom she had done fifteen or seventeen films, all of them memorable because of the amazing teaming up of Raj Kapoor and her. Raj Kapoor had called her“the strongest pillar of R.K Films"but she gave up all of it to play the role in Mother India".

Sunil Dutt married Nargis after“Mother India"and after he had created a sensation in the industry when he jumped into a blazing fire which was a part of a scene and saved Nargis from what could have been sure death for her. Sunil Dutt, Nargis and Rajendra Kumar became the best of friends and their friendship lasted till the very end. When they became huge stars, they even built bungalows close to one another and ended up being in-laws when Kumar Gaurav, the son of Rajendra Kumar who was already engaged to marry Raj Kapoor's daughter broke up the engagement and married Namrata, the daughter of Sunil and Nargis Dutt. Rajendra Kumar proved how good and steady friend he was when he stood by his friend Sunil Dutt during his struggle to save Nargis from dying of cancer, when he stood by him and campaigned for Sunil Dutt when he could not campaign himself because of personal problems (first his being with Nargis and then when Sanjay Dutt was involved in the Terrorist Act and was the man who suggested the name of the Shiv Sena Supremo Balasaheb Thackeray to solve the problem of Sanjay and Sanjay was out of all his problems, all because of the active intervention of Bal Thackeray....

Back to the struggling days of Rajendra Kumar. He had proved to be the good actor in his first two films and the Bhatt brothers, Shankarbhai and Vijay Bhatt (uncles of Mahesh Bhatt, Mukesh Bhatt and Robin Bhatt and now the extended family of the Bhatts which include Pooja Bhatt and Alia Bhatt) had decided to make a film called“Goonj Uthi Shehnai". Their first choice for the role of the hero could have been Dilip Kumar, but they had their own reasons for not signing him and signed Rajendra Kumar who seemed to make conscious efforts to imitate Dilip Kumar, which was the ambition of most actors of the time and still is.

They signed Rajendra Kumar and he was thrilled to know that he was to play the role which was to be the ideal role for the ultimate actor, Dilip Kumar. The Bhatts offered him a huge sum of one and a half lakh of rupees, which Kumar couldn't believe for days and he did not want to let the role go to any of his rivals like Bharat Bhushan and Pradeep Kumar who he felt would grab the role without even talking about money...

He visited the Bhatts in Ville Parle one morning and without any explanation gave them back a lakh of rupees and the Bhatts wondered and were bewildered with his action, but Kumar only smiled his smiles which had now become famous. The Bhatts wanted to know if he was not interested in doing the film and Kumar told them that he was returning the money only to make sure that the role in“Goonj Uthi Shehnai"would not go to any other actor. The Bhatts felt he was either being insecure or whimsical, but when they did not see any signs of not doing their film and not even willing to take back the one lakh, they presented him with an old Fiat car which could have been hardly worth twenty thousand rupees...

The shooting started. The film was a golden jubilee hit and the songs had grown immortal, but more than anything, Rajendra Kumar had been recognised as a star.

The Bhatts rarely had parties to celebrate their success, but the grand success of“Goonj Uthi Shehnai"inspired them to have a big party...

There were speeches made by many and when it was the turn of Vijay Bhatt to speak, he said the only person who couldn't gain from the success of the film was its hero, Rajendra Kumar who had done the film for only fifty thousand rupees. Rajendra Kumar immediately got up from his seat and smiled his way to the microphone and took out four cheques from his coat pocket and said he had signed four big films on the very first day of the release at double the price the Bhatts had initially offered him (one and a half lakh). He had signed films with B.R Chopra, Gemini and Prasad, two of the most prestigious banners of the South and Ramanand Sagar. The cheques he displayed before the audience were worth eight lakhs of rupees and he said there was more to come but he had decided to do a very selected number of films....

But that was not to be as his very next film,“Gehra Daag"was another golden jubilee hit and he was the most popular star and within another one year he was branded“The Jubilee Star"which was the brand he lived with till he was a hero, but the title is still associated with him even though there have been debates whether he had more jublees to his name or Rajesh Khanna.

Kumar was perhaps the first star who realised how insecure and temporary stardom could be and got into big business in garments and turned out to be a successful businessman too...

He was still a struggling actor and had no permanent place to live in even though he was married and had two children, a son called Bunty(Kumar Gaurav) and a daughter, Dimple. He had finally become a star and was looking for a bigger house. A character actor, Keshav Rana told him about an old bungalow belonging to a Parsi family which was out to sell it for just three and a half lakhs rupees. Kumar saw the bungalow facing the see and decided to buy the bungalow, come what may. He went to the office of B.R Chopra and told him that he was getting a house but he needed two lakhs of rupees as he had saved one and a half lakh to buy a house. He asked Chopra to pay him two lakhs and sign him for two films. Chopra was only too glad and paid him two lakhs in cash against two films,“Dhool Ka Phool"and“Kanoon"which was to be the first songless film of India. Kumar bought the house and named it after his daughter, Dimple. He lived there for several years, till there was a new superstar called Rajesh Khanna who had heard stories about“The Jubilee Kumar"and when he heard about Kumar's selling his bungalow, he moved heaven and earth to get hold of the house as he genuinely believed that the bungalow which was lucky for Kumar would be lucky for him too. All things were finalised and the superstar also wanted the name“Dimple", but Kumar refused to give him the name as he said he was building another bungalow and a dubbing studio on Pali Hill and had already decided to name it“Dimple". The superstar named the bungalow“Aashirwad"and within years it was proved that the bungalow was lucky for Rajesh Khanna, but not for long. How Khanna fell from his pedastal, how his marriage broke up, how he had to even mortgage the bungalow is all a part of another story.....

The only time Rajendra Kumar failed was when he turned producer to launch his son, Kumar Gaurav. The first film,“Love Story"was a superhit, but Kumar had a major misunderstanding with the director, David Dhawan and did not even give his name in the credit titles. David went on to be one of the most successful directors, but both Rajendra Kumar as a producer and Kumar Gaurav as a star-son kept failing and one of the reasons for their failure according to friends, rivals and film analysts was the mishandling of Kumar Gaurav's career. The father started demanding an unreasonable price to sign his son and one of the many producers who refused to pay that kind of a price was Subhash Ghai who decided not to work with the star-sons Sanjay Dutt and Kumar Gaurav and to show his mettle as a director, he signed a young man who had only played a one-minute bit role in Dev Anand's“Swami Dada"and that was how Jackie Shroff, the star was born and is still in the race even though his son, Tiger Shroff is now also an important part of the race among the new stars of today....

Kumar had to play character roles and was showing signs of frustration and not being able to keep up with the game. He loved money and even his daughter, Dimple now days that he got her married at the age of sixteen to a multi-millionaire called Rajoo Patel who was a known name in Hollywood and was trying to make his way into Hindi films.

The empire he built was clearly showing signs of crumbling. He was diagnosed for some strange case of cancer for which he had to travel to America where his daughter and son-in-law took care of him. He returned to Mumbai and the last function he attended at the newly started Taj Lands End to attend a function to release a book titled“Mr And Mrs Dutt"written by the daughters of Sunil and Nargis Dutt. A few weeks later, he died, the Dimple dubbing studio and his bungalow,“Dimple"has made way for a multi-storeyed building where his daughter Dimple who is now a widow after the untimely death of Rajoo Patel and Kumar Gaurav and his wife, Namrata with their children live. Kumar Gaurav does nothing for a living and according to someone in the family, he only keeps drinking.

The only good thing left about a man who was a phenomenon is a large marble plaque in the centre of Pali Hill with his name“Padmashri Rajendra Kumar Chowk"inscribed in letters of gold which is gallanded once in a way, may be on his birth or death anniversary.

His daughter, Dimple has been trying to write his biography based on the long tapes of conversations she had with him about his life and career towards the end of his life. When will the biography come out, it has already been ten years since it was planned? Or will we have to wait for people to ask,“Who, Rajendra Kumar"?

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